bishop's perspective:
Trip to Liberia:
Providential grace
I just returned from Liberia. It was the wrong time to go, wrong place to go and the wrong trip to make.
Last August the violence, chaos and civil war shut down the schools in Liberia. Classrooms became refuges for the homeless, hungry and wounded. Schoolchildren, both girls and boys, stopped learning math and reading and were taught to use weapons to destroy and kill. So my trip was cancelled last summer. There was no way to even get into the country.
When the Liberian Church invited me to come in February, my first response was the timing was wrong. And the place was wrong too much devastation. Additionally, I just didn't want to make that long trip.
But I went anyway, and now I have returned "home." Now when I say "home" I realize that part of my very soul is still in Africa. Home can no longer be defined as only America. I have so many sisters and brothers in Christ in that continent and recently met new members of this family in Liberia.
It was a high privilege to dedicate the Holston Conference new school building at the J. J. Roberts School in Monrovia. Each room is named after a district or program office of the Holston Conference. The classrooms are large and bright. Though not pretentious in any way, the building is functional and inviting. The school choir sang an anthem that brought me to tears: "Emmanuel, Emmanuel, Emmanuel," which as you know means, "God with us."
You see, those young people sang with utter conviction. Most of them had experienced the ravages of rape, plunder, violence, and war since birth. All around the school in a city of 300,000 people there is destruction and ruined buildings. For years the electricity and water supply has been knocked out of existence. Poverty is everywhere. Yet, right smack in the middle of all of this is our new school building and boys and girls declaring, "Emmanuel, Emmanuel!"
I was humbled and honored to offer the commencement address to the first graduating class of the Liberia United Methodist University. This exercise had also been postponed from last August. For those who do not believe in miracles, I wish they had been there that day. The odds were literally insurmountable that a university could be established in Liberia. Refugees overwhelmed the school last summer and classes ground to a halt. But through danger, toils, sacrifice, vision and courage the administrators, teachers and students pulled things together. We experienced what had to be one of the most joyful graduations in human history. The event lasted four hours. It was commencement and camp meeting and celebration all wrapped up together. More than half of the graduates were from the theological division of the university.
This university, under extremely primitive circumstances, is offering a quality education. I have prayed that someone in the Holston Conference will respond to the urgent need and give $1 million to move this university to a new campus. Will you pray with me for this crucial project?
The challenges in Liberia are overwhelming. It is an impossible situation. Too much needs to be done. Yet the people called Methodists convicted me with their hopefulness and optimism routed in Emmanuel. Methodists are strong in Liberia. They see with the eyes of God beyond their deteriorated city. Like Martin Luther King, they have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord and nothing will deter them.
Yes, my trip seemed to happen at the wrong time and in the wrong place this month. But despite that and in the midst of reason for hopelessness through God's magnificent providential grace I, too, saw a new "glory of the coming of the Lord." My soul is re-ignited with the passionate fires of Christ to bear witness to the Gospel.
Thanks be to God! Emmanuel! Emmanuel! Emmanuel! Amen. Amen.
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