Back online.

I have a Liberian data plan for my phone. Here is my record from yesterday.

Sunday, February 4th, 2018.

Today begins my first full day in Liberia.

After feeling sick yesterday before leaving Brussels I gradually continued to improve. The flight was good and I met and talked with many nice people.

Today, as I type this note it is before Sunday School with the worship service to follow. I have the privilege of speaking this morning. What a privilege to share God’s Word regardless of the location.

As I mentioned earlier I felt sick yesterday and gradually improved. Well today brought another wave of nausea. So much so that I ended up throwing up. I may have isolated my problem however. Both mornings I took my anti malaria meds on an empty stomach. I will not do that again. I do feel better now and ready to go. I’ll write more later. We have a busy day planned.

Well, the day has come to an end and it was every bit as busy as expected. Church started at 10:00 a.m. with SS until 11:00 when the morning worship started. I spoke this morning and last night I asked Emmanuel how long I should plan on speaking. He just said 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes or more if you’d like. I was prepared for around the 30 minute mark. Little did I realize that (although I should have remembered) that the early part of the worship service lasted a long time. It was 12:15 the last time I noticed the clock and I didn’t start right then. When I did start I didn’t look at the time, but after I sat down it was after 1:00 p.m. No one seemed to mind. We had communion afterward as well. It was interesting to see how another culture follows the Scriptures in serving the Lord’s Supper.

During the announcements of the morning they announced that there would be a business meeting immediately following the service. By this time we were pushing 1:30. The time is only relevant when you know that the graduation ceremony for the Women of Purpose was scheduled to start at 2:00. Needless to say the whole day kind of blended. The business meeting ended with an immediate transition into the graduation ceremony somewhere around 3:00 p.m. Oh, incidentally I was the guest speaker for this service as well.

What a great service it was, honoring these women who studied baking, tailoring, crafts and such that would empower these women to add to their household economy. In Liberia, every little bit can help a family to survive. Also in Liberia the women are not thought of as highly and the vision for this class is to teach the women that they have marketable skills. The class is approved and recognized by the government of Liberia making the certificates that Bobbi Buckley made up an official government document. I was able to charge the graduates to use what they learned to the glory of God.

This service had a cake and craft procession where the women explained how they made what they were holding and they would have a buyer to purchase their wares. One of the graduates, Princess Kau, baked and decorated a cake. The cake had the initials W.O.P. Across the top and the initials R.N. Along the bottom. Needless to say I had been targeted to purchase Princess’s cake before the ceremony. I didn’t mind in the least. I had some cake before I came to bed. It was very good.

Before the cake Emmanuel and I were sitting in the building under construction next to his home. For all of you who’ve been here, you may remember the lawn that was being cut with a machete like tool one time to a volleyball court on another visit. This visit brought the change with the start of a guesthouse that Emmanuel and Wintee hope to use to house visiting missionaries and teams. The slab is poured and a couple rows of blocks are laid. Emmanuel plans on a 2 story building with an indoor kitchen. That’s pretty big news.

Getting back to our sitting in the unfinished building and a young couple comes up to speak with Emmanuel. It seems this couple is planning on getting married and Emmanuel thought it would be a good time to have one of their counseling sessions. Since I have 34 years of marriage I was asked to stay and lend my advice. Another 1-1/2 hours later and I came in (partly because I was really getting tired and partly because it was getting dark around 7:00 p.m.)to have a piece of my cake. We had to wait awhile since they wanted to wait until the power came on. The man who owns a generator and ran his own electric lines doesn’t always have a reliable power feed. It eventually did come on and I had a late supper and cake.

Speaking of the electricity, I didn’t even notice earlier, but there are official power lines being run through Emmanuel’s community. Normal looking poles and wires. Emmanuel tells me they will drop hookups to the houses and have people pay by use of a scratch card. On your meter you will have the ability to use a scratch card, type in the number and whatever denomination of card you purchased would be available from the new electric grid. When the card runs out you go buy another card. This system works with their cellphones so it looks like prepaid is the Liberian way of the future.

Tomorrow I will go and purchase a SIM card for my phone and hopefully update each day. This post will be posted on Monday, but I wanted to type it in when it was fresh in my mind.