Tuesday 3/23
We received an early morning phone call from the Minister of Agriculture’s office that our letter would be ready by noon and we shouted together. The Honorable was leaving for his office and gave us a ride. We were a bit early but since the Ag office was on the way we stopped to check anyway. Charles Mclain, the Minister’s admin came out saying we were too early, so we promised to return. As we headed back to the waiting car, Tito arrived and shouted out that we should wait just a moment. He had brought the letter and the certificate of NGO Accreditation. This was more than we had hoped for and it happened right in front of Hon. Blamoh. He had not seen all of the Lord’s work with us, though I had preached in his church the first Sunday in March and God had greatly blessed. It was good to rejoice with him over answered prayer. His missions conference was to begin tomorrow, Wednesday, 3/23, with me preaching the opening night. He had asked us to focus on Mark 16:15 and we were ready.
Since we had received the documentation from the Ag Minister, we spent some time putting the finishing touches on the requirements for the Planning Ministry. We dropped it off early in hopes that they would go ahead and provide the certificate we needed, which they had promised weeks ago but when we arrived, their printer was down. We made arrangements for them to come by our office to print it thinking that would speed up their process. They did come by and print their certificate at our office a little later but still had to get the Minister’s signature and he was out of town. This was just a sample of the disorganized way government is set up.The various divisions of government appear to be working against each other. MOA certifies but Planning stalls and no one at MOH seems to know who approves NGO participation. We had been calling MOH daily trying to get their approval letter and Charlena, Dr. Gwenigale’s assistant, asked us to come by again early the next morning.