Day 7, Blog 5
Well we just made it through hump day in our week long training. The response from the pastors has been amazing. We are building relationships and have handed out our addresses, phone numbers and emails to many of our new friends. They are an amazing people. They sit through 5 hours of intensive training and teaching in 90 degree heat with 100 % humidity, some coming from hours away, and yet you never hear a single complaint. And yet we complain if we go five minutes over the usual service time at our churches in the states. Yes I had rice again today. So if you’re guessing my weight for the contest, rice is basically starch. But remember if you already submitted your guess you can’t change it.
Woke the other day to do the normal cold water from a bucket shower and as I am walking down the hallway to the bathroom your typical African lizard suddenly jumps out in front of me and sticks himself to the bathroom door, freaked me out. We asked one of our African friends what do you call these lizards that we are seeing everywhere, are they chameleons or what, what do you call them? And his cool and calm response was “lizard.” I rode in the back end of a pickup today with 6 other Liberians and everyone on the street that saw this white dude smiled or laughed or waved at me. I guess it’s pretty weird for white guys to be seen riding like a typical Liberian would.
I crossed my first Liberian bridge the other day, which is a tree laying across a small creek bed. A couple of the younger guys walked over it like it was no big deal. As I approached the tree I suddenly started to panic and said “this is stupid, I’m not so sure about this” so I ended up walking further down a bit and crossed over where it was much more easy. But on the way back I said to myself “you can do this Gare, you’re not going to chicken out this time.” So one of the guys showed me how to properly walk over a Liberian bridge. By this time quite a crowd had gathered on the other side to watch this crazy white dude try to walk across. As I slowly stepped out on this tree the panic resumed – should I get down on my hands and knees and cross, should I straddle it like riding a horse and shimmy across, but that would probably hurt as bad as falling and make me sing with a soprano voice. My entire life flashed in front of me – would Katie be able to make it without me, would my grandkids remember me in a few years, would the Vikings ever win a Super Bowl, would Aaron and Tamara still be sharing a room with Henry, would Alfie be an American citizen? . . . I made it over, and had to suffer the laughter of many, mostly children on the other side.
Please pray for Ben Kangar’s sister Sarah, she has been helping out making all our wonderful rice lunches throughout this training. She was 5 months pregnant but lost her baby today, very sad. In this culture it is a shameful thing to lose a child so moms that do are ashamed to tell anyone.
Time for Nighty Night.
Making Much of Jesus!!!
Pastor Gman