Who am I?

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Monrovia, Liberia
I live in Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa with my wife and youngest son. We are recently arrived in Liberia where we are serving as missionaries with Evangelical Church Missions working under the Liberia Evangelical Mission. For most of the last thirty years we have served under ECM in Bolivia, South America. We are the happy parents of four children and the proud grandparents of two grandchildren.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Big Bird Goes To Graduation








This last weekend (November 26-29) was the national congress of the Bolivian Evangelical Holiness Church, our denomination here in Bolivia. As usual, the missionaries were there to be a presence. The congress is when the business of the church is taken care of and church officers are elected. Also it includes an ordination service and the Bible School graduation.

James, Kevin and I arrived late at the graduation and so the first half of the event was over. They were getting ready to begin the actual graduation ceremony. Now Kevin was sort of dressed up as he was escorting one of the graduates down the isle. But James and I were far from our Sunday best. It was cold (all this took place in the Alto of La Paz) and since I am a cruzeño (Santa Cruz person) I was cold. I had on an old heavy coat and jeans. Under the coat I had a bright yellow and black fleece. Under that I had my shirt. Well, we were standing in the back when I heard, will Pastor Gordon please come to the platform. I thought, Oh no! I'm not in the program and I'm not dressed for this occasion. The people on the platform were all dressed in lovely suits. So there I sat on the platform looking more like Big Bird than a missionary.

Now Bolivian custom is to invite different people to hand the diplomas to the graduates. So, after a while when it was time to hand them out both Kevin and James were invited to join me on the platform. Now, as I said, Kevin didn't look too bad, but James wasn't much of an improvement over me. He had on jeans, tennis shoes and a Nike windbreaker. We were quite the contrast to the rest of the men. And then it seemed to me that I was invited to hand out more than my fair share of diplomas and have my picture taken with each graduate that I handed a diploma to. (Unfortunately I do not have a picture to show you.) Those poor graduates will forever be stuck with a graduation picture of them with Big Bird.

Now, you might ask, did I learn anything from this experience? Nope, except stay away from Bible Institute graduations.
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