Passport
Well, I am officially able to travel. I received my passport in the mail today. Now I suppose I need to purchase my plane ticket. One of these days I’ll have all the details of how things have been going with my plane ticket plans.
Chili supper and Courageous
Tonight was a fundraiser for supplies being sent to Liberia. Fred (my crate partner in crime) made 56 quarts of various strengths of chili and after eating this great fare we all watched the movie Courageous. What a great time. After the movie we watched a pictorial of Bobbi’s previous trip to Liberia. Please take the time to view this and get a flavor of the people we are blessed to serve. Click on ‘We Refuse’ link above.
I also want to let you know that God is amazing in many ways. Some are more private, but God does supply our needs. Thank You Heavenly Father.
Passport applied for.
Well, today was another step forward. I actually had everything I needed when I went to the post office to apply for my passport. The first time I went I didn’t have the proper birth certificate. Lesson learned. I went to the Post Office in Spaulding and had a very patient and happy person wait on me. She took the picture, finished the paperwork and of course, collected the money ($150) and off to the State Department for approval. As I was at the post office I ran into another gentleman that was there to renew his passport. I had the opportunity to share our trip to Liberia with him. What a great opportunity to share God’s leading in our church’s plans. I am finding that the more I am willing to share about this trip, the more people are interested in finding out what we will be doing.
I was reminded of the passport step at our first discipleship meeting. Pastor Buckley’s teaching, the Away team’s singing and study in the Word. What a great night. One thing that really struck me as Pastor Buckley taught us was the financial differences from the US and Liberia. We, as Americans are very blessed and hopefully our pride isn’t an obstacle as we develop relationships with our Liberian Christian brothers and sisters. What is truly amazing is that regardless of financial standing, without Christ we are all lost and because of His grace Christians are saved. Ephesians 2:8 says ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God’ So, any pride we may have should be shattered as we realize what God does for those who believe.
Anyway, I now have my passport submitted and I should have this within 4 weeks. Next step plane ticket.
Prayer request would be for my upcoming ticket purchase and final news about our crate. I did not get final confirmation that the crate is in the container since the gentleman that is packing the container was preoccupied w/ the storms that went through the center of the US. He should confirm things next week.
Crate week update
This has been a really long week.
From finding out that the container to Liberia was at 80% full last Friday, to Saturday (pic of boxes at church and Renee organizing)
a great group of people helping to load up my truck and Fred’s van and then Fred, Renee and myself hauling everything collected 32 miles north to Wendricks Truss, (pic of same boxes stored on a truss table at Wendricks Truss {and Renee again posing})
to designing the crate on Sunday after church, to getting the crate built and packed on Monday. (pic of the crate without the boards on it. Can you pick out the shelves that we hope to install at the clinic in Liberia?)
On Monday night, after finding out that we had ‘extra’ room at the top of our packed crate, the owner of Wendricks, Kelly Plunger, decided he would go through the excess clothes at his house with his family. From a text at 10:00 p.m. Monday asking if they might like baseball caps to packing these clothes in large plastic garbage bags and taking them to top off the crate. As Kelly said, ‘It was easy going through all of the family’s drawers to fill these bags when someone on the other end could use them.’ Well, on Tuesday morning Kelly’s small contribution topped off the empty space in the crate with (7) large garbage bags of clothes to fill the gaps. Thanks to you and your family Kelly for sharing your clothes and the materials and labor for the crate. (Pic of crate being filled w/ 2 of the workers that built the crate. Notice the extra room at the top that the bags of clothes were to fill the next day)
The crate was sealed and the lid was screwed to secure all of the contents of the crate. Late Tuesday US Special delivery showed up to pick up the crate and it was on its way to Tennessee to see if we could get in the last 20% of the container. We forwarded the bill of lading to Service to Servants, the container shipper, to give them the dimensions of the crate and the approximate weight. We (Fred and I) estimated the weight at 1200 pounds and after US Special delivery picked up the crate we were informed that the actual weight was 1981 pounds. (It appears that Fred and I don’t guess weights very well.) My hope was that once Service to Servants received the bill of lading with the shipping pro number that we could hold a spot on the container. Service to Servants policy is that ‘first come, first served’ for packages loaded onto the container is a very fair way to do things since this is a ministry and although I understood this, I prayed that they would plan for our crate’s arrival. This was where we sat on Tuesday and our prayers began.
Then we had a snowstorm Tuesday night into Wednesday. I don’t mean a small storm, but 14″ of heavy wet snow that paralyzed most of our county as we had clean up day on Wednesday. It took me 3-1/2 hours to plow my driveway with my 4-wheeler. I only bring this up because the snow was something to take my mind off the progress of the crate headed to Tennessee. I received an email from Pastor Buckley asking about the progress late Wednesday and unfortunately I had no news. I was on the email list from the trucking firm for notification after the crate was delivered. Thursday came, and no news. I did go to the trucking company website to track the crate, but did not get updated information, only that it was set for transfer. Then today (Friday) I spent many anxious moments looking up the tracking number waiting for an update or an email announcing the arrival in Tennessee, but the business day ended and no news. I have to admit, my mood was low because as I said in my earlier post, I wanted a guarantee. God has patience when we always want immediate results. That is part of His great longsuffering. God forgive me for my impatience. I stayed at work and was working on picking out songs for our Sunday morning service (I am blessed to be able to lead worship at my church). I was listening to Hillsong singing ‘Mighty to Save’ and as I sang along with the music I now realize the words of the chorus ‘Savior, He can move the mountains, My God is Mighty to save, He is Mighty to save. Forever, Author of salvation, He rose and conquered the grave, Jesus conquered the grave.’ should have given me comfort. In God’s infinite wisdom, during the song I heard the familiar chime of an incoming email. I opened up the email and it took me a moment to realize I was looking at an email from Service to Servants with an attached invoice for the cost of shipping the crate to Liberia. Wait a minute, you mean you got the crate and it is going to be shipped out. My first response was to send a reply email to Service to Servants to say, ‘Does this mean it made it onto the current container?’ I actually got a return email back in a couple of minutes stating this: ‘It has been logged but not loaded yet. However, I am almost 100% certain we will have room for it on the current container. I’ll let you know as soon as it is loaded. Everything else we have received is small packages that will fit beside and above the crate. I held up on loading the small packages until this crate showed. You’re in good shape.’ I emailed Chuck Clark, Service to Servants organizer back with a ‘praise God and thanks for the help’. If God can ‘conquer the grave’ as stated in the song I was listening to, of course he can watch over a 1981 pound crate and plan on its delivery when He believes it should arrive, not when I wish it. I thank God for answered prayers.
So that is ‘crate week’ and how God taught me patience. After I received the emails I made a few calls to share the answered prayer. I called Pastor Fred, my (understanding) wife Jenny and then Pastor Buckley. I am so glad they put up with my excitement as I talked their ears off for having this answer to prayer.
I can’t wait to see how God works next. Maybe it will be my passport, or my plane tickets, neither of which I have yet, but that is for another post on another day. For tonight I will head to bed knowing that God is ‘Mighty to Save’ and to deliver a crate also.
Beginning
This will be my initial post as I work towards chronicling God’s work in my involvement in Country Bible Church’s (www.cbcwallace.org) mission trip to Liberia, Africa in August of this year. A quick background to how God led a team to decide to embark on such a trip.
Background:
Our church supported a missionary and his family who were ministering in Liberia and it was through their ministry that we became aware of the need for God with the Liberian people. (A side note is that, yes, there is a need for God among all people, but this blog will chronicle how God used our support of a missionary to Liberia to ignite a fire of ‘love and care’ for a people we do not know.) This missionary, Gary Dunseath and family, served in Liberia until some health concerns led them back to the states, but the ball began to roll from there. Through this connection, our church had the privilege to hear of their work and to have a visiting Liberian speak at our church as well. I was not present when we had the first visiting Liberian, but my presence is not important to God’s plan. After the Dunseaths were back in the states there was a need for one of them to go back to Liberia to finish up some personal business and Gary’s wife contacted our Pastor’s wife to see if she would go on a 2 week trip to tie up some loose ends and meet some of the people of their ministry. She came back with a new found love for the Liberian people that God continued to use as a catalyst. This past summer we were blessed to have Pastor Emmanuel Jonah visit our church and it was shortly after his visit that God begin directing the lives of different people within our congregation.
Present Day:
Today, March 1, 2012, we have a team of 12 people committed to travel to Liberia for 2 weeks in August of this year. We have plans for helping the Liberians at the Betty Jonah Orphanage (http://www.liberiachristian.org/Betty-Jonah-Orphanage.php) to start a clinic (see picture of outside of clinic). 
One of our team members has been greatly instrumental in heading this part of our plans up. She is a nurse at a local hospital and a person of great detail when it comes to planning this undertaking. The local hospital where she works has been a great help with their donations of supplies. Just to touch on a few ways that God has supplied our needs (Philippians 4:19):
Exam bed – A return order to the manufacturer – donated to our trip
Box upon box of clinic supplies – outdated in states – donated to our trip
tools (new and used) – freely given by our congregation for projects planned while in Liberia
crate for shipping – built by my employer (with use as shelving in new clinic) – donated to our trip. (Pastor Fred and I posing for a picture before the crate is sent out.)
Another plan for our team is to do some construction work wherever we can be of use both in Monrovia, where Emmanuel’s church is located and in Yekepa, where the orphanage is located. We have many of the twelve who are just asking God to use them. I have a feeling that God will continue to amaze us in how He plans to use us. I am reminded of a song by ‘Everybody Duck’ titled, ‘Use Me Here’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=364pchLaRaw). Listen to this if you have a chance.
We must never forget how God has His hand in our trip. My faith continues to grow as I see the hand of God in our planning. Today’s concern is that our crate (shipped out by common carrier) gets to its destination in time to ‘fit’ into a container which is first come first served in order to be shipped over to Liberia. The container, just last week, stood at 25% full until Friday when it jumped to 80% full. If we do not get the crate (which is by the way, 1981# including the crate) in this container there is a real possibility that our supplies will not precede us. Again, our faith stands to grow as we see God’s plan for this. We would love a human guarantee that we will fit in the last 20% of the container, but either way my faith rests in God’s plan, whether it makes it in this container or goes into the next one.
Even as I write my initial blog, I look back on the path that brought me to decide to go to Liberia and I know that but for God’s leading I would be one of the cheerleaders staying behind and encouraging the others as they go. Our Pastoral staff is instrumental with God using their leadership and friendship to encourage each of us to follow God’s leading. Now that I am committed, my anticipation for meeting up with Emmanuel and his wife and the work that God has for us grows every day. My hope for anyone that reads this blog is to highlight God and minimize myself. I will be a participant in God’s plan, but this is His story.
To God be the glory, great things He has done (and continues to do). May you enjoy reading the story of our Liberian adventure.
Liberia Mission Trip 