The year was 1959. Mrs. Sewell, our 12th grade English teacher, assigned us an essay in which we were to discuss our ambition for our life. She then used this paper to select small mementos to present to each senior at the Junior/Senior banquet. I was given a toy shrunken head to indicate my interest in doing missionary work in Africa.

Forty six years later, June 1, 2005, 7:30 p.m. my KLM Royal Dutch Airline flight sat down in Accra, Ghana, West Africa.

Rudy Wray and I met in Detroit, MI. for the flight to Africa through Amsterdam. He had left Gresham, OR and I had left Houston, TX. Thirty hours after leaving my home our plane was met by Greg Larson and his wife and we were escorted to the Village of Hope compound about one and a half hours outside of Accra.

June is the beginning of winter and the rainy season in West Africa so the temperature seldom got above 95 º F. Still, with no air conditioning and high humidity, we were beginning to realize that we were not in Kansas anymore.

The Village of Hope is first and foremost an orphanage. However, as with all projects of the church in Africa, it is much more than that. There is also a large academic school that goes through high school and even includes a large computer lab. Students are brought to the school from all around the area in a modern school bus owned by the Village of Hope. The orphans who live on the compound make up about half of the total student body.

Two new cottages are opening this summer which will allow another 25 or so residents.

The Village also runs a medical clinic with its own diagnostic lab. The clinic draws patients from the surrounding community. They recently acquired a tractor which is hired out to local farmers when it is not needed by the compound. Greg maintains a library and a study room for local preachers to come to for preparation and encouragement.

Wednesday evening Greg treated us to a nice dinner served on an ocean-side gazebo at a hotel not far from the Village of Hope. One can actually see the ocean from the roof of the school building in the compound.

Thursday morning, June 2nd, Greg took us to the Liberian Refuge Camp to meet the brethren there. Even though the UN Peacekeepers have controlled the violence in Liberia for the time being, many of the refugees are in no hurry to return home. Some left for Liberia a few years ago only to have to flee again when the fragile peace did not hold.

In addition to a church building, the brethren have a couple of buildings for their academic school and there is a small building that the World Bible School and World English Institute share.

Life in the camp is very hard. It is crowded. Permanent employment of any kind is not available. Existence is primarily a matter of trading essential goods and services within the camp. Water is hauled in by large tank trucks and is very poor quality. Home, on the other hand, doesn’t offer much improvement. In the camp they have electricity and they are not dodging bullets.

Friday morning, June 3rd we got up at 3:00 a.m. to leave for the airport at 4:00 a.m. Our flight to Liberia was problematic from start to finish. We had tickets issued to us for a flight on a Paris owned airline operating out of the Ivory Coast. We learned just before we were to leave the USA that the flight had been discontinued. Our travel agent made reservations for us on a Nigerian airline but it was too late to get tickets issued. When we arrived in Accra the Nigerian airline was closed so we asked Greg to call them Thursday to confirm our reservations. He found out that they had our reservations but that they had cancelled them since no tickets had been issued. Greg asked them to reinstate them. We also learned that they do not take credit cards and that they would require $500 US cash from each of us for the short round-trip flight.

Even though we arrived early, Bellview made us wait until all ticked passengers were processed before they would sell us tickets. If the flight had been full, we would not have been allowed to go.

Our plane was a Boeing 737 that had seen lots of service. We loaded on the tarmac through the rear door since the front door would not open. Several of the seats in the area where we settled were broken. We were just hoping that they were more diligent in their engine maintenance and pilot training than they were in the cosmetic stuff.

And so we began our journey toward Liberia.