| | 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 17th, 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.” |
