The first 2 weeks!

September 7, 2011

The first 2 weeks!

Wow, life in Sierra Leone has been an adventure already, and it has only been two weeks! My flight to Dulles was delayed due to bad weather on the east coast, which in turn made my teammates and me miss our connecting flight in Brussels. We were able to switch airlines, and after another stop in Morocco, we finally made it to Sierra Leone at 4 am on Tuesday morning. We originally were supposed to arrive in the afternoon on Monday, so we were quite late. But it turns out that all of the airline chaos was God’s way of providing for us because the Brussels flight that we had missed actually broke down and had to land in Gambia. Had we been on that flight, we may not have made it to Sierra Leone for days. Praise God for his provision, even when we had no idea what He was doing!
The first week was mainly orientation and introductions. First, let me tell you about the other interns. Jonathan is 25 and is from Tennessee. Brandon is 19 and is from Vancouver, Canada. Kristin is 26 and is from Alabama. We have already connected and seem to work together very well. Kristin is a wonderful girl, and I know that God has blessed me greatly by putting the two of us together on this trip. The Word Made Flesh staff members in Sierra Leone are also wonderful. Dan is our servant team leader, so we will be primarily working with him. The Caroline and Jan (pronounced yawn) Sassenberg are a German couple who have lived in Sierra Leone for 2 years. They have three precious children: Talita is a 6 year old girl, Alia is a 4 year old boy, and Noah is a 13 month old baby. The other staff members, Noah, Francis, and Alafia are Sierra Leonean men with hearts for serving the Lord by serving the poorest of the poor in Sierra Leone.
Kristin and I live with a Sierra Leonean family (the Taylors) in the middle of the second biggest market in Sierra Leone, called Congo Market. It is in the heart of the capital city, Freetown. Our bedroom is tiny with bunk beds and no furniture, but we have actually been living in it quite well together. Our room is on the second story, overlooking the market. During the day, the street is filled with many people, different meats, fruits, vegetables, cloths, and other odds and ends. It is incredibly noisy, which has proven to make sleep quite difficult at night. I would certainly appreciate prayer that God will miraculously help Kristin and myself to get restful and restorative sleep each night as we have both been having trouble sleeping the whole night through due to so much noise. They Taylor family is wonderful! They have been so gracious in helping us learn the ways of Sierra Leone. Ma Taylor cooks really, really good food too! Rice is a staple here, as is potato and cassava. Sierra Leone has one of the hottest peppers in the world, so the food here is very spicy! But Ma Taylor often cooks with less pepper for us Americans who have weak stomachs 🙂
The second week, we spent in a province about 2 hours away leading a camp for about 50 kids from the poorest areas of Freetown. The interns were in charge of leading the teambuilding time and the craft time. The days were full with team games, Bible teaching sessions, small group time, crafts, eating meals together, and various activities at night. We had a few dance parties and a talent show! The kids all spoke English, although some are very difficult to understand. I really enjoyed getting to know the kids (between the ages of 12 and 22.) It was an exhausting week, as most camp counselors can relate to, but God gave me strength every single day to have joy and patience as I interacted with the campers. One of the days, we went to a groundnut (kind of like peanut) farm and rooted peanuts, which the camp cook later washed and used to make groundnut stew (a sauce that is poured over rice). We also spent a few hours at a local hospital praying for the sick. It was a wonderful experience to be able to pray for those in the hospital and give them some hope. Many of them had malaria, many had been involved in motorcycle accidents, a few had skin graft complications, and some women had lost babies after unsuccessful c-sections.
This week is going to be a slower-paced week as we recuperate from the exhaustion of camp. We interns were able to go to a beach yesterday! It was not as well-kept and pretty as the tourist beaches that are farther away, but it was quiet and restful. I spent the day simply marveling at the greatness of God as I looked out over the ocean. The water temperature was perfect, so we played in the water too!
Learning the language, Krio, has been more difficult than I expected. It is basically broken English, but there are quite a few differences in grammar and sentence structure. Our family helps Kristin and me a lot though, and I hope that I will be able to speak it a little bit more as time goes on. Just to give you a small idea of what Krio sounds like, here is a sample sentence: a de go na mi os fo it chop (translation: I am going to my house to eat food).
The degree of complete poverty in this country is indescribable. Even the “rich” in the community are very poor. The population in Freetown is more than 50% of the population in the whole country. That is a whole lot of people jammed into a very small area of land. The civil war really did destroy the livelihood of an already poor country. People are trying to rebuild their lives, but it will take many years to actually accomplish that. Very few people I have met actually have what we would consider careers; most women sell in the market every day from 7 am to 7 pm. I honestly have no idea how they manage to live and feed their families off of the minimal amount of money they make. The city is the dirtiest and most impoverished city I have ever seen. Trash and sewage run down the roads to the bay nearby. Many people also live in slums near the bay, so the water they are using is very unsanitary. Despite the poverty, the people I have met are so proud to be from Sierra Leone, and live with joy despite their physical circumstances. I know that I have much to learn from them while I am here, and am going to try my best to keep an open heart and mind to any lessons God wants to teach me through the people in Sierra Leone.
My schedule for the month of September consists of work with the ministry for about 35 hours each week. We will be tutoring kids in Kroo Bay (the poorest slum in Freetown) three afternoons a week. I have no idea how structured the tutoring time is, but I am excited to use my abilities of teaching and explaining concepts to help these kids succeed in school so that they can get the scores to pass to the next level of schooling. We will also be helping with the Light House program, which is a Bible study for a select group of teenagers from the Kroo Bay and Freetown area. We will also be doing ministry in Kroo Bay through personal evangelism and building relationships as well as helping with the weekly Good News Club, which is a children’s church type of program that is every Saturday afternoon. There are about 150 children who attend, so it can be quite chaotic, but is such a good opportunity to reach out to kids who need to know how much Christ loves them. Finally, we will be having Krio lessons three days a week, so hopefully they will help us to be able to communicate more by the end of the month.
So far I think the biggest lesson I have learned is just how much I need Jesus every single hour. It has been a much bigger challenge moving here than I expected it to be. I expected to have a “honeymoon period” where I just loved everything about being here, but I honestly have not experienced that at all. I fully believe that this is where God wants me for the next four months, but it has already been much harder than I anticipated. I struggle with missing friends and family and my life back in America. I sometimes question if my being here will even make an impact at all. But every time I have those doubts, God reminds me that it is not about me at all. My being here is an opportunity to be used by God so that he can make his name famous in the country of Sierra Leone. God has been showing me that I cannot serve him on my own strength. I desperately need him every day to give me a Christlike attitude. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that I have had the strength every day to reach out to people and to begin investing in this community. Please pray that God will continue to humble me so that I may become less and he becomes greater in my life, my words, and my actions. I have been studying John 15 where Jesus talks about the vine and branches. Verse 4 says, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” Later, in verse 9, Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” What a great reminder that we must not only decide to believe in Christ, but we must also remain in him every day in order to bear fruit. I pray that we can all learn what it means to remain in the love of Christ.
Thanks for reading my lengthy blog post! I don’t know how often I will be able to update the blog, so the posts may come through rather infrequently, so please bear with me if they get really long. Words cannot express how much I appreciate your support and prayers as you partner with me in reaching out to the people of Sierra Leone! I miss you all and love you!

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