Cancellation

We have canceled the April 4th fund raiser. Thank you to Otterbein United Methodist church for all of your support, I had a great visit there this past Sunday.

Dates are Set

Hello:

The April issue of the Illinois Great Rivers Conference newsletter is up. There is an article about our trip and other articles about the work in Liberia as well. You can download that newsletter here: The Current: April 2008

If you have read the article and are visiting here for the first time, thanks for checking us out. I do have some news to share. We have our departure and return dates set. We are flying out of O'hare airport on May 20 and will return July 27, things are getting real now.

Fund raising Update:

First of all, I would like to think everyone that has supported us by coming out to a fund raiser or by writing us. We appreciate it very much and are glad to see that so many people (even people we have never met) believe in what we are doing and are willing to demonstrate that; it's been a humbling experience. The fund raisers have been very successful and I would like to thank Megan Devenport for coming to Mansfield to share about her recent trip (she's in the newsletter as well).

We are finally going to be in the Mattoon/ Charleston area over the next couple of weeks, at least I will be. This Sunday, March 30th, I will be speaking at the Otterbein United Methodist Church in Charleston at 9 Am. Here is a MAP to the church.

Then, next Friday at 6 Pm we will be having a fundraiser at the same church. I think I want to have a pie auction. So it would help if I had an idea of how many people vs how many pies will be there. I would very much appreciate it if you could RSVP here, by calling or by emailing me so I can know. Donations are welcome (both financial donations and pie donations).

Thanks, maybe if I update more often I won't have to post so much at once :).

Just an Update

Hello,

It's been a while since my last post, I have had some connectivity issues at the apartment.

We can tell that the trip is getting closer, we have started fund raisers and have had the opportunity to meet with a couple of people in the past week and talk about the trip.

The Hudson Fundraiser went very well and I want to thank everyone for coming out, and a lot of thanks to everyone that helped us out with it. We had about 40 come out and support us and that is very encouraging.

The other day we went to an event featuring Rev. Fannah T. Tartieh the District Superintendent of the Grand Gedah District in Liberia. We were able to talk to him for a few minutes and he told stories and showed pictures of his work in the rural areas of Liberia. If I am lucky I may see him when while in Liberia this summer.

Last night Tricia and I had dinner with Paul Black, the Director of Communications for the Illinos Great Rivers Conference. Keep an eye on his site for a story about our trip and the work in Liberia.

We have another fund raiser in Mansfield tomorrow night and I hope to see a lot of you there. If you need information about the the event give me or Tricia a call.

Thanks for reading and I will try to post more regularly in the future.

Fundraisers

Hello:

I haven't posted anything in a while, but I just wanted to give everyone an update on our fundraising events. The Valentine banquet in Hudson (Just north of Bloomington/Norma) has been changed from its original date to February 16th at 5:3o PM.

We also finalized the plans for the Mansfield dinner which will be March 2nd at 5:00 PM. This flyer has some more information about that.

We are going to have a dinner or something in Mattoon, but we are still finalizing the details, I will keep you posted.

Thanks everyone.

Housing

So we got some good news this week. Bunny Wolfe has been helping us with a lot of the logistics and planning on this trip and she let us know that she has settled our housing situation while we are in Liberia.

We will be staying with a missionary couple from Burundi on the United Methodist Mission compound. There names are Joel and Anne-Marie and it sounds like they will be happy to host us while we are there. Anne-Marie is a teacher Joel is a financial manager.

It is nice to have some of these details coming into place, and I may have found a placement for me in the reconciliation movement. I'll post more details when I get them.

Until next time...

Liberia Information Letter

Here is the Information letter we mailed out in January for anyone who may have missed.

Download Liberia Newsletter.pdf

It takes a few seconds for the download to be ready. If you need a .pdf reader you can go here.

Being Deaf in Liberia

The following links are articles about David Worlobah's work in Liberia with the deaf. These articles shed light on the challenges they face, and the hope that David is giving them.

Missionary teaches deaf Liberian children how to communicate.

Deaf School for Liberia
(make sure you watch the video!)