Liberia Updates - Sunday Summary

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Today was a great Sunday. The weather gave us a break from the heat with showers throughout the day. There were nice breezes and less humid air in between the showers.

The day began with breakfast at Arnold’s house, as usual. It was a heavy meal and I don’t usually each much breakfast. However, I took the advice of Jim, my roomie and “tour guide.” Jim said, “Eat well, church lasts a long time here and you don’t know when you’ll be eating again.”

I just realized I’ve not introduced Jim to you yet, allow me to correct that post haste!

Jim Fasould is an American from Chicago who has been serving as a missionary in Barcelona, Spain for over 40 years. He will be 70 years old in December but can run circles around most folk. He is energetic and gregariously friendly. He is the founder of the Spanish Bible Institute & Theological Seminary in Barcelona, and he and his wife have served that community together for almost all of their married lives. In fact, Jim and Carolyn celebrated 46 years of marriage today via cell phone. He is here helping the seminary organize their operations. He has been working with them to write job descriptions, org charts, policies, and procedures. He has quite the mind for organizing things, and works on his computer tirelessly.

Jim and I are sharing a two bedroom duplex, and we’ve had great conversations during our down time. He is a good bit more conservative that I am theologically, which makes sense because he comes out of the independent Bible Church tradition in Illinois. But my core belief and practice is that I will partner with any Christian who is willing to work with me, and so our conversations and efforts here at the seminary seem to be mutually edifying. I brought the bug spray he forgot, and he’s got the ibuprofen stash that I forgot (and have desperately needed to break the headaches I’ve had from no caffeine). He's truly an enjoyable guy and we're making for pretty good roommates, at least from my perspective. My snoring doesn't bother me, but I dont' know if it bothers him.

So back to my notes on the day.

On the way out the door we met our neighbors in the duplex. They arrived on Friday night and they are from Western Canada. They are doing mission work in Ghana on behalf of the Church of the Nazarene, and their work is branching out into Liberia. The Dorothy Pryor Baptist Compound is used to host missionaries such as them, so they are staying here while they work in the Nazarene churches nearby. John, their group leader, was on the porch this morning and in a brief conversation I learned that they train pastors and lay leaders to be more effective in ministry.

The drive to Salem Baptist Church was through Monrovia, my first really good look at the city. I’ll be posting pictures as soon as I get back (the internet connection is too slow here to spend hours posting photos that will take just a few minutes from home. Again – infrastructure). The city is like any third world metropolitan area. It has a high density of population, and the accompanying trash and filth that goes with lots of people packed into one area.

Road conditions range from good to horrible. At one point on the road we slowed down to maneuver through some giant pot holes (mortar hit??) that stretched the width of the road. Each of the holes were 1-2 feet deep and filled with muddy rain water. In the middle of the street three men were shouting for drivers to give them money saying, “Give us the money, we will fix the road when we get enough money for materials.” Those same guys have been there for years, I’m told, and the wads of cash they collect don’t seem to be enough to fix the road!

Salem Baptist Church, where I preached this morning, is one of the historic congregations of Liberia. It is located in Brewerville and it’s the home church of Olivia Hill, wife of Arnold Hill, the LBTS president. Today was Women’s Day, and all the women wore yellow. It was quite a stunning sight from the pulpit, I must admit, to see all those dark skinned women dressed in delicate and vibrant yellows. I get the feeling God noticed them, too, not just because of their eye-catching yellow dresses and hats, but also because of the passionate worship they offered. Among the men and the women there was dancing, singing, clapping, shouts of joyous praise, and, I believe, the wails of release of pent up frustration and disappointment. I don’t think it was manufactured and I do think the Spirit of God was present.

I envy these folk in at least one regard: they are able to let it all out in worship. This reserved white guy hung in there clapping and singing the songs I knew. I even managed to pull off a reasonably impassioned sermon to match their expectations. But I suppose that, at the end of the day, I’m somewhat stoic in my worship. There is likely a subtler point here that I debate taking the risk to reflect on here fully.

I’ll say this much: I’m not sure my faith is deep enough to worship with their zeal and passion. Maybe it’s the years of intellectualization of my religion. Perhaps it’s part of the waning and waxing of my intimacy with God. We say that baptism is an outer expression of an inward grace, so maybe worship is an outer expression of the inner workings of belief. If that’s so, then the inner workings of my belief need some tinkering.

A holy nap followed worship today, then dinner as usual at Arnold and Olivia’s house. Monday holds a day of working with the writers, editing their stuff, and seeing where we stand for work on Tuesday.

Liberia Updates - Saturday summary

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Today being Saturday meant that everything was very relaxed. Turns out that despite the relaxed pace, it was the better of the first three days for productivity. More rain and the Saturday ‘tude made for an 11:30 start, which allowed me some time to connect to the Internet and answer a few key emails.

It also offered a relaxing time of coffee and conversation with a few of the LBTS faculty members. I am coming to understand their way of decision-making and measuring progress through these conversations. Here in Liberia, the civil war may be over for 6 years, but it frames everything.

• Why is that building falling down? Because of the war.
• Why can’t you get electricity nationalized? The government has to be rebuilt.
• Why can’t students get here on time? There are too few roads.
• Why don’t you just partner with an American school for some online course work? Because the power isn’t on long enough for consistency and the internet connect is too slow.

The list goes on, and it all points to the infrastructure that was once solid and aiding the emergence of Liberia as a place of economic opportunity but is now laid waste by war. The government buildings have been burned. The airport is now run through the former cargo warehouse/terminal because the passenger terminal was destroyed in war. Land and real estate were seized by the government through imminent domain, leaving the formerly affluent in a state of poverty. It is impossible to estimate the loss of intellectual capital – how many brilliant minds with limitless potential were blown away at the end of a gun? How many wizened and experienced people are no more because they were macheted to pieces?

I’ve been in the third world many times and have stared straight into the face of systemic poverty. This, however, is a different kind of poverty. Nothing here is untouched by war, especially the people. I’m told here, “It takes hundreds of years to build a country, but only one year of war to destroy one. We had sixteen years of war.”

And yet:

There is a glimmer of hope and optimism. There is a sense of joy that abides, and some say that the lingering peace is re-creating the trust necessary for people to do the work of rebuilding and personal investment. In no way can I say whether that’s accurate in the short time I’ve been here, but I do see signs. For example, there is new construction underway. A lot of it is going on, though I’m pretty sure little of it would meet OSHA safety standards for workers. There are small storefronts with new signs and windows. There is an air of hope about the future among the students with whom I’ve talked. They see opportunity and want to bring change to their country. They don’t want more violence, and all the political rumors are that the current president, Ellen Sirleaf, will be reelected quite easily this coming Fall because she is trusted and seems to be working toward restoration and against corruption. There is much talk about modeling the country and its businesses on Western models, perhaps to a fault.

My basic conclusion is that these Liberian people have the talent, natural resources, and the hope to see their country rebuilt into something better than before the war. The question of their will and drive remains to be decided. A lack of unifying vision is present. The question of American aid also remains. Naturally, the complexity of the situation leaves me wondering just what America should be doing, if anything. We are invested here and owe at least consideration for the way in which this country served as our dumping ground for freed slaves of the 1800’s. The country is US friendly and follows US Foreign policy on most practices. They are our friends, they are, in fact, our kin.

Liberia Updates - Friday Pondering

This time in Liberia has been a major lesson for me in infrastructure and governmental action in economic development. Americans should not discount the value of our basic infrastructure: highways, electricity, water, sewer, and education. As much as I complain about government, American government has done some really amazing things, and made good decisions based on foresight and vision. I see more clearly now than ever that without visionary leaders in government, we cannot move forward as individuals to realize our own part of the American dream.

We get some stuff wrong, no doubt. But by and large, the power of the people in a representative government is a pretty good operation. I'm further convinced that critics on both sides of the aisle should spend some time understanding the complexities of infrastructure and economic development.

Liberia update - Thursday June 16

This posting is in rough draft form, my apologies but I don't have a lot of time for a polished post. I'm planning to make daily posts as internet access allows. I'll post them here for you to read and me to edit later.

Thursday, June 16, 2011 – 10:25pm

Wednesday provided a safe arrival at the airfield in Monrovia. I’d taken out of Dulles on Wednesday at 2:30, flown to Atlanta. The next leg of the journey was an overnight flight of eleven hours or so to Accra, the capital of Ghana. I had no visa for Ghana so I waited on the plane for almost two hours. In some way that was the worst part of the trip, stuck on the runway and unable to get out of the plane. Finally, we took off at 12:30pm local time and landed in Monrovia at 2:45pm local time. Total travel time was just over 20 hours.

Clearing customs was not difficult at all, I had already done the proper paperwork at the Liberian embassy in Washington the week prior. Toby Gbeh and “Brooks” the Dean of Academic Affairs were there to meet me. It was a 45 minute drive to the seminary, where we stopped briefly before heading on to the Dorothy Pryor Baptist Campground, closer in to Monrovia and about a 20 minute drive. Both the campground and the seminary were built by Southern Baptists over the years. The campground is also the residence of the seminary president, Arnold Hill. On the campus are numerous buildings. One is like a hotel, others are smaller, containing two to four apartments.

Both the seminary and the campground are compounds surrounded by tall fences and closed in with metal gates. The gates are tended by watchmen twenty four hours a day, one of the many tangible signals that the country of Liberia is not very far removed from its civil war. The tops of the walls have shards of glass on top for additional security, an additional reminder of the need to keep someone on the outside from getting on the inside.

Conversations with members of the seminary community and the staff at the campground have been enjoyable and informative. On Wednesday afternoon I explored the campground alone, catching beautiful views of the Atlantic Ocean down below me. On the walk I encountered several folk, and was engaged in conversations along the way. Some things I learned:

• There is little infrastructure in the country and electricity is only available for purchase near the downtown government district. Even then it is prohibitively expensive. I was told that electricity for one month for a family of four in a small home was about $700.00 and about double that if they chose to run air conditioners. That’s about three times the monthly salary of that same average family. The net result is that most people rely on generators or have no electricity at all.
• There has never been a hurricane, tornado, has a population of 3.5 MM people that speak 16 different dialects plus English.
• According to at least two staff members, Southern Baptists built the campground and the seminary on land that was donated to them for that purpose. When they decided to pull out, both properties were put up for sale and the local Baptists had to buy them to avoid it being sold to developers. I’m hopeful there’s another side to this story, and I’ll look into when I back in the states.
• Electricity on both the seminary campus and the campground is provided by generators. Due to high cost of fuel, the generators run only in the day time at the seminary and only in the evening hours on the campground.
• The rainy season is just beginning here, and based on the two storms I’ve experienced so far, I can’t imagine what the middle of the rainy season is like.

Thursday began with a huge and delicious breakfast at the home of President Hill. Pancakes, meat sandwiches, oatmeal, and coffee got me fueled well for the day. Preaching in the chapel service was my first task of the day. It was the last chapel session of the semester, so there were lots of recognitions for academic achievement. The students are in the middle of final exams, so there is all that end of a semester weariness married to the excitement over graduation for some, and a study break for others.

The writing workshop I’m teaching began today. We had nearly 50 participants and after a day on the basics of curriculum writing, we walked through how to format teaching plans for Sunday School teachers. We divided into four groups and each team assigned a set of Bible texts over which they’ll be writing lessons for the rest of the workshop.

The work day ended with serendipitous chance to talk to my family on the phone. We’d not planned on talking because calls on AT&T to my phone are about $3.50 per minute. We’ve limited ourselves to a few text messages a day, but even those are $.50 each. However, I learned today that the seminary has a cell phone that only costs about $.05 per minute, so I used some down time this afternoon to call home.

Late dinner and conversation at Arnold’s house, and then a return to my quarters. Time to hit the bed, long day tomorrow!

The African journey begins.

As I write I'm in Atlanta's colossal airport awaiting the next leg of the journey to Liberia. I'm flying Delta, and they have not earned any goodwill with me today. First, I learned just today that my "direct" flight to Liberia involves a stop in Accra, Ghana. That includes a 2 hour layover, reboarding, and 703 more air miles back west to Monrovia. It really wasn't that I missed the fine print - there just was no fine print.

Then there's the baggage.

Delta allows you two free bags on international flights. So I get to the gate at check-in this morning with one bag that weighed 59 pounds - nine over the limit. The bag was filled mostly with books that I am taking for the workshop I'm conducting, not extra shoes, my darlings. I was told I would have to pay a $75 over-weight fee, even though I was only taking one bag. The logic of this eluded me as I stood their fuming. I argued my cause with a service manager but was met with a stern inflexibility and a disposition that I could've sworn was just a tad shy of "gleeful."

"It's a new fee, and I'm sorry but there's nothing I can do about it."

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is funding the trip, so it wouldn't really be money out of my pocket but I was thoroughly incensed. My money or no, it was just wrong.

So, I stepped away from the counter, looked down the terminal and there it was, a shimmering well-placed oasis of overpriced airport accoutrements that included: a luggage section. $24.99 later, I was the owner of one very over-priced duffle, into which I transferred all the heavy books. I then walked back up the counter and checked my two free bags to Monrovia - grinning like the cat that ate the canary. Watcha think about that, Delta?

If you're interested in the project in Africa, check back here often.

A Pretty Good Joke

Came across this jewel on the website for A Prairie Home Companion:

My grandparents raised a big family. The reason they had so many kids was because my grandma was hard of hearing.

Pretty regularly when they went to bed and turned out the lights, my grandpa would say, "So, you goin' to go to sleep or what?"

And Grandma would say, "What?"

Africa Bound

In just a few weeks I'll be heading to Liberia to work with a group of pastors to write Sunday School curriculum. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) is funding the travel expenses and I'm going as a representative of that organization. Some of you are probably asking a few basic questions:

• What is CBF? [It's a Christian organization that is still trying to figure out who they are other than folk who used to be the sane ones among the Southern Baptists]
• What's Sunday School curriculum? [It's a lesson plan to help ordinary people teach the Bible to other ordinary people]
• Where is Liberia? [West Africa, on the coast]
• Is that the place NATO is currently bombing? [no, that's Libya. Seriously? You just asked me that?]

I'm excited about the opportunity to help shape the spiritual formation of Christians throughout Liberia. I'm also a little anxious.

First, there's a whole boat load of meds I'm supposed to take and my doc's office is moving a little slowly in tracking them all down. Yellow fever, malaria, hepatitis, and typhoid top this list of illnesses the CDC tells me I should worry about.

Then, there's the training I'm going to lead. Exactly how did I became qualified to teach leaders from a totally different culture how to write Bible lessons for their people? Perhaps no one else was willing or able to go? I don't fully understand the culture or needs of the people I'll be serving, and even on a good day I'm not sure I understand enough Scripture to offer a helpful word.

But there's something else that's worrying me. It's a little hold-over from the first time I set foot on the continent in 1996. As a 25 year old seminarian I experienced African culture by way of a 22 day stint in Zimbabwe. It was a total immersion. If it had been water I would've drowned. Virtually alienated from everything I found familiar in my heretofore Southern rural upbringing, I heard a word from God as clearly as I've ever heard from the Mysterium Tremendum. Want to know what I heard?

"Get out."

Ok, I joke, it wasn't exactly those words. It was more like, "You're not supposed to be a missionary." It was there that I saw myself as the time oriented Westerner with a taste for comfort, cable, cell phones, and a day planner. Prior to that, our family had seriously contemplated serving God in some missionary capacity, but after that trip it was clear to me that the sacrifice I'd admired in countless other "sent ones" was too much for me. I was, frankly, ashamed. After all, shouldn't I be willing to go where ever God sent me? In theory, yes. But my well-fed flesh was weak.

Since that time I've matured at least a little bit and along the way became the pastor of an extremely diverse congregation. I'm still not sure how that happened, but it is so. Our congregation membership is about 35% of West African origin and I've learned a lot about their culture by being their pastor. Working with multiple cultures in one congregation is, in many ways, like being a missionary. But still, I worry that I'm not prepared to serve these folk, and deeper still, I'm worried about what I may hear from God on this go-round to Africa. Maybe God won't say anything more than "Go, teach, get home." There's a subtle stirring in me, however, that says I should be listening closely for something else.