Seeding Africa

Subject: Seeding Africa Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:43 am

Dear UU Friends,

A fellow reader has, in David Zebedee fashion, taken on the monumental job of seeding this new revelation around the globe. He is Mark Bloomfield of the UK. He is just now finishing one leg of a seed tour in southern and eastern Africa. He plans next to seed in W Africa with English, Spanish and French versions, then Brazil with the Portuguese.

Mark travels and lodges in the least expensive and most efficient ways. He requests support from all interested readers. He is one of our field agents and sends periodic reports, the following is number sixteen. Reports 1-15 are available to anyone who wants copies. Contact me, and help him if you can with either books or expenses. How to do that is listed at the bottom of this post. Thanks for your time, attention and support.

Reflections Upon Emergent Occasions.
Africa Seeding Mission Update #16
Field Report from Mark Bloomfield

It's four o'clock on a cold frosty morning and this is the one you dread
getting out of bed for. We're in a cheap guest house in the guts of
Bloemfontein, South Africa and the taxi will be here in half an hour to take
us to the bus station in the wrong part of town. The one bus a day to
Maseru, capital of the tiny mountain nation of Lesotho in the middle of
South Africa is where we'll seed the last 24 books of the last southern
Africa shipment. Central Park bus station however, where I need to catch the
bus is the one place every white local I've asked about tells me to avoid at
all costs if I wish to live to a ripe old age, but my only alternatives,
taxi or flying are both outrageously expensive.

Peculiarly perched on the rooftop of a shopping mall, I wheezed my way up
the stairwell to the entrance, a box of books in each hand and my luggage
over my shoulder. There he was at the door. A great lumbering black guy
seemingly selling cigarettes.

Bidding the fine fellow the top of the morning, I enquired as to the
whereabouts of the Masero bound bus to which, as the perfect gent, he
ushered me to the appropriate bay while it occurred to me that should any
trouble arise, this guy would immediately spring to my aid. From sitting
duck to sitting pretty in ten seconds dead. But it didn't stop there. Though
as the only white in the whole neighbourhood, everyone else was equally
pleasant that morning as the bus made it's way through the outlying
townships towards the border.

Disembarking the bus at Maseru Bridge border crossing, one of the women bus
passengers who saw me struggling with the books towards immigration grabbed
one of the boxes, and balancing the fifth epochal revelation x 12 on her
head, followed me over the bridge into Lesotho. A share taxi was taken to
the Anglican church centre in the hope of accommodation but no room at the
inn, so instead to a small Christian outdoor leisure centre on the banks of
a large reservoir just out of town that was apparently funded by English
school children.

So then for four days of seeding, commencing with a visit to the U.S. Peace
Corps headquarters library, then the Assembly of God Bible College and a
memorable visit with a limbless woman at the Christian Council. My favourite
however was on day three when I walked straight into the House of Parliament
to find myself in the inner chamber suddenly surrounded by several
exceptionally large men in black overcoats and sunglasses, each with a funny
little wire sticking out of their left ear and whispering into their
sleeves. I've always wanted to ask one of those guys if they were born with
that bit of wire in their ear or whether it sprouted during a pubescent
growth spurt but never quite plucked up the courage to do so.

No matter. Five minutes after the book plus intro letter were spirited to
presumably either the president or king in the next room, word apparently
filtered back that the donation to their library had been accepted and that
by either presidential or royal decree, I would on this occasion be allowed
to live.

Visibly dejected, the terminators as if by shared consciousness
simultaneously lost interest in me which was my cue to scuttle away with a
sigh of relief.

A longish walk the next morning, bag on shoulder, took me from my room back
through town and out the other side to be re-stamped back into South Africa,
then on to an old mini bus, more rust than metal back to Bloemfontein.
Electing to take the overnight bus back to Pretoria so as to save on
accommodation, the next twelve hours were spent aimlessly killing time and
dosing myself up on coffee to the point that by the time the bus arrived, I
practically levitated on board.

With only one single empty page left in my passport a visit to the British
Embassy in Pretoria revealed that it would take an absurd 7 to 8 weeks for a
replacement which made me decide to bump my return flight back to Kampala,
Uganda to a few days hence so as to see if the embassy there could replace
it any quicker.

So back to Kampala with the $50 single entry visa issued upon arrival
filling my last passport page and the good news a day or two later that the
embassy there could issue me with a new one in just seven working days.
Though costing the equivalent of $250, much of that has since been recouped
by virtue of Uganda's lower cost of living compared to South Africa.

Meanwhile however, delays beyond my control have plagued the dispatch of the
400 English books from India that even when they finally get under way may
take up to 90 days to reach Ghana by sea. Though significantly cheaper, sea
freight can sometimes be a false economy if one isn't careful. Stranded in
Uganda as I am for the moment without enough funds for a one way ticket home
to England as I carry no credit or debit cards, the financial top up I need
to get home has apparently just now been sent by long suffering Tamara,
(a.k.a. Monneypenny) at the Urantia Foundation. When it arrives, I'll be on
the first cheap flight to London, the first time back in England in long
years so as to visit family and friends as well as to assess my situation.

What will try to be avoided during this interim period of waiting will be
any unnecessary dipping into already nearly exhausted seeding mission funds
so to that end, one of two things need to happen:

Either a shipment of French books can be airfreighted into West Africa soon
so as to get me started whilst the English books are in transit, or your
fieldworker needs to indulge in a little casual work in England so as to
offset his living expenses whilst waiting for the English books to make
Accra.

If no French books are forthcoming and your man in the field needs to
sustain himself for a few months on his own self-made funds, attention all
drivers in the obscenely expensive Kensington and Belgravia districts of
London:

You may, at a stop light see a tall, lanky, disinterested looking figure,
hands in pockets, waiting for the signal to turn red. Upon it doing so,
he'll pick out the poshest car in the pack, something perhaps in the
Bentley, Aston-Martin bracket, and just as dis- interestedly stroll up to
it. Working up a good mouthful of saliva, he'll spray such over the
windscreen in a single action, give it a single wipe with his right shirt
sleeve, then gesture with his left palm for a hefty tip.

If you happen to be driving such a vehicle in that kind of neighbourhood
yourself over the coming weeks and see such a figure, upon reflection, you
might do better to just hand him the tip beforehand, in which case he'll
simply stroll off muttering "Another happy customer" under his breath amid a
suppressed nasal snigger.

In search of the Father's will, Mark Philip Bloomfield.

***
[To help keep Mark supplied with books, please contact UF and earmark your
contribution for Mark's seeding tours. If you are interested in learning
Mark's system/method of seeding, he is seeking students, preferably stronger
readers who are passionate about dissemination, and who navigate the planet
well.

Urantia Foundation: 1-888-URANTIA (toll-free within the US and Canada)
+1-773-525-3319: (from outside the US and Canada) email:
urantia@urantia.org ]

Rick Warren rewar@swbell.net

Subject: Re: Seeding Africa Tue Jun 24, 2008 8:40 am

Hi rick,

Subject: Re: Seeding Africa Wed Jun 25, 2008 2:42 am

They can and do Claude,

But Mark wants to help Brazilian readers seed the revelation, just as you want to put bookmarks.

Happy holyday.

Subject: Re: Seeding Africa Wed Jun 25, 2008 4:17 pm

Thank you rick.

I know his joy because "it is more blessed to give than to receive."

Claude.