Tuesday 21 May 2013, in memory of Saints Constantine & Helen. With the blessings and blessings of His Holiness Pope and Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria and All Africa, I arrived in Guinea after a 29-hour journey. At the airport I was greeted by members of the first Orthodox cells in the country.
Wednesday 22 May. With the car donated to us by the company Saracakis Bros., we set off by road to the town of Kindia, which is located in the mainland and 135 km from the capital city of Konakry. It took us more than 5 hours to travel this relatively short distance. On the way I was thirsty and asked for a stop to quench our thirst with a refreshment. There are no such things here, my fellow travellers told me. But how, I wondered, since all along the way I saw tables with bottles of familiar western soft drinks? No, Your Eminence, I was told, these are not soft drinks, they are petrol, here we buy it in bottles of soft drinks and beer, the richer ones in cans.
Thursday 23 May. Visit to the Technical School under construction in the town of Kindia. The Technical School will teach bakery courses and among the facilities it is planned to install a professional bakery so that apart from their practical training, the students will be able to bake bread for the benefit of the local community. We then visited local schools, where we distributed stationery and sweets to the children, which had been sent by container by the Limassol Co-operative Savings Bank. Wherever I walked I could hear people calling me ‘Fote’ especially the young children. I asked my companions what ‘Fote’ meant? ‘White’ they replied. You should know, Your Eminence, that the majority of people here have never seen a white person except on television, let alone walking among them. Friday 24 May. We visited the site where the 50-seat bus, which we purchased with a donation from the Orthodox Foreign Missionary Brotherhood, is parked, and I discussed with local officials the best ways the bus could serve the transportation needs of the local community. Remarkably, this is the first time such a bus will be operating not only in Kindia but also throughout Guinea. I then visited the three wells that are being drilled under the care of the Metropolis, so that 3 of the poorest districts of the city can have access to water. ‘Poorest’ is a figure of speech because 99% of the inhabitants live below the poverty line. Lucky are those who have one of their own people working abroad.
Saturday 25 May. I visited the local university. There I was able to discuss with the president of the students’ association their needs, which focused on the creation of a lending library and internet access, and I wondered how many books we throw away in the Western world and not even in the recycling bin. We offered stationery there too. Sunday 26 May. Mass in a private space provided by a catechumen family. Chanter, Neocoros, Diakos, Priest: one person. The catechumens are thirsty for religious books. Send us, Your Eminence, whatever you can. Monday, May 27th. Departure for Sierra Leone. In spite of the bad weather, the head of the mission in Sierra Leone, Mons. Archimandrite Themistocles Adamopoulos managed to arrive at the airport to greet me. Around midnight we managed to arrive at the Mission.
Tuesday 28 May. Accompanied by Fr. Themistocles and all the clergy, I visited the Missionary Centre of St. Moses of Ethiopia in Waterloo, which was inaugurated by the Patriarch of Alexandria, Mr. Theodore Theodore, the Patriarch of Alexandria, who opened it on 23 February 2012, and includes the Church of the Resurrection of the Lord, a Rectory, a Primary School, a Clinic, a workshop for the manufacture of artificial limbs for victims of the civil war and accommodation for children maimed by landmines. Inside the church, the children of the primary school sang and recited poems and then offered words of love and advice. I then laid the foundation stone for the construction of the High School. After noon I toured the Orthodox Pedagogical Academy, where I admired the work being done at the Academy, visited the classrooms, the rich library and the computer learning lab and had the opportunity to talk to the students and teachers. Late in the afternoon I presided at the Vespers service for the Feast of the Mid-Pentecost in the Church of Saints Constantine and Helen, which was erected next to the Orthodox Pedagogical Academy, and preached the Divine Word to the congregation, which was mostly made up of students of the Academy.
Feast of the Mid-Pentecost. We held a vigil at the Cathedral of St. Eleftherios & St. George in Freetown. During the Divine Liturgy I ordained Deacon Vaius Hancile as Elder, Deacon Aaron as Deacon, and ordained Fr. Eleftherios Edmonson as Protopresbyter, whom at the suggestion of Fr. Themistocles I appointed as Superintendent of the Cathedral. I preached the Divine Word, referring mostly to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross and at the end I congratulated Archimandrite Themistocles Adamopoulos for the multifaceted and God-given work he is doing under very difficult conditions in Sierra Leone and all those who contribute in various ways to the fruitfulness of the missionary work in the country, making special mention of the support (material, spiritual and moral) from the Orthodox Foreign Missionary Brotherhood. Wednesday 29 May. I celebrated the holy water for the beginning of the new quarter of the school year, attended by the teachers and the youth of the Orthodox schools (primary and secondary) located next to the Cathedral, which were inaugurated by Patriarch Theodore of Alexandria in February 2012. We then returned to the Mission Centre and I presided over the clergy gathering where I had the opportunity to meet with all the clergy, volunteers and mission staff and give them appropriate fatherly admonitions and discuss with them the various issues of concern. In the late afternoon I left for Senegal. Despite the adventurous journey, we arrived at the airport on time, bid farewell with emotion and spiritual jubilation, praising the Most Holy God for all that He has merited us to experience daily in our humble effort for the evangelization of our African brothers and sisters in West Africa.
+ George of Guinea
