Overnight In Monrovia – Feb 7, Sunday Post #4

While we waited for the flight to Freetown Sierra Leone and Monrovia, we realized that there were UMC Mission Teams from East Ohio and another state.  We also met Bishop Bennie Warner, a Liberian bishop before Bishop Kulah and Bishop Innis.  He has been living in the states and came back for Annual Conference.  We realized later that Bishop John L. Hopkins from East Ohio and a district superintendent and conference lay leader from Sierre Leone were also on the flight.  There was a person, Neely Hicks, from UMCOM who was coming to work with communicators from other West African conferences on improving radio networks.  Their meeting would be in Monrovia after the annual conference.  We stopped in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where many passengers got off and others got on.   While we waited, the plane was refueled.  The flight to Monrovia was less than an hour.  Some people who got on at Freetown were going back to Brussels when the plane left Monrovia later that night.  We arrived there at 8:15, went through customs and were met by our hospitality coordinator Frances who rounded up us and our luggage into a van.  She has helped us on our earlier trips.  Another friend Sam, the director of the UM Mission Compound, was there too and went with us as we drove about 45 minutes from the airport into Monrovia.  We were taken to the Lutheran church guest house where six of us were staying overnight.  We left our luggage in our locked rooms and went to the United Methodist Mission Compound a few blocks away for a small supper in Sam’s home.  Then back to our place of rest.  Duane and I spent some time rearranging the things in our luggage so that all the church supplies we had originally spread between bags to keep the weight down were all in two smaller suitcases.  Finally we could go to bed.  It was nice to stretch out after sleeping on the plane.    We were so tired that we adjusted to the sound of the huge generator outside quickly and went to sleep.