This is the temperature outside of church today at 11 a m. Because of the high humidity it had a "feels like" temperature of 108 degrees. The church has no electricity and only a modest amount of windows. It was hotter inside than outside. I've had lots of good experiences here in Africa. Comfort in Church is not one of them.
During the second hour of church Cheryl has been meeting with the primary. It's out on the patio so it is a little cooler if there is a breeze. With her cell phone she plays the music for the primary over a small speaker that we bring.
We had a picture painted for us. It's the African version of the Book of Mormon story of the Tree of Life. It was painted by an award winning and pretty renowned artist in the country. Unfortunately for him there is not much of a market for good artwork when everyone's just trying to feed themselves. He cannot support himself on his artwork alone and so he also is a farmer.
We are having a challenge with our project at the Buchanan Government Regional Hospital. We have already supplied them with a lot of medical equipment, a generator and a new roof. What remains is an incinerator and to finish the remodeling of the maternity area. What are the challenges, the hospital administrator was upset that we did not use his recommended contractor for the remodeling. Because we selected our own contractor he did not receive a kickback, on the contract price. Because of that he's been very critical of the contractors work and has had lots of complaints. The second thing we just learned of today was that the hospital's regional administrator has been charging personal building material expenses to our contractors account. The contractor had a bill of about $1000 and when he went to pay it, it was $4000. Since it has been caught the administrator will pay his part and everything should be OK.
Corruption in this country is just built in to the society. Good people will do dishonest things because it has been the norm for so long. We have recently had a change in government on the national level. Just before the change a large portion of all the government vehicles disappeared. They were driven to the neighboring country, Sierra Leone, and sold, just before the government change over. A lot of the government office furniture and computers also disappeared. To combat large cash thefts there is a moratorium on all government spending from one month before the government change over to 1 month afterwards.
Recently the director of the National Disaster Management Agency asked us, (the church), for some help with a mine cave-in disaster. The death toll was about 10. We agreed to supply temporary food for the families of the victims. He recently sent us his detailed request that asked for 100, 50 pound bags of rice and twenty five, 5 gallon containers of oil. This is about 10 times more than what we expected and what they need. I suppose he was planning on selling it.
We got the contracts finalized and we have sent in the payment request for our final project. It will be for a solar system at the Redemption Government Hospital. This is our first time doing a solar system. I hope it works well. We are providing solar panels and batteries.
There are two new senior missionary couples arriving in Liberia next month. One couple will work in the mission office and the other one will live, and be assigned to a couple of church branches out in the jungle. Still no replacement for Cheryl and I.
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