Mission Trip Gearing Up For Departure

Welcome to our mission trip to Liberia, Africa. Please pray for me, David Burns, and the other men who are going: Gene Ethridge, Jeff Hashbarger, Josh Jenkins, Mike Jenkins and Casey Watts. Six of us are all set to head out to Liberia, Africa, three of us have been before. It will be the first time for Gene, Mike and Josh. We will be teaching, preaching and sharing Christ throughout the area, both in the city and in the interior.

The trip will be from March 25-April 5. This will be an exciting trip and we want to take you along with us through this blog. We intend to post video and audio files as well as give you daily updates on what the LORD is doing. We may be able to give more frequent updates. But if we cannot find adequate Internet, our updates may only be short blog posts.

A brief history of the country of Liberia, Africa as taken from the CIA's website (http://www.cia.gov/):

"Settlement of freed slaves from the US in what is today Liberia began in 1822; by 1847, the Americo-Liberians were able to establish a republic. William TUBMAN, president from 1944-71, did much to promote foreign investment and to bridge the economic, social, and political gaps between the descendents of the original settlers and the inhabitants of the interior. In 1980, a military coup led by Samuel DOE ushered in a decade of authoritarian rule. In December 1989, Charles TAYLOR launched a rebellion against DOE's regime that led to a prolonged civil war in which DOE himself was killed. A period of relative peace in 1997 allowed for elections that brought TAYLOR to power, but major fighting resumed in 2000. An August 2003, peace agreement ended the war and prompted the resignation of former president Charles TAYLOR, who faces war crimes charges in The Hague related to his involvement in Sierra Leone's civil war. After two years of rule by a transitional government, democratic elections in late 2005 brought President Ellen JOHNSON SIRLEAF to power. The UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) maintains a strong presence throughout the country, but the security situation is still fragile and the process of rebuilding the social and economic structure of this war-torn country will take many years."

Our first entry into the country was in November of 2005 during the first presidential election after the war, two years after a long 12 year, bloody civil war had ended. We stayed deep within the capital city of Liberia, Monrovia. Then, our mission was to preach, teach and start the support of an orphanage. That mission was accomplished. After seeing the plight of the children's orphanage, that's when the LORD spoke to our heart, moved us to sell our nearly 1 million dollar appraised church building and property, and devote ourselves to New Testament Christianity and practicing pure religion which is caring for the orphans and widows.

Since 2005, we have had several subsequent trips into Liberia to continue our outreach. This year, in just a few days, we are going back to dedicate the completion of the orphanage and to preach and share the love of Jesus.

All of us have lots to do before we leave next Tuesday. We are trying to get things caught up where we work, in our homes and buy the necessary items we'll need on the trip.

We have sent in all our paper work to the Liberian embassy and we are waiting to receive our visas. We hope to receive them before we leave :)

For now, please pray for our preparation, not just our physical preparations, but more importantly our Spiritual preparations.

We'll keep you posted!

David