Monday, May 21^st, 2007

The first thing for the day was the presentations given to the ELWA maintenance staff. We decided to “wow” them with a high-tech PowerPoint presentation. That meant that slides needed to be done for the incinerator. Early this morning, around 7 am, I made the two slides for our part, first a diagram of how the incinerator works, and second a comparison between the Mark 8a and 9 models. I made the two slides for a half an hour while enjoying a couple of muffins for breakfast. Well, Mordecai decided to plug in a 110 V surge protector into a 220 V outlet right before the presentations were going to get started. (They had a mix of both throughout campus and none of them were labeled). Let’s just say that the two pieces did not mate well. We heard a boom similar to the Mt. St. Helens eruption. We then figured out that that extension cord was actually 220 V. We eventually found a good ‘ole American outlet and we were able to power up the computer and projector. Every half hour, the power went off so we had to reboot sometimes. That is when people say, “Welcome to Liberia.” Overall, the presentation went well even though our glorious presentations were sometimes halted by the power outages. They eventually decided to go with the Mark 8a incinerator model that we had hoped they would. They were also excited about the CAD program that Mordecai introduced and they enjoyed Nathanael’s solar lights. We (Greg and I) were introduced to Jackson who will be working closely with us on the incinerator project. We then headed off to lunch, in which we enjoyed rice topped with potato greens (the leaf of the potato plant) fried with chicken. We were also given corn pudding and fresh pineapple. I just have to note that the pineapple here is the best; I have never had pineapple so good as this. We then after lunch retrieved ELWA’s Land Cruiser and Augustine led us into Monrovia to look for materials. It was quite a culture shock to see this city. You could definitely tell that a war hard occurred there. A lot of the buildings just had stone skeletons. Yet people still lived in those buildings with blankets as their windows. I wanted to take pictures of these sites to remember the views but I did not want to take their circumstances lightly by being a paparazzi. It was like the destruction of New Orleans after Katrina (without the mold) but with so many people crowding the streets. But the city was very active with buying and selling in the streets. It definitely seemed like things were on the rise here in Liberia. We stopped at aound a half a dozen shops to look for materials for the projects. We stopped at a couple stores called City Builders. Their theme color was orange and their logo resembled Home Depot. The employees wore orange jumpsuits and each of the stores was owned by either Indians or Lebanese. We got a bunch of prices for the steel pieces and they seemed reasonable. We then arrived back at the ELWA campus and had a little bit of time before dinner. We saw Mordecai asleep on the beach so we decided to pour a bucket of sea water on him to wake him up. Nathanael approached him and was just about to throw it when he noticed a book in his hand and decided not to dump it to save the book. We can take a spiritual illustration from the lesson: That the Word can save people, both literally and spiritually. While on the beach, Alan and I talked with Lee, who was a convert to Christianity when Dr. Thompson came over last summer. God has really changed Lee’s life over the past year. Alan and I asked what he had learned. He showed us a piece of paper Dr. Thompson wrote for him on prayer. He looked up the reference of Luke 11:2-5. he was able to find it fine in the Bible but he just struggled with the words. He did just fine with one or two syllable words, but anything longer than that he needed help on. He would read the letters because he would say them. When he struggled with a word, I would say, “Sound it out.” Apparently he though the word he was reading was “Sounditout”. I’m like, “No, that’s not it,” and then I would actually say the word. This was a comical circumstance but it really shows the literacy problem that this country has because of the war. The war took children out of school for many years. We let him read those verses, but we were called to dinner, but he told him that we would like to talk with him more tomorrow about what God had done in his life. It was really good to se him try to learn about God and my efforts to know God pale in comparison to Lee’s. He doesn’t even know how to read well and he’s trying to read the whole Bible. What was the last spiritually difficult thing that I have done? We went in for dinner: macaroni salad, fried bananas, and something like a garlic bread chip (Lebanese bread). Anyways, it was really good except for the bananas, they were not my favorite. Immediately after dinner, we met with a Reverend Kamara, who was the pastor who spoke at ICM yesterday. He was born into the Montado tribe which was well known to be highly Muslim (same tribe that is from ROOTS. He was raised Muslim and was actually given a scholarship to study the Koran in Kuwait. It was there that he was witnessed to by a fellow student to Jesus Christ. At first he did not want any of it, but he decided to study what the Koran had to say about Jesus Christ. He had come to found out that the Koran actually mentions more about Jesus Christ than about Mohammed. So both the Christian Holy Scriptures and the Muslim Holy Scriptures both talk mostly about Jesus Christ. He also started asking questions in class which created more confusion that it did answers. It was the combination of these things and the love he received from Christians that made him decide to become a believer. He now considers himself a Christian and a Muslim. He considers himself a Muslim because the word actually means to “submit to the will of God.” This is what Jesus did and is what we all should do. He also told us about folk Islam. This type allows people to stay the way they are by just adding certain Muslim disciplines. This adds false security but also makes it popular to believe in. He said a lot of the Muslims in Africa do not even know anything about the five pillars of Islam. It was just an amazing time, but unfortunately a lot of us ewer drowsy at the time. No one was drowsier than Greg. He fell asleep during the presentations, the car rides, and the meeting with the reverend. We’ll just say he did not wake up today. Greg and I just finished calculating how much material we need to buy and tomorrow we will buy it.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

I could not for the life of me get to sleep last night. I’m hoping for better tonight. I think I got to sleep around 5-6 am last night and believe me I tried to, much earlier. I slept in until around 9:30 and got ready for church. I had to skip breakfast because I woke up so late. The church service was very enjoyable. It was something new to hear people in a church sing with all of their hearts. I see a lot of people talking or not singing at my own church, but that was not the case at the International Church of Monrovia. There was about an hour total of singing (around 5-6 songs, all of the verses), the choir leading two songs, prayer (around 5-10 minutes), all very sincere and genuine. We did some (don’t write it) clapping and maybe a little swaying of the hips and it was quite enjoyable. They used these old torn-up hymnals so I knew practically all of the songs that they sang. The only instrument that they used and needed was a drum set to give us a beat. Everyone sang really well and I hope God was pleased with our worship. The sermon was on the Great Commission and it was very good and I regret not taking notes. But he pretty much showed us how the Great Commission is lived out. The only downer was that it was extremely hot in that building. Everyone was sweating, but no one as much as Mordecai – he was sweating buckets and left a puddle right in front of him (all sweat). We sat on the wrong side of the church where there were no fans blowing on us for convection through evaporation. Everyone’s shirt was soaked by the end of the service, even some of the Liberians as well, but no one had his shirt soaked more than Dr. Zavodney. We then had lunch at our guest house and Tim Goodnow joined us. We had good ‘ole PBJ and Pringles (flavored Cheesy Cheese, Hot Texas BBQ and Original). After that, I went to the Sacras to download some files so that we could present with PowerPoint and drawings and such for our presentation tomorrow morning. I had everything set to download and went to the beach to play Ultimate Frisbee since the internet connection was really slow and I did not want to wait (it was like a dial-up). Around six of our crew, and Chris and Tim went to play Ultimate Frisbee on the beach. We started gaining a crowd of spectators after a while and soon we had Liberians on our team playing with us. This was the highlight of my day. I did, however, earn my first sunburn of the mission trip on my back (my first sunburn in Africa as well). I must have not put sunscreen there, nope, I didn’t. After about an hour of playing in the sun and sand, we went for a water break and invited some of our new friends for water. I then went over to the Sacras to see how my download did. It failed. I then tried it again, but I had to leave for our meeting at 4 pm with Dr. Rick. It was an informative meeting on the history of ELWA. This was the moment in time when everyone started falling asleep. I had to hit Greg twice, but that was not as effective as Dr. Rick throwing his sandal at him. Before the meeting Alan came in with a Sea Urchin, probably one of the cousins of the one that stabbed Alan and Earl in the foot and hand, respectively. It is a pretty cool living creature. Before that, they were trying to pull out about 40 of theses needles that had been implanted into a girl’s foot. After the meeting was dinner. We had spaghetti, cucumber salad, green beans, and bread. Before that, I sat on the porch to talk to Paul, the security guard, who has been guarding our house from 7 am to 7 pm daily. He told me he had been working nonstop for 12 hours today with no break. Before dinner, I gave him on of our bananas. Hopefully, I can get to talk with Paul more tomorrow. They have really been feeding us well and I am worried that I will gain some weight on this trip. How bad would that look? I go on a mission trip to Africa to work and I come back heavier than when I arrived. I just hope that is not the case. After dinner, I went over to the Sacras to see how my files were; again the download failed. We then figured that we would just pass around pictures that we already had and talk about the comparison between the two possible models. My two biggest concerns as of now are the presentation and language barrier. I hope that I am able to speak clearly to the ELWA group tomorrow and how them how the incinerator works and which would be best for them. I hope that they will be able to understand my English. They speak so softly and quickly that I cannot hear enunciation of syllables. I can pick up one or two words every one in a while but that is like per sentence. I think that it is bad that even though I did not understand the sentence I still say “Mmhmm”. Of course I did not understand. Plus, there is a lot of lingo that I have not picked up on. There is a dictionary of words (about 4 pages worth) made by Dr. Sacra that describe some of the Liberian English. I just hope tomorrow I can pick some of it up. All I know right now that if a woman has “belly” then she is pregnant. I’ll try harder tomorrow to try to understand them.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Since the lights go off at midnight I will not write a journal entry for today, today. Let’s try tomorrow.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

It’s amazing how quickly you can forget about detail for an entire day. Humans are made so shortminded, at least I can speak for myself. I had to look at the schedule for yesterday in order to actually figure out what I did, so some of this information me be fabricated. I apologize that neither you (if you’re reading this) nor I will be able to figure out what is a lie and what is a fact. I guess you could say it would be a lie if I was doing something cool because engineers are not cool. Anyway, here’s what happened yesterday:

Saturday: So I am trying to figure out whether the alarm clock on my watch actually works or not. Dave thinks it does. I think it does not. I’m pretty sure that’s why I slept in later than what I wanted to that morning. Anyways, we had breakfast, and Nene (I think that is how you spell it, pronounced “Nay-nay”) made us some wonderful pancakes. Shortly afterward, we met with James Kesselly the general manager of ELWA, Augustine, the physical plant manager, Benedict, the principal of the school, and Thomas, the manager of the hospital. They gave us an introduction and gave us a tour of the ELWA campus. This took a few hours. They showed us the location of all of their wells, some of which they were using and others they were not. They also took us inside the grounds of the hospital and I saw the location of their old incinerator and the possible location of their new one. (The hospital was surrounded by walls with sharp shards of glass on the top. I guess this was to keep people in or out of the hospital.) They also took us by the physical plant and showed us their existing cooling pond. The water in that pond was so hot, but we’re hoping that improved pressure and new sprinkler heads will improve their cooling so that they could use more than one generator at a time. This will help them to us their new radio transmitter tower to let Africans listen to the gospel. We were also shown the ELWA Academy and the tour was over. It made me excited for the projects to actually see where we were going to do them. We are hoping that these projects will ultimately help the Liberian people and that we also show them how to do it so that they can do it themselves. Ray’s said about a hundred times and I 100% agree with him, “Get a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Show a man how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.” That is what we hope to do while we are here. After the tour, the main dish in Liberia was served to us, rice ‘n’ soup. It is really, really, good. Rice with an herb makes the rice not stick together, better than the rice at Chipotle. Ten on top there is this gravy-type stuff with meat chunks and vegetables. I really like rice ‘n’ soup. We are getting fed really well here in Liberia. Dr. Sacra came in right after lunch to have a meeting with Larry and Thomas (Drs. Zavodney and Thompson, respectively). While they were meeting, Greg, Nathanael, Alan, and Earl went to absolutely demolish the old incinerator. The top rows were very easy even I could push them over. After a while it started getting especially hard since we were using a mini-sledgehammer (1 foot handle with a smaller head). It became broken after a Barham started to use it. An employee with the physical plant, Matthew, also helped us to destroy the old pieces of cinder block. We did happen to find a couple of really old sharps still left unburned inside of it. We avoided these at all costs. We were also welcomed by a mass exodus of cockroaches, crickets, and lizards. We must have destroyed their pleasant home. We got down to the base level of the bricks when we decided that a chisel would be necessary to flatten out the base. This took the largest time out of any of the steps in this process. We used the same sledgehammer and a pick (pointed tip, not flat-edged, I tell you) so it was rather difficult to get all of that finished. In fact we only flattened out half of the old existing incinerator. We then went over to the Sacras, Goodnows, and Lamberts for a cookout. There was barbecued chicken, fruit salad, a rice casserole, and also chocolate birthday cake (a real birthday cake), because is was Chris Lambert’s and Joel Goodnow’s birthday. Everything was so delicious. I had a lot of fun there, but it got dark very quickly (about 15 minutes) as it does in Africa. We then went inside and we (Greg and I) talked with the Goodnows, Chris, and Joshua (the pastor’s son, who was a drummer, who we had met that day after work). Joshua is considering going to college and majoring in construction engineering and was looking to apply to Grace College. I told him about Calvin and Cedarville. I had a deeper conversation with Chris who pretty much told us the story of his college days until now. He was in his junior year of college at IU studying maketing and was getting ready to go to law school when God called him to the ministry. He ended up going to Fuller in LA for seminary and met his wife Andrea there. He was a firm believer in not having short relationships before marrying and even insulted his roommate for doing so. Eleven months after knowing Andrea he married her. “When you know she’s the one, you know.” He then looked for a place to go on a one-year missions experience and an organization to do it with. He first chose a NGO (non-governmental organization) in Uganda. Through the grace of God he was able to find out about the fraud that this organization was doing. It was a very popular one and well known but they were taking the donations instead of using it on the Ugandan people. The leader, he said, was the most evil person that he knew. But he was able to get out of it and found a contact with SIM and he is here in Liberia for the next six months. Later, we went over to the Sacra’s because the Goodnows’ kids’ bedtime was coming up. I checked my e-mail there. I found out today that my roommate for this year is named TBD. I guess those are his initials. He sounds foreign to me, but I hope he’s nice and he speaks English. By the way, I am having the hardest time understanding Liberian English. (I had to get that out there). That was about it for the gathering social events part of the day. Finally, I walked back to the guest house to write in my journal. I would have wrote about it yesterday, last night, but Ray Hutchison wanted to talk with me. He is an amazing man. He was such a gift of encouragement and he can talk with anyone. He was telling me about the security problems on campus and in fact a couple of nights ago a traumatic incident occurred. Tim had seen the light in the pantry go on and off without seeing anyone inside. Well, there was a man inside, with a cutlass and tied Time (Goodnow) up and put him on the back porch. His dad came and attacked him with a chair and forced him out of the house. Tim was able to get loose and he walked back into the house. All he stole was car keys, but they changed the locks the next day rendering those keys useless. This story actually made me fearful to go to bed. (Thanks Ray). My bed is right next to a window and I kept imagining a cutlass cutting through the screen and attacking me. I know it’s silly but it seemed real at the time. The heat did not make it any easier to sleep at all. I did not remember sleeping that night. I’ll come back later and tell about today’s events.

 Friday, May 18, 2007

We finally made it to Brussels and from here on out the trip was rather uneventful.  I really could not tell you a thing that I did on the plane except that I watched movies and slept.  I watch Pan’s Labyrinth on the way to Brussels, which was sad but also really good, violent too.  When we landed at Brussels, we immediately went to the toilet rooms (as they say in Europe), which I found out are kind of connected between male and female, as shown in the below diagram.

I did not even realize it until I was done with my business at the urinal.  I looked over and saw a lady.  I guess that’s just European style.  We then went to one of the seating areas and had a little bit of orientation with Ray about Liberia.  I was so tired (it was 2 am for me, but 8 am for them), and so mixed up about what day it was that I did not want to listen.  Plus all Ray did was read what I had already read on the flight over.  I did come out of it however that I need to have the mindset of being people-oriented rather than just being task-oriented, as engineers usually are. We are here to change the lives of people for the better and not just to do a few building projects.  We received our boarding passes and got on our airplane to Monrovia, Liberia! Again, this flight was very uneventful; I did a mixture of sleeping and staring into no where.  I must have looked like a zombie on that flight.  It was cool to also see another mission team on the flight with us.  They were from Cali and predominantly women, as opposed to our group of 11 men and 0 women from Ohio.  They were going to be there for 2 weeks as well.  I had a seat that was close to the wall of the airplane as opposed to the exact middle when we went over the Atlantic Ocean.  The thing was that it was the only row in the entire airplane that had a wall instead of a window.  So I have yet to see land from the airplane.  This is why I have been staring into no where in a vegetative state.  The food on the airplane was really good, except for the questionable cheese that they served us.  That was the only thing that they served us that I did not eat. We first made a stop in Dakar, at the westernmost tip of Africa in the country of Senegal. We stayed in the plane for an hour until we took off again and this time we landed in Monrovia. This was definitely the weirdest airport that I have ever been to. We first go into this big room and check in (actually it was very small, we could all barely fit inside). We then go to this smaller room filled to the maximum with people and we are expected to somehow claim all of our luggage.  It was easy to find all of our luggage because each of them had a red bandana tied to them and they also had a piece of duct tape on it with ELWA written on it. I just want to praise God because He allowed for ALL of our luggage to make it to Liberia, around 23 bags in all. Even the two bags with 50 lbs of refractory cement made it through customs. A lot of us were worried and even the MIS office at Cedarville denied that it would make it. I think it helped not distribute individual bags of this powder in our suitcases. We waited about an hour for ELWA to pick us up at the airport, and meanwhile it gave vendors a chance to see if we would spend money. At first a man was insistent that I wanted to be an “African man” and that I should buy a $5 necklace to make all of my friends jealous. These necklaces were not worth $5 (not even $10 as he first proposed), maybe just $1. I kept saying no but that did not make any difference. Another guy was asking for $5 because he was being our guide. He in all honesty did not help us at all, but I felt so bad for all of the people. Not in a condescending way, but I wish that these people could have real jobs. The unemployment rate is around 80% in Liberia, and there is a 60 to 1 exchange rate for the Liberia dollar to the American dollar. The average person who has a job makes $2 American a day (which most work for Firestone). Most Americans make three times that much an hour and that is at minimum wage. I really wanted to help him out with money, but we were encouraged not to do that. I may do it when I leave because I may need the money later on in the trip and all I have is $40. Anyway, it got dark when ELWA picked us up, and there are no street lights in Liberia. Most power comes from people owning their own generators. We for into our guest house around 7:30 pm local time. The trip over to the guest house was exciting. People walk so close to the road here because there are no lights anywhere, except on the roads because of all of the cars driving by. I thought that we might hit one or two people. I don’t think that there are speed limits but you would not want to go that fast because of huge holes and the people walking by. It took about a half an hour to get here. Driving on the roads you could just see a lot of poverty, but socially here things look exciting. You cannot drive down America’s streets and see everybody outside like you do in Liberia. The economy of Liberia is looking up and the people are optimistic about Liberia’s new found freedom. We then unloaded all of the three vehicles it took to get us here and a very good dinner was served: biscuits with butter and apricot spread, fresh pineapple, and like a breakfast casserole with eggs and bacon. We are only allowed to drink the filtered water that they serve us here on the campus. We then met with Dr. Rick and Mrs. Debbie Sacra. We also met Chris Lambert who was from Wawasee, IN who just recently got called to be a pastor and now serves in Liberia. We also met James, the general manager of the ELWA compound. Our guest house is right on the beach of the Atlantic Ocean and I am sitting in a room now and am enjoying listening to the waves. It is so beautiful here although I have not even seen the country in the daytime. We went out onto the beach with our flashlights and chased the crabs around. They are really quick. The guest house has bars in every window because they have had security problems here before. I am about to go to bed and will wake up for fresh pancakes in the morning. Praise God for His safety to us thus far.

Here I will give my journal entries from my Liberian adventure one day at a time.  I will be starting today and will attempt to go one day at a time.  Bear with me if I do not meet my own deadlines.  I hope that these will be a blessing to you and will give you keen insight on what happened on this trip.  God was so amazing on this trip!

Thursday, May 17^th, 2007

Right now I am on an airplane headed to Brussels, Belgium.  Currently, I am looking at the map on the screen in front of me and we are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.  It has been a rather large goal of mine to visit my family’s heritage land, the Netherlands, and now I am flying to its neighbor.  It’s kind of frustrating knowing that I am so close to it, but also knowing that I cannot go there. This frustration is exponentially overridden by the excitement of going to Liberia to serve both God and His people. There are eleven of us on the plane traveling to Liberia: Greg Briggs (who is doing the incinerator with me), Dave Bennett, Tyler Ruegsegger (those two are both here to prepare for their senior design project), Alan McIver, Earl Girouard (who are finishing their senior design project for this year), Nathanael Barham (who made the solar-powered LED lamps), Mordecai Veldt (who made CAD drawings of ELWA), Drs. Tom Thompson and Larry Zavodney, and Ray Hutchison (who is the SIM representative). Already on this trip we have seen God’s blessings, although at first they were in disguise.  When we arrived at the Dayton International Airport, we found out that our flight was cancelled.  The friendly people at United Airlines hooked us up with another flight to Washington-Dulles, only this flight was from another airport: Cincinnati.  This was a blessing because Alan and Earl really wanted to go to a hardware store and get more supplies for their sprinkler heads. So, we were able to venture over there to Lowe’s and get some more needed supplies.  It was also a praise because we did not have to go through with a seven hour layover in Washington.  Instead it was reduced to a few measly hours. God pulled through there and supplied a need.  While we were waiting for them at Lowe’s, the four upcoming seniors (Greg, Dave, Tyler, and I) indulged on around 25 (maybe 30) pudding cups that Mordecai’s father had gotten for free with his super coupons.  Mordecai was there too eating the pudding and we had a wonderful time putting down all of those pudding cups. We had a bit of confrontation on the way to the Cincinnati airport.  We were all enjoying our pudding cups except for one, Greg, who was becoming nauseas on his most recent cup of tapioca.  A lot of us had moved on to chewing beef jerky and everyone wanted to have a piece, especially Greg because he was getting sick and tired of the pudding.  We told him no because he had not eaten all of his food.  He was getting rather whiny at the time and he felt like he was being tormented.  (This pudding incident really became quite a funny inside joke for the rest of the trip).  Greg against his own will finished the tapioca and got his own slice of beef jerky.  That wasn’t so bad, was it Greg?  We finally arrived at the Cincinnati airport and checked our bags, all of which were under the 50 lb limit set by the airlines.  Some of them were very close to the limit, but praise be to God that none of them were.  We had packed a lot of stuff the night before in the ENS and you would not believe how much we were able to get in the 18 suitcases that we had (Nathanael and Ray met up with us in Washington).  Somehow, we were also able to pack 100 lb of high-temperature mortar.  This is a huge concern since more than that is needed to build the Mark 9 model of the incinerator.  Greg and I are going to try to convince them to build the smaller Mark 8a model because of the lack in supplies.  Hopefully, the 100 lb makes it and even more hopefully, the 300 lb that Zavodney ordered will come in port in case ELWA wants to build the bigger one.  This is highly improbable but not outside God’s ability, which is why I have a strong feeling it will.  Anyways, all of our bags checked and Zavodney will not stop praising me on the luggage that I built myself, shown below.  Basically it was two long boxes put inside itself, with straps holding the two pieces together, and a handle to carry it with. 

Wow, that drawing was crude.  Maybe I’ll get a patent, really, just kidding.  This bad was needed to pack the tripod, measuring stick, and other pieces of wood to build kites for the kids.  We ate at Damon’s Grill for lunch on the tab of my donors (This was not my decision) and it tasted really good. I was reminded by Mr. Veldt that this was my last American meal before Liberia.  Actually, at the moment, I am looking forward to eating Liberian food. So we flew to Washington-Dulles from Cincinnati which I slept the whole way through.  I almost forgot to mention the security measures in airlines now.  The Department of Homeland Security set the terrorist level to orange today.  I will now explain the check-in process. First, all of my liquids and gels needed to be in a 1-quart Ziploc bag, and none of these items could be more than 3 ounces (the 3-1-1 rule). So then I unpacked my carry-on of these items along with all of the items in my pockets (and my shoes).  I then went through this machine for 20 seconds that blows you with puffs of air, I guess to check for explosives.  Then I went through the metal detector.  Lastly, a TSA officer wiped my bag and everything else with these round cloths which I guess was to check for bad chemicals.  I passed the test.  Now we arrived in Washington to get on the flight that I am currently on.  Right now it is 10:30pm EST, but Brussels is six hours ahead.  So I just realized by the time that we get into Brussels it will be “my” bedtime, but to Brussels everyone will be starting their day.  Interesting, eh?  Did you know that Keflavik is a town in Iceland? That’s what my map is telling me.  I just went through the orientation materials that Ray gave me from SIM.  There are some interesting African proverbs. I’ll share some: “It takes two thumbs to squash a louse,” meaning you need cooperation to get a job done and without it the problem gets worse. “Mr. Didn’t-Know took shelter from the rain in the pond.” Meaning: that guy is foolish! “The rump of a visitor is made to sit upon” which speaks that hospitality is an important virtue (I saw that first-hand all throughout the trip). My favorite though is from India: “A wife is a knife that cuts the life.  But there is no life without a wife.” At first I thought that the wife took away a man’s life, but I was mistaken.  It is however talking about how a man leaves his mother to marry his wife.

            I am really looking forward to the culture of Africa.  What an experience for my first missions trip.  I am really excited about what God is going to do for and through our team.  I know that God is going to fulfill all our needs in different ways and not in the ways that we are expecting either.  My concern for this trip is that my pride will get in the way of me sharing the gospel with other people, people who need the Lord. I realized today that this earth is filled with billions of people who need the Lord when I was walking through all those airports.  It made me consider how daunting of a task evangelizing is.  It is so daunting that some people just might give up, but God has called us to work because the night is coming, and boy, it is coming fast.  I really just want to feel close to God and be intimate with Him throughout this trip.  I want to converse with Him about my feelings and not hold them inside.  I want to express myself to others even though that sometimes can scare me to death.  I desire to embrace other people even though I fear their rejection or ridicule.  I want to break the bonds of the limitations that I have set for myself because of the comfort zone that I have grown up in.  I want to take the leap, but I feel that my legs are not strong enough.  All of these things require the Lord so I pray fervently that He meets me there in Liberia.  I want to know Him! On another note, I am reading Acts at night and Romans in morning on this trip.  I just read Acts 1 and 2.  It’s wonderful to see Peter, a fisherman, preach boldly that Christ is the Lord. I want to be the engineer that speaks boldly for Christ, no matter what the stereotype is.  “And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.” This verse still applies today just like when it was written.  Now it’s about time for “my bed time.”