The Calling Voice

home.

2010-06-18T09:01:00.005-04:00

an honest prayer
God, which way is home?
Pack my bag again and go
home is You in me

I am “home”. At least, I am back in America. And yet I’m not sure I know what it means to be home. I am reminded of this poem a friend wrote me years ago that resonates with me now more than ever.

As I walk through a park in D.C. I am struck by a deep sense of familiarity. Homeless men are sleeping under trees lying on a bed of newspaper and wrappers as people step over them without notice. A woman is selling African dress—the same styles and patterns I would have seen on the streets of Freetown. People are everywhere, the voices and noises of the city surrounding me like a patchwork blanket of life. I pause for a moment and close my eyes listening to the sounds of the street, feeling the hot sticky air, struck by the similarities to a whole different world I left behind. A horn blares and a man yells. I open my eyes again to a world of business suits and Blackberries, high heels and high rises. A man selling Street Sense approaches me and asks if I’d like to support the homeless as a woman with her Prada bag bumps me as she passes.

This is America. This is my home. A hodge-podge of cultures and lifestyles that mix and mingle as if in a dance. And it is beautiful. It is messy. It is chaos. But, it’s not so simple.

Sure maybe we drive in the right lanes and have organized, well stocked supermarkets. We have systems in place that claim safety and security, life and liberty—but many still fall through the cracks, slip outside the lines.

I feel the peace that I prayed to find back in America. Peace that I have a place here, a calling here, a purpose.

But then that peace was shattered.

I woke up this morning to an email. At 2pm yesterday, Hensley Wilson passed away from heart failure.

My heart too failed at that moment. Failed to take in the reality of what my eyes had read. Failed to trust in the faith that I know. Failed to believe it could be true.

Hensley is the Wilson’s only son. At 16 his smile brought hope for a future I often saw bleak. At 16 his life had just barely begun. But life in Africa is unmerciful, unforgiving. Taking bodies too soon from those who are left behind.

I am

angry.

frustrated.

deeply saddened.

unable to understand.

I want nothing more than to be there with Henrietta as she mourns the loss of her son. With Letty and Samretta as they cry tears for their brother. With Euphemia as she grows up without a big brother, unable to remember his face. I want nothing more than to hold them, cry with them, be home with them. But instead I am here. Thousands of miles away.

As I went running this morning, thoughts and emotions went senselessly running through my head. I wrote this in my frustration…

bleeding tears of Africa

what is this life
    that so easily falls away?
it ebbs & flows, and flows & ebbs
    but where does it go but spiraling down
losing grip on the life line, that runs dry too soon

if life can fall
    without permission, without consent
where does it land if we only see darkness of the place we have been?

there is a time, you say, a season for all
    to live and to die,
        to laugh and to cry
the cyclical rhythms of lifelines with nobody dancing
only marching the drudge of mourning existence

the sun rises and sets
hurries back to begin – but beginning of end is all in the same as tears of the weary,
torn part by injustice whose toil and trial bring forth absence of trusting

no respite, no answers, no breeze of reward
    for the work of one's hands becomes nothing to gain - all things are wearisome, more than can bear, in this life that can fall to the depths of what came

the wind blows to the south, the east and the west
    then turns to the north, only twirling and whirling back to begin
no avail to move forth beyond falling again

if we catch hope in the breeze, a breath of fresh life - then
    slipping and sliding through a fingerless grasp

Africa dies too soon.

…and yet, “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him”
Romans 8:28

I can’t deny the comfort in the promises our God offers. Henrietta often spoke of these promises. Her trust in our God and her faith in His will inspire me always. She had nothing, and yet she has everything. And now even more has been taken away. But I am comforted knowing that our God is by her side, when I cannot be. He is her rock, her strength, her comfort. Hensley is home with his Father. Released from the toil of trials of life in Africa. It is not for him I mourn, but for those he has left behind. On this earth we are not at home. Not in Africa, not in America. Henlsey is home. We are just here until our time comes to join him.

beauty.

2010-05-23T10:57:00.001-04:00

“…a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair…instead of shame my people will receive a double portion, instead of disgrace they will rejoice in their inheritance, their joy will be everlasting.” Isaiah 61:3

A child’s laugh, a child’s innocence, is the same in every language, in every country, in every culture.

I visited the WHI Assessment Center today. An “emergency room” of sorts for girls who have been brutally used and abused, now given the chance for healing and redemption. The AC provides physical and emotional care for girls rescued from commercial sexual exploitation or severe rape. It is a place where they are given love and attention and the chance to be a child again.

Every time I step through the gateway, I step into a child’s dream world. Girls running and jumping, swinging and sliding. Painted murals of children playing cover the security walls and brightly colored paper lanterns, made by the girls, hang from the rafters. There is so much joy, so much laughter; it is so hard to imagine what these precious little girls have been through.

The beauty of resilience. The beauty of God’s love. I see it and feel it in every part of me. Beauty springing up everywhere out of ashes, the oil of gladness running like a flowing river of laughter and tears, the garment of praise wrapped tightly around each housemother who opens her arms and welcomes these precious little ones as her own.

I am disgusted, angered, defeated as I write stories I wish didn’t match with the little faces I see outside. I am delighted, inspired, humbled to see the love and compassion and hope that flows through each of the housemothers, counselors and social workers who give themselves completely to be used by God in the lives of these girls.

It would be much easier for each of them to just give up, find other work. To not have to face the daily struggle to keep loving the broken and weary and not become broken and weary themselves. This work can leave you broken hearted, one of the staff said to me. And yet, she continued, I know God has plans for each one of them. God changes the bad to the good. It is the hope we have to hold on to. The hope and promise for all of us…

We will be His people, and He will be our God. He will wipe every tear from our eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order will pass away…He makes all things new! To him who is thirsty, He will give drink without cost from the spring of the water of life…and we will shine with the glory of God and with brilliance like that of a very precious jewel, clear and pure as crystal. Rev. 21

He has bestowed a crown of beauty on each of us with the promise to make all things new!

the view

2010-05-08T06:37:00.005-04:00

what is that?!? robin came to visit from Vietnam to help me explore the unidentifiables of Cambodia! (look closely...you won't be able to tell what it is either)

hmmmm...he fits right in

05.04.2010

2010-05-06T10:19:00.003-04:00

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
ee cummings

***

I close my eyes, I take a deep breath and hold the life-giving air in my lungs. The sweet air, fragrant with the scent of plumeria and mango. Breath. Life. Beauty. This most amazing day.

I am in awe of what I am celebrating. 24 years? How can I be this old, yet how can I not? When I allow my mind to wander over and through the adventures and experiences I have tasted, touched, felt, heard, stumbled upon, climbed up, fallen down, drank in, photographed, painted…breathed…I am in awe and in love with every moment. Every ‘no words can describe’ moment. Every ‘how did I even get here?’ moment. Every ‘oh Lord when will this end?’ moment. Every, ‘praise God for grace’ moment. Every ‘close my eyes, trust, and jump’ moment. (those are my favorites)

I am in awe of and in love with this journey. With every twist and every turn that has left me feeling dizzy and lost. With every face and every name that has written on my heart, held my hand, pushed me along. With every sweet miracle and every trying pause.

I have no idea what lies ahead. One month from today I will land on American soil. The land of the free. Home of the brave. One month from today I will be 24, broke and jobless on American soil with no future plans in sight.

But is the soil I will return to ground my feet will run and leap and dance freely on? Is the soil I will return to ground I will bravely and confidently walk toward my future on?

As much as I yearn for the sweet fellowship with my family and friends (and I do, I really do), I truly wonder if America can hold my future in her hands? Wonder if I can walk confidently and boldly in the freedom I have found from the binding, suffocating distractions of our culture. Wonder if I can love each person who walks into my life and love myself as I have learned to love outside her borders.

Yet all I have to do is look back through the pages and pages I fill with words that could never do justice to the experiences they describe and know, with everything within me, that just as He has provided and protected and led me these last 24 years – the next 24 will be no different.

I do thank God for most this amazing day.
For every imaginable, tangible, memorable, infinite gift – and every unimaginable, intangible, unforgettable, illimitably wonderful life and love and wings.

How can I even begin to imagine what comes next in this journey? The empty pages in this journal are just an invitation for God to keep writing.

today I ran with an elephant...welcome to Cambodia

2010-04-21T01:23:00.002-04:00

Yes, that's right.

I used to chuckle to myself when I would be out for my morning jog in Freetown and have to pause to share the road with goats or chickens who certainly believed they had the right-of-way. This morning, while out for my jog, I suddenly ran up alongside an elephant. Yes, a twice as tall as me, one foot could squash me like an ant, elephant. Needless to say, I let him have the right-of-way. I don’t think this is particularly normal in the hustling bustling city of Phnom Penh. But then again, how should I know normal? Welcome to Cambodia...

The city came alive today. Motos (motor bikes, the most common form of transportation) zooming in every direction regardless of lane, traffic sign or light. Cars, trucks, motos and tuktuks (a motor bike with a little cart attached to the back to carry passengers) fight for the road with bicycles and food carts selling everything from mangos to roasted corn, papaya salad to fried noodles. Shops and cafés are filled with people darting in and out and the air buzzes with sounds of life. The hustle and bustle of the city has awakened after a week of sleepy stillness when most left to go to their homeland, to their family who still live in the provinces, to celebrate the Khmer New Year.

The quiet, sacred, serene streets lined with little gold replicas of Buddhist temples wafting with sweet smells of incense and fruit became flooded with life. I spent my first week here in a still, surreal haze, perfect for exploring the city. Few stayed to celebrate on the lawns of the Royal Palace, dancing to music and indulging in sweet drinks, fruit and street food. The fountains danced with colored water shows in sync to music and children played traditional games cheered on by family and friends munching on corn, roasted or popped, from street vendors. The evenings were electric, while the days were quiet and still.

The sights, the sounds, the smells…everything is so different here, and yet there is a small sense of familiarity. Disorder and chaos seem welcome, linear and organized would be out of place. Busy markets selling anything and everything you need, streets lined with stands selling small sweets, drinks and even packets of Ovaltine, vendors making their way between the traffic, calling out to you to buy their brilliantly bright yellow mangos. There is something familiar, something welcoming about the seemingly similar chaos of these two completely different cities.

And yet, I am in a whole new world. A whole new creatively inspired work of art by our masterful Creator. An exquisite display of beauty and purity, to mask the brokenness of a poor and vulnerable nation, with a past as brutal as they come. There is a stunning respect for beauty in this culture, and an incredible ability to create it. Gold temples reach to the sky. Brilliantly colored flowers and brightly colored fruit line the streets. The exquisite art of silk weaving makes walking through the market like walking on a rainbow. And even the deep respect and sign of gratitude shown with every bow and formal greeting carries a sense of beauty and peace amidst the hustle and bustle of city life. The soft-spoken reverence of the Khmer people is as far from the loud, gregariousness of Sierra Leoneans as the countries are from each other. And even in speech, the Khmer language is as far from any sounds my mouth has tried to make or ears to understand.

As I closed my eyes in church, what my ears could not decipher, my heart knew tried and true. “How great is our God? Sing with me, how great is our God? And all will sing, how great, how great, is our God?” The voices sang words I could not understand. But my heart still stirred at the unfathomable question I knew the voices were asking. How great is our God? Hearing it sung by voices of a different tongue only greatens my wonder. How great is our God? How great is a God who speaks every language? Loves every nation? Died for every people? How great is a God who brings light out of darkness, joy out of mourning, comfort out of suffering? How great is a God who can bring redemption out of shame for the girls from a local after-care shelter who sit across from me? How great is a God who brings me to a new country, a new culture – where I know no one and nothing – and provides for me here, blesses me here? I may not understand it all, or any at all, but I know He is a Great, Great God who has met me here once again.

i wonder as i wander...

2010-04-17T02:32:00.003-04:00

(thoughts from London, April 8)

As I rise from the depth of the underground tube I can feel the burst of cold air against my skin. It is a stunning sensation that shocks my senses - the first of many. The air is cold, but the sky is clear. It is a beautiful crisp spring day in the hustling bustling city of London. The kind of day where cheeks glow red above scarfed necks and the warmth of breath can still faintly be seen in the air. The crisp air feels clean and fresh, my skin tight and dry.

The western world welcomes me in only the most appropriate way. At the top of the escalator, straight ahead, I am greeted by a Starbucks.

yes, I bought that sweater at "the junks" in Freetown for $2.50 (and it's lambswool) just for London ;)

As I sip my grande americano with half inch of steamed soy (certainly not words understood by Krio or English speakers from where I have just come) I watch as a busy world of order buzzes around me. Cars, buses, taxi cabs speed by on green, stop on red, and stay in their assigned lane with only the occasional beep of a horn. I feel as though I understand less in this world of order than in the beautiful, messy, chaos of Freetown. I just stand in wonder, not quite sure what to think, what to feel.

There are white people everywhere. The latest styles and fashions displayed on walking mannequins, straightened hair framing made-up faces. Everyone with somewhere to go, somewhere to be, bags in hand labeled with names and brands - some I recognize but had forgotten, some I don't.

No one stares at me. No one calls out to me. No one takes notice of me at all. For the last seven months I've been the center of attention...now I'm nobody.

I wander for a bit. I sit in a park where a crowd has gathered around street performers. I walk though an outdoor art market and buy some crisp fresh pears at a farmers market stall. I eat a measly little bowl of minestrone soup and foccacia bread that probably cost the equivalent of eight to ten heaping plates of rice and sauce. Yet it warms me from the inside out. I see a stunning performance of Billy Elliot, front row for half price. It is a beautiful day and I spend it doing all the things I love.

But how? How do I love this day and love yesterday when they don't even resemble the same planet? How do I not feel like I'm being selfish and overly indulgent? And what do I do if I am? It was only yesterday I held little Euphemia in my arms, kissed little Letty on the head, hugged Samretta and Henrietta with tears in my eyes, waved good-bye to my wonderful housemates on the platform as the water taxi took me speeding away. Only yesterday? Today is a different life, a different world. And tomorrow will be a different place, a different day, yet again.

The Freedom I Found in Freetown

2010-04-12T08:28:00.004-04:00

(journal excerpt from April 7)

As we bounce and skid across the water, getting splashed by the cool spray of the bay that has been the backdrop of my life these last seven months, I can still see the lingering faces of those who have been in the forefront of my life—the landscape and the people who make up the wonderfully colorful painting of the freedom I found in Freetown. Faces of those I have lived with and learned from, gained wisdom and given support. Faces of those I have loved more deeply than I knew possible in seven short months. And faces of those I will never forget. I bump and bounce to a rhythm I reckon I will never quite dance to again and deep feeling of peace drowns out the techno/reggae music blaring from the speakers on the water taxi taking me across to the Lungi peninsula where the airport will beckon my final departure.

I take a deep breath of the cool salty sea air. The last week has been a blur. A blur of moments I wished would stand still, yet moments of great celebration and closure. Celebrations of Easter, good-byes and farewells blessed me with joy in celebrating this season of life, which has undoubtedly seasoned my life forever.

The beginning of the coming end started when Gwen and I celebrated the Messianic Passover with about forty people from our neighborhood and church. As a symbol of closure for Jesus and His disciples and preparation for what would come, I felt the night offering me a similar experience. As I knelt on the hard ground, my knees aching from the rough surface, I washed the feet of those who have served me, expressing my appreciation in a way I could never express in words. Mohammed, our day guard, whose faithfulness and steadfast smile brightens my day each morning, welcomes me home each afternoon and cares for and protects the place I’ve come to call home. Abraham, Abubakar and Desmond, the night guards, who diligently deny sleep, so I can sleep soundly each night. Marie, who tirelessly keeps our lives in order, clean and prepared, without ever a hint of resentment. Their feet are tough and calloused by the realities of their lives. Deeply marked by the strain of the load they must bear. The soap and water mean little, but I pray the act spoke louder than words ever could.

I shared my meal that night with the family that has become my own. The Wilson pikin have taken me in as aunty, Henrietta has taken me in as sister. We share in the bitter herbs of Israel’s enslavement and the sweet honey of God’s saving power. We drink together from the cup of sorrow and the cup of joy – cups we all taste in life in one time or another, although they look drastically different. We drink together from the cup offered to us by our Lord as the promises of eternal life, eternal togetherness. I felt the relief of knowing that life is bitter and sweet, sorrowful and joyful – yet always full of promises. I still don’t know why these with whom I eat and drink live a life so much more difficult than my own. Why I have dreams and opportunities that will be realized? Why I have comforts and assurances that I can always fall back on? I am leaving this place for another chapter, another experience, another opportunity - while the hardships, challenges and strains of this life are their reality. Yet although I don’t understand it, I know the promises are the same for us all. We are all equal and precious and cherished in His eyes.

Sometimes I feel guilty or shameful for even saying that. The weight of what I have weighs me down, the unanswered questions of why pull me farther and farther away from the assurance of that promise. The heavy questions that are strung together like heavy beads on a frail chain that I anticipated from the first day I arrived. Beads that are so old, their origin is unknown and their answers never to be found. Beads that are a nuisance because of the weight that they carry. But then I am reminded that from what I have, I am able to give. As the weekend unfolded, the beads were lifted from around my neck. They are still just as heavy, just maybe not my burden to always bear.

Saturday was filled with the sweet sounds of songs and laughter of all my pikin! We had an Easter celebration and farewell to Aunty Crissa party for Pikin Club. Between songs and games and dying Easter eggs each pikin drew a picture for me which I have bound in a book and bound in my heart. Their proud faces as they each presented me with their picture are burned into my heart and memory forever. Sunday brought a celebration of Christ’s resurrection set to the tune of Krio worship I pray will continue to ring in my ears. An evening of fellowship with the international community who have brought me such wisdom, such friendship, ended the perfect weekend of celebration with all I’ve held dear. And just prior to departure, I received the gift of recognition for all I have done and all I have been on a team fighting the evil of modern day slavery in this country. Recognition of the encouragement and inspiration I was able to bring and the capacity I was able to build.

Pikin Club Farewell Party!

last day at church with all my pikin!

our walk home from church

my wonderful Scan Drive housemates!

So instead of feeling guilt and shame for what I may have that others lack, I hope and pray I have loved everyone in my path in ways I could only love because of all I have been given. I live and love out of the overflow and abundance of the life and love I have received. While the questions are not answered, learning to love lifts the burden. And it is by learning to love that I have found Freedom in Freetown. A freedom that is now letting me go.

It rained last night. I mean really rained. It rained like it did when I first arrived. With the roar of thunder, the roar of the lion, Sierra Leone, who welcomed me to this country and is now bidding me farewell.

My prayer was that God would bring me to a place of peace in this transition, and that He has. As I skid across the water, getting farther and farther from my beloved Freetown, I still see the lingering faces of those I have loved. The faces of those I hugged and waved good-bye, of my incredible housemates Heleen, Roz, Ashton, Gwen and Janet – who taught me things they thought I should know about life in Africa and gave me wisdom they may not have even known they have. And the tears I wiped away from the cheeks of the Wilson girls, who taught me that love can transcend cultures and understanding runs deeper than the surface of our realities. The sights and sounds, the names and faces of this country are an array of color splashed in simple, beautiful, messy, chaos across a page of my life that I will cherish forever. A page of my life that will color every page hereafter.

how did I ever say goodbye?

through my eyes

2010-03-26T18:05:00.002-04:00

As I prepare to find closure in the midst of a dream I don't want to wake from, I often find myself just closing my eyes and reliving the moments, the memories, the sights and the sounds of these past months.

Join me on my journey through my eyes. Nicole Chin just did an incredible job posting some of the images I will take with me forever from this beautiful country and beautiful people on my website www.thecallingvoice.com (you can also read a few of the stories I have writen.) Enjoy!

His daughters

2010-03-09T09:42:00.000-05:00

"My daughter,

You may not know me, but I know everything about you. I know when you sit down and when you rise up, I am familiar with all your ways. Even the very hairs on your head are numbered. For you were made in my image.

In me you live and move and have your being. For you are my offspring. I knew you even before you were conceived. I chose you when I planned creation. You were not a mistake, for all your days are written in my book…

My thoughts toward you are countless as the sand on the seashore. And I rejoice over you with singing. I will never stop doing good for you. For you are my treasured possession.

I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul. And I want to show you great and marvelous things. If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me. Delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart. For it is I who gave you those desires."

As I sit on the floor reading these words to the girls who surround me I can’t help but pause for a moment, close my eyes, and let the words speak to my soul too. Words of truth that we rarely hear amidst the voices that tell us different.

"I am your greatest encourager, and also the Father who comforts you in all your troubles. When you are brokenhearted, I am close to you. As a shepherd carries a lamb, I have carried you close to my heart. One day I will wipe away every tear from your eyes. And I’ll take away all the pain you have suffered on this earth..."

I look up and into the eyes of each of the girls. Five of them surround me - Samretta, Salimatu, Mariama, Adama and Debie. They all turn away when my eye catches theirs. But they don’t giggle as they often do when you ask them something about themselves. They hear it, I can see it in their faces.

Heleen and I have invited the older girls in the neighborhood to come each Saturday for an afternoon of discovering the beauty in which we were each created as special and unique women and then using painting or drawing to reflect it. These young women are all between 13 and 17 and have already lost any childhood innocence they once had.

Women in this society are good for two things. To cook and have babies. While the culture and society is progressing towards women’s rights and equality the message is still so clear, so bleak. It can be seen in the number of young, husbandless girls pregnant with their second or third baby. It can be seen in the emotionless face, straining to carry a large load on her head up our steep hill, a baby on her back, calling out the food she’s trying to sell for mere pennies. It can be seen in the way these girls turn away and giggle nervously when asked anything about themselves. Life as a women is hard in this country. To live up to the roles you are forced to keep. Your value based on how well you can fulfill these roles in one of the most difficult economic environments in the world.

But today these girls heard a different message. One of the beauty in which they hold. We had them stand in front of a mirror and then paint self-portraits. It is incredible. They love it.

We plan to do little art projects each week and put them together into a book the girls can keep. A treasure they can hold on to, to help remember the sparkle they are in their Father’s eye.

Please help me pray for these young women. That they would truly know their worth – not defined by this world but by their Father in heaven. That they would gain new revelation of how they deserve to be treated and hold tight to this not allowing anyone to compromise them. And that they would gain a deeper understanding of how beautiful and loved they are and learn to love and value themselves.

Salimatu, Marie, Samaretta, Adama

bitter goodbyes, sweet hellos

2010-02-26T18:13:00.001-05:00

I have some exciting news to share--news that makes me anxious with anticipation of new dreams and adventures while at the same time brings me steps closer to the dreaded day of my departure from Sweet Salone.

I have been given the opportunity to go to Cambodia to work with the WHI anti-trafficking program. World Hope runs an aftercare home for girls rescued from sex trafficking and prostitution. I have been asked to do work very similar to what I have been doing here, writing stories of survivors, the work of WHI and to assist with other communications needs. This is an incredible opportunity and encouragement for me in the work I've been doing.

I have always wanted to see this part of the world and since my passion and work in anti-trafficking, I have desired to go to Cambodia and directly support the work being done to fight this atrocious bondage so many are forced to live in.

So, I jumped at the opportunity - with only one reservation. We have decided my time will be most fruitful if I have adequate time to get aquanted and adjusted. I've been asked to go at the begining of April so I will have at least two months before I need to be back in DC for my dear Betsy and Isaiah's wedding at the beginning of June. This leaves me only one month more in SL.

I am truly experiencing the definition of mixed feelings. Part of my heart is ecstatic at the thought of all I will see and do and live and learn in Cambodia - while instantaneously my heart sinks at the thought of having only five short, short weeks left in this country I have grown to love.

I also know this will be a drastic transition. I will certainly not have time to adequately process all of SL before jumping into Cambodia. The cultural transition as well as the work will be more than I could ever anticipate.

So I ask for your prayers. Prayers for peace and not anxiety. Prayers for time to slow down and not speed up in frenzy. Prayers for divine understanding and transition.

Tanki, tanki, tanki! I am so thankful for all the love and support I feel everyday. I truly feel your prayers and rely on them.

Here's a little overview of prayer request:
-Prayer for peaceful closure for my time left in SL, that I would be able to accomplish all my work and spend adequate time with those I have created relationships with
-Prayer for a smooth transition and the ability to process one experience while jumping into the next
-Prayer for additional funding for Cambodia

a rhythm of life

2010-02-19T11:09:00.001-05:00

Pound, pound, pound, pound, pound…the rhythm continues throughout the day. At times I notice it, but often I don’t. Pound, pound, pound, pound, pound. Even when I hear it, do I really know what it means? The sweat and effort that goes into every pound. The backbreaking pain of every pound. The never-ending rhythm, hour after hour, day after day--the never-ending pile of stone she is pounding into tiny fragments of gravel. Even when I hear it, do I really know what it means? No. It is but another sound of life. Another desperate attempt to make a little money. At least enough to feed mouths. Pound, pound, pound, pound, pound.

the sounds of sadness

2010-02-14T03:21:00.003-05:00

As the coffin dropped into the ground, a slow deep wail filled the silent air as if a swirling wind had brought it up from the grave. A moan that could be felt stirring deep down in my soul. The sound of mourning. I look out across the graveyard built on the slope of Freetown’s hillside in Wilberforce, named for the man who fought to bring Africa back her people, freed, as the mass of people, all dressed in their finest white, surrounding the hole that was now being filled in with earth begin to disperse, making their way down between the grave sites. The reality of life and death in this country is as fluid as the people walking among the headstones. In a country where the life expectancy is only 41 years (risen from the lowest in the world in the last three short years) the leading causes of death are from easily preventable and treatable conditions, Anthony Jr. didn’t even make it to the cut off point. At 38 years he left this world with the gift of two beautiful young boys (2 years and 5 months) and a beautiful young wife (only 21 years) who now must battle the hardships of living in one of the poorest countries in the world, alone.

Anthony Jr. was one of our night guards. He would stay awake all night to ensure I got to sleep without worry, without fear. He was quiet and soft-spoken, with a youthful face and timid smile. He would bundle up each night as if snow was in the forecast and I would greet him each morning in my athletic gear and tank top to go out for a run, he in his zipped jacket, stocking cap, gardening gloves and socks pulled up over the bottom of his trousers. This is the image I will hold in my heart of Jr. and a smile will always spread across my lips.

Janet and I trekked across a deep crevasse littered with makeshift homes of corrugated iron dodging the children running and playing football or fetching water. We slipped and slid down one side and up the other to greet Jr.’s wife and mother only a few days after he passed. Osha, osha. The krio word for I am sorry. What else is there to say? We sit for a while, in silence. I smile at little Anthony, Jr’s namesake, and make a face that makes him laugh. Janet discusses the best way we can support them and then we make the trek back - leaving a woman with sorrow and fear engraved deep into her eyes as she anticipates a life she does not know how to live. With a baby at her breast and a child on her hip, her deeply furrowed brow makes her look years beyond her age. Her mother-in-law offering what little comfort she can amidst her own grieving until she must go back to her village to attend to her other children.

At only 38, Jr. complained of intense stomach pain one day while at our compound and Janet took him to the hospital. Emergency surgery for a ruptured intestine was determined his need.

Yet while emergency surgery translates to hope in our language – the connotation reflects a fearful unknown in this one. Emergency surgery itself could easily kill him. Recovery in an inadequately cleaned facility could kill him as well. The risk of surgery practically equals the risk without.

No one is sure why he died. No autopsy will be done, no information from the doctor disclosed. But that is the way most pass here. No one knows for certain the cause.

But while death is far too frequent, it doesn’t make the mourning easier to bear, it doesn’t change the hardship for those left behind.

The service was beautiful. His image preserved in pure, loving memories. His creator praised in pure, loving choruses. The words said, the hymns sung, carried him to the site on the hillside—enshroud in a white cloud of those who loved him—to where he will lay, looking out over his city, his family, forever.

bearing the stain

2010-01-27T08:41:00.006-05:00

As he appeared in the doorway, we both looked up. Her body stiffened. She stopped coloring in the flower, heart and star I had drawn on her paper. The man in the red cap. The man who is the reason we are sitting here in court today. The man who did an unimaginably terrible thing to this little five-year-old girl sitting beside me.

He appeared in the doorway, looked at me, and then turned around and walked out.

Little Letty didn’t go back to her drawing. She didn’t say anything or even turn to look at me. She stared straight ahead, her eyes starting to water.

I leaned down and whispered in her ear. Should we sing the song again? She nodded almost unnoticeably. “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong…” Her eyes don’t move, but she doesn’t start to cry. Soon enough we are back to coloring.

"A wan go na os," she says in a little squeaky voice.

I can't imagine what this would feel like to her. Five-years-old. Sitting in a big court room, with big people in uniforms walking in and out, just waiting. I would want to go home too. We talked about how when the big man comes she needs to tell him what happened and then she can go home. But not really go home. Not go home to the way things were before she was raped.

Letty no longer lives at home with her mother and father. The man who raped her lives next door. Her father decided it best for her to live with her Grandmother on the other side of town. Away from the man in the red cap. Away from the scene where it happened.

He says he wants to move the family to another community, so she won't have to bear the “stain” of shame from what happened. Her bear the stain?!?

But the family doesn’t have the money to move and he has a reliable job working security nearby—alongside the man in the red cap, the man who traumatically violated his daughter and stole her innocence. But a job is a job.

The presiding Magistrate agreed to allow Letty to give her testimony first thing in the morning, 10 a.m. It was now 12:30 and he still hadn’t come. Finally around one o’clock he arrives. We all stand, the perpetrator takes his place in the front of the room, and with no reason given the Magistrate adjourns the trial until tomorrow. 11 a.m. sharp.

Surprised? No. Frustrated? Yes. Little Letty will once again have to wait in a big, scary courtroom anticipating having to relive what happened to her.

But to my surprise, her eyes light up and a smile brightens her beautiful little face when she sees me from across the crowd the next morning. When we sit down to wait - an ambiguously indefinite length of time - for the Magistrate to arrive, she begins to talk in her little squeaky voice, although today, a little bit louder. I give her a sparkly heart sticker and she is instantly captivated.

When the Magistrate finally entered, we all stand. He orders everyone out of the room except the police prosecutors, the perpetrator, Letty, her mother, and me. He asks Letty to take her place on the witness stand. When he realizes he won’t be able to see her over the railing, he allows her to stand on a bench near by.

He begins with questions she can easily answer. What is her name? Where does she live? Where does she attend school? She is answering, although quietly, but it's more than she was able to do the last time in court. Baby Love is the last witness to testify in the trial. She was unable to speak without crying the past four times the case had been called to court.

Earlier this week she came to the office and Mameh, the FAAST rapid response officer, and I talked to her about how important it is for her to be brave and talk to the big man about what happened. She sat on the couch fidgeting with her fingernails, her mouth moving but no audible sound coming out. But today is different. Today little Letty is being so brave.

She is ashamed, her father had said at the office. At five-years-old, she already knows the stain she will bear in this community for the rest of her life. The stain she will bear because of a man’s desire to overpower a little child by taking away her innocence. Letty was brutally raped by a neighbor man whom her father worked with. Although the man was arrested, he has been released on bail and continues to blatantly provoke the family. Her father determined it would be best for little Letty to live with her grandmother to avoid facing her abuser.

As soon as this is all over I want to move from this place, her father said. I don’t want her to have to bear the stain.

Bear the stain? Letty bear the stain? The stigma resulting from rape rests in all the wrong places. Little girls feeling shame for the abuse they are forced to suffer. It disgusts me, yet it is why FAAST is here.

Not only do these little girls need someone to sit with them, sing with them, love them and tell them of their worth – but the communities need to understand it too. The communities need to understand the worth of a child, of a young woman. The beauty they possess and the vulnerability they exude. Only through education and sensitization can the understanding and mentality toward trafficking, rape and abuse become that of protection, prevention and redemption.

That is why it was so important for little Letty to stand on the bench that day and relive a traumatic past. So everyone will know she is not to blame. So the man in the red cap will understand there are consequence for his actions. And I waited with her for hours in that crowded, stifling hot courthouse so Letty would know she is precious and beautiful and worth it.

the power of a story...

2010-01-21T09:50:00.003-05:00

(written for the WHI anti-trafficking blog)

There are stories all around us. We each have a story. Stories of life, experience, joy, love, turmoil, hardship…lessons learned, lessons to be learned. We live our stories and we share our stories.

Stories are incredibly powerful. Through a story we see into a life that is not our own. We can experience things beyond the boundaries of our own world, peering for a moment into the vast world of another person, another time, another place.

I have discovered the powerful gift of writing God has given me. The opportunity to unveil realities of this world to those who would otherwise not know or see. To take people to experience another world, beyond their own.

It is easy to live in the context of our own stories. To get caught up in realities of our present condition, present situation. It is easy, especially for us in the West, to lose sight of the stories that compel us to follow Jesus’ teaching to love and care for the least, for the poor, for the widows and the orphans. Number and statistics can be compelling, but also pushed out of sight and out of mind, our attention changed as easily as the channel on the TV. But a voice, a story, is hard to ignore. It is an invitation to imagine, just for a moment, what it would be like to walk in another’s shoes, to live another’s story.

***

I have been living in Freetown, Sierra Leone as a Hope Corp volunteer Field Writer for WHI anti-trafficking program Faith Alliance Against Slavery and Trafficking. My job is to write the stories of trafficking survivors. I often tell people I have the best job, because amidst the dark evil of modern day slavery that still exists and enslaves hundreds of thousands throughout the world, I get to tell the story of hope. The story of freedom. The story of beauty in the resilience of humanity.

I have been here in Sierra Leone for over four months now. I have written stories that make me cry, and stories that make me laugh – I have met children who have experienced more injustice, exploitation and horrors in their short lives than I can even imagine – yet I have seen them smile, as a child should, and it is in this smile that I am reminded of why I am here. I want the world to see this smile. To experience, if just for a moment, the joy and peace and freedom of a child who has been redeemed.

At the beginning of December I led a training workshop with the FAAST staff on story and report writing. Earlier, in November, I traveled to Makeni to lead a training on story writing with the WHI staff there as well. I have loved these opportunities to teach for it is in these moments that I get to share my heart, my passion, my love for writing the story.

For the staff, it is about the chance to take a moment and reflect on the reason we do the work we do. The story of the face behind all the hard work, the long hours, the frustrating challenges. The story of the one. The one reason we believe that little by little this work is changing lives. And if I can teach and empower them to write these stories, I truly believe it will not only give others around the world a glimpse of why prayer, emotional and financial support is extremely necessary for more of these stories to be written, but I believe it will also give my colleagues a chance to realize the power behind what they do. The smiles that are renewed because God has placed them here to do His work.

I believe God has given me a powerful tool in the gift of writing. But as with all of His gifts, the true power comes from taking the opportunity to share them. I hope and pray that when my time comes to leave this place, I will leave more than a few stories I have written. I hope and pray I will leave knowing that the stories will continue – continue to be lived, and continue to be written.

tis a season to remember...

2010-01-12T18:33:00.002-05:00

Oh, mi belle full! As I lean back in my plastic lawn chair looking out at the breathtaking view of Man of War Bay from the ledge of an unfinished concrete building the Wilson’s call home, I bask in the warmth and joy of a perfect day. It is Christmas Eve, and I cannot think of a better way to be spending it.

After taking a refreshing swim in the ocean this morning, wondering to myself if there is anywhere else in the world as beautiful as this, the Wilson girls, Letty and Samarata, come to collect me. I’m already hungry for lunch and so looking forward to the groundnut stew we are about to make.

I have become especially close to the Wilson family. They live near my house and the whole family attends the church I do. The two girls, Samarata (13) and Letty (10) are my favorite neighborhood kids (don’t tell), Hensley (15) is a smart boy with potential and promise, and little Gwendolyn Hanna Euphemia (we typically use any one of her three names) is the sweetest little thing…who is immediately handed over to me, any moment I am within arms reach.

We arrive at their home, an unfinished cement structure where the Wilson’s occupy two small rooms. We enter through a door leaning against the door frame without any sign of hinges, with all the necessary ingredients for delicious groundnut soup, one of my favorite Sierra Leonean dishes. Henrietta appears from outside on the veranda, a thin ledge along the side of the building facing the water, through the brightly colored gara cloth hung in the doorway that splashed a pink and green glow throughout the tiny dark room. She immediately ushers us outside in a haste that may have been motivated by her seemingly embarrassed demeanor toward their home or maybe just the beauty of the view from the hillside.

We spread out the food on an old wooden table outside being held up by a crate on one end. The fresh vegetables that are laid out in front of us are much more than the average person would ever get to use for cooking one meal. It’s good to be reminded in moments like these of how much I take the food I eat for granted and treat as so disposable. When I asked Henrietta to teach me to cook we both agreed groundnut soup would not only be the easiest but it is also one of my favorites. I like it with bocu vegetables and chicken—so I supplied all the goods!

We first boiled water in a big coal pot. All Sierra Leoneans use coal to cook, even Marie our house help, although we have a gas stove. We add the groundnut paste and allow it to bubble and boil. Groundnuts (peanuts) are a major crop grown in Sierra Leone and you can see them everywhere piled high on plastic trays a top women and children’s heads selling them boiled and in the shell or raw and already shelled. Groundnut soup is made out of groundnuts ground into a paste — peanut butter — which you can watch them make at any market. Unfortunately, based on the cleanliness of the grinding machines and the markets I wouldn’t recommend spreading it on your toast.

The girls make sure I take part in all of the cooking. From pounding the pepe (peppers which Sierra Leoneans LOVE and thankfully they appropriately reduced) in a wooded mortar, to chopping each of the vegetables, not on a cutting board but directly into the now rapidly boiling groundnut paste. We add garlic, spring onions, carrots, green beans, eggplant and lots of salt. As it boils, the soup gets thicker and thicker and smells of the rich aroma of nutty garlic. We cook the rice in another coal pot—no measuring cups, no recipes, no timers. It’s amazing to watch. As if they are just born knowing how much and for how long.

It has become an all-afternoon endeavor and by this time I am starving. When the rice is finished and the soup has been tasted and approved we fill a huge bowl with rice and pour the soup over. It is normal for everyone to eat out of the same dish…with your hands. Today we used spoons, a gesture made just for my sake. It was the best Sierra Leonean food I’ve had since I’ve been here! And the company made it so much better.

mmmm...groundnut stew!

This family has become my own. I’ve laughed with them, cried with them, prayed with them. Taught them things and learned so much from them, far more than just how to cook. Sitting there, at their own home, eating together, laughing together, holding baby Gwendolyn Hanna Euphemia I am completely taken back by how much I have come to love them, despite the short time I’ve known them and the worlds apart that we live. But there is something in Henrietta, an understanding I don’t feel with other women here. I feel truly loved by her, not just for what the color of my skin might promise, but as a sister.

***

In many ways it is still so hard to return back to my compound, filled with electricity, fans, running water, a full refrigerator. To snuggle up on the couch in the soft glow of the Christmas lights sharing Dutch chocolates while sipping tea and watching the Nativity Story with my housemates. It’s hard to know that most of the people around me will go to bed tonight without so many of the necessities I have, the traditions of this time of year I enjoy.

But on Christmas morning, as we gather together in our little unfinished church home, filling the air with dissonant, off key carols, I feel so much joy that God would merge my world with this one.

Letty, Samarata, Hendry and me with baby Gwendolyn Hanna at church on xmas morning

Christmas evening was a whirlwind of old traditions with new friends! The expat international bible study group met together for a potluck dinner. It was so fun to watch Remi, Saidu, Mohammad and Maka (four Sierra Leonean boys who live part-time with friends of mine in expat community) decorate a Christmas tree for the first time, to see the closest thing they’ve seen to snow from a “just add water” kit, to exchange white elephant gifts and see Maka’s determination to keep the huge plush towel probably meant as a gag gift. It was a Christmas of good friends, without all the excess (although we certainly had plenty of food). It was a Christmas of singing carols and taking time to truly reflect on what they mean, what it means for Christ to enter this world as a baby, lying in a poor and feeble manger...yet as the King who came to teach us how to love.

me and Remy at Christmas dinner

It was a Christmas that warmed my heart to the most important things this time of year and how God is letting me discover how truly blessed I am. Blessed by my Sierra Leonean family, who are teaching me more about this country and this culture than I knew I had to learn. Blessed by the chance to share my own traditions—tortilla soup with my housemates, coke floats for the FAAST staff, decorating Christmas trees with twinkling lights and shiny ornaments. Blessed by new friends who share in the desire and struggle to figure out how to balance the abundance we have with the lack we are surrounded by and give of the love we have to give.

***

We rang in 2010 with praises to God for another year of life given. It is common for Sierra Leonean Christians to go to a Watch Night service on New Years Eve. To count down to the New Year in fellowship and praise. I’ve never gone to church on New Years, but I don’t know why we don’t. It was a wonderful way to thank God for 2009, for the endurance and the strength, the providence and the blessing of one more year of life. And to praise Him for what is to come!

The streets were filled with crowds singing and clapping as we made our way home. We filled the air with sparkles and light, laughter and smiles – to put the finishing touch on 2009 and give a hearty welcome to 2010! Happy New Year!

Twas truly a season to remember…

what a celebration!

2009-12-22T18:21:00.001-05:00

I can still hear the laughter ringing in my ears! Over 40 pikin running around our compound decorating Christmas cookies (aka dousing the cookie and themselves with red, green and white frosting) for the first time in their lives, making glittery shining stars and dancing to corny renditions of jingle bells and winter wonderland!

Sunday was our Pikin Club Xmas Party!

The kids crafts began in the afternoon. A frenzy of frosting and glitter flying everywhere! I made the cookies with some of the older kids the day before. It was a project they looked at me like I was crazy when trying to explain…although it didn’t take long to win them over! The kids also decorated paper stars with glitter glue to create our night sky backdrop for the program.

making cookies!

decorating the cookies...and ourselves!

mmmmm...

A few hours later the adults arrived. You needed a ticket to get it, and let me tell you, tickets were HOT commodities! The kids who have come to kids club over the past few months each received one ticket for themselves and one for an adult.

They proudly performed songs they have been learning and a few kids even recited bible memory verses!

Then the Christmas program began!

Some of the older kids and adults who have been doing a bible study with us after pikin club acted as the narrators and recited a part of the Christmas story and then led the audience in singing a carol. As ‘Oh little town of Bethlehem’ and ‘Silent Night’ filled the air audience members were selected to “build” the manger scene. Mary and Joseph, angels, the shepherds, the wise men and baby Jesus were all there. They did such a good job!

The rest of the night was filled with food and fun! We asked some women in the neighborhood to prepare jollof rice with chicken for everyone! Jollof rice is a traditional dish of fried rice with vegetables and an oily tomato and onion sauce served only on special occasion because it’s a bit more expensive.

What a night! And what a celebration!

the road from kono

2009-12-18T05:15:00.001-05:00

“Small Small” reads the front the poda poda. Two small words that described anything but the amount of people crammed into the mini bus that was headed to Freetown.

It was 5:30 am and still dark out. But the open “park” I was in was already buzzing with people surrounding the vehicles that would be traveling to Freetown and Makeni that morning. The mini buses (a bit larger than the typical poda poda transport that have four benches behind the driver and can boast loading at least 20 to 25 people) were already filled to what seemed like capacity.

I had asked around the day before to find out what time the vehicles would be loading. Without getting any concrete consistent answer, my colleague Fabundeh and I agreed 5:30 am should certainly be early enough. Maybe not.

I spoke to the driver and asked if there was any chance one more could fit. “we don fill up, we don fill up” was all I got in response. (we’ve already filled up) The chaos of people yelling and shouting while pushing and shoving into the vehicle made me wonder what exactly “filled up” meant, but regardless, at this point I don’t think I would have wanted to be squeezed in.

But I did need to get to Freetown. I had been traveling “up country” to Bo for a training of paralegals and then on to Kono with Fabundeh to meet with the Village Parent Groups and a survivor I am writing a story about. My time in Kono had been wonderfully fruitful. I really saw the work of FAAST reaching the people. These groups of volunteers, made up of everyone from village chiefs to teachers to police officers to mothers and even students, committed to looking out for human trafficking. They are excited to be part of this call to justice, even when it defies the traditional and cultural practices. A call to bring an end to the exploitation of children, which is rampant everywhere you look. A call to treat children with love and respect. A call to allow children to grow with possibilities and opportunities to become more than another seller of goods or themselves on the streets. A call to change the standards of disciplinary action against those who violate this call.

Yet after a few days of primitive guesthouses, the stagnant upcountry heat, motorbikes and dusty roads – I was ready to get back to a busy week of preparing all that I had accumulated. I just needed a ride.

As I was beginning to lose hope a man called out to me, “driva wan yu, driva wan yu!” The driver had found space…or at least made space.

Ten minutes later we are speeding down the dirt road, bouncing from pothole to pothole, leaving a cloud of dust behind us (as well as entirely engulfing us). I am positioned, or wedged may be a better way to describe it, between the driver and the two people already squished into the passenger seat. I have nothing to lean my back against and I can’t extend my legs for I am seated on the center console behind the gearshift.

So there I sit, knees hugged to my chest, gathering a thick layer of dirt and sweat, bouncing along with the rest of the passengers (who must have exceeded 40 and included two live chickens)…for the next seven hours. Yes, seven hours.

You just have to laugh. There is no other thing to do. I marvel at the thought of myself, the only white girl in the dense sea of beautiful black faces all of whom didn’t seem fazed by the journey at all.

Similarly to the night before when Fabundeh had suggested going for coffee (an idea I welcomed with skepticism because I have yet to experience a “coffee shop” that sells more than Nescafe) and we stop at a busy street side eatery. Although “coffee” (aka very sugary powdered milk with half a spoon of Nescafe) was served, it came accompanying a piled high plate of “macaroni and beench” (aka a plate of black eyed peas piled high with greasy spaghetti and some sort of meat toped with ketchup, a glob of mayo and sliced onion. Bona petite! And all for about 50 cents) hmmm…just let that one settle. Then imagine the white girl, squeezed onto a bench of hungry “coffee” goers devouring the plate that I am looking at in amazement.

See, you just have to laugh. I absolutely love moments like these! And I love that my God knows me inside and out…including how much is too much.

Once we finally arrived in Freetown and I unfolded myself from the accordion I had become, I was hot, I was tired, and I was still far from my final destination…home. I finally got a taxi into the center of town, which was as crowed as the bus was packed. Taxi after taxi passed, disregarding the name of the location I was calling out. And as I was pushed and jostled from every direction, horns blaring so loud I couldn’t hear myself think, I really was about to lose it. I felt it welling up from within me. This was my limit.

And at that very moment, through the crowds came a white Land Cruiser with the FAAST emblem printed on the side. It was as if Elijah came riding in on a golden chariot, that’s how happy I was to see Sengbe. We were far, far away from the office on a side of town our Program Manager would rarely frequent, but my God knew what I would need at that very moment and gave them some reason to be headed in my direction.

Again, I just have to smile. Simple, beautiful, messy, chaos! And I am just along for the ride in the midst of it.

no boundaries

2009-12-15T04:50:00.002-05:00

I am awakened this morning to the horribly electric and piercing sound of my phone. I lay there for a moment, trying to figure out where I am. I hear a car engine rev outside and the sounds of life waking up. The sunrise is barely illuminating the batik fabric draped across the window above my head creating a soft pink glow in the room. Then I remember, Bo. I’m up country in a guesthouse (SL version of a motel) in the town of Bo. (Boasting the second largest city in Sierra Leone, but much more of a town than a city and a significant escape from the craziness of Freetown.) I realize my phone, still screaming at me to pay attention to it, is not the alarm going off but the ring. I look at the screen – it’s momma!

I answer only to hear the loud sounds of what seems like a party. I quickly compute that it is still the night before back in America. Mom yells from the other end. She has someone for me to talk to.

Immediately I am transported from a world of roosters crowing and mosquito nets (which has caught hold of me in a tangled mess as I try to get out of bed still half asleep) to a world of runways, lights and fashion. A voice, whose soundless words over email have become such a source of encouragement and comfort, comes on the other end of the line. It is the voice of an incredibly driven, talented, beautiful fashion designer and seamstress. Kelsey’s show! The pieces start coming together into focus in my head.

Kelsey’s show! The one she started working on designing and creating dresses for this summer when I stayed with her. At the time, the dresses only looked like big hoops of fabric—dreams I could see reflected it her minds eye that I had to take her word for.

After some shrieks of I love you, I miss you, I wish I could have been there the phone is passed off to another. Ash! Oh, what a morning!

Before I know it, it’s over, and I’m back in the silence of my little room, sitting in a plastic lawn chair, drinking my instant coffee.

A pang of longing sweeps over me for the first time since I’ve been here. A pang of longing to be part of two worlds. My heart has become part of Africa, part of this country and these people. But part of my heart is still at home. Still with family and friends in Washington, California, Arizona, D.C. Part of my heart is with my new little nephews and their parents who have truly become family. With my sissy and her beautiful new home so full of love and life. With each of my many friends who are faithfully walking down the paths toward the future, many barely able to see one step in front of the other. With my family as they gather to celebrate 80 wonderful God given years of blessings grandpa and auntie Joyce have shared…the list goes on. A pang of longing to be with each where my heart resides.

Yet while my body cannot, my heart has no boundaries. So as I sit in my plastic chair in a little room watching the sun bring life to Bo, Sierra Leone, I know that that same sun will bring light and life to another world as well. A world across oceans and understanding. And just as the sun will rise with my family and friends throughout the world, the Son has no boundaries either. The Son, our Jesus, has brought light and life to all the world, and allowed my heart to do so as well.

While my body longs to be in two worlds at once, my heart rises with the Son – in the North, in the South, in the East, in the West. Wherever He has taken my heart – there it is.

City of Rest

2009-11-24T17:12:00.002-05:00

“Jesus is the way, the truth and the life!” These words are painted along the top of the wall where guests at City of Rest gather each morning for devotions. Jesus offers hope for a life – a life, society and culture have robbed from them. Marked with stigmas and shame, those suffering from mental illness and substance abuse have few places to go in Sierra Leone. Most are left to be consumed by their addiction, left to cope with their misperceptions, left confused by their abnormalities, left forgotten and abandoned by their communities. But for forty of these men and women who struggle daily with challenges most of us can’t even fathom, they have found rest. Maybe not perfect healing by our terms, but rest from the beatings and batterings of a culture that misunderstands mental illness and substance abuse, although it affects so many among them.

Painting the wall of City of Rest common room with a few of the guests

City of Rest is a rehabilitation center and deliverance ministry in Freetown. It is the only facility that understands the need to attend to the medical, psychological and spiritual needs of those who suffer from mental illness or substance abuse. In a country with fresh memories of a horrendous war that consumed many and traumatized all, mental illness and substance abuse reign king of all coping mechanisms, whether by choice or not. Yet while widespread, it is relatively unaddressed, unsupported, underfunded. For all those who suffer from any degree of mental health problem – from depression or anxiety to severe post traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia or delusions to dependency on the easily acquired jamba (extremely strong marijuana) and “prescription” medications – only one mental health facility is operated publicly in Sierra Leone, an institution commonly known as ‘Kissy Mental’ and commonly associated with the ‘mad man,’ ‘kraze man,’ and ‘lunatics’ it gathers from the streets of Freetown to inject with sedatives and keep “under control” for a few weeks before releasing them back into the same environment that shut them out and perpetuated their condition.

This past week I assisted City of Rest in conducting a series of trainings for the Sierra Leone media personnel on how to use the media as a tool to sensitize and raise positive awareness about mental illness and substance abuse. The World Health Organization funded the trainings in an attempt to shape public attitudes in a consensus that this is an issue that needs attention on the community level as well as within government. We traveled to the four major towns in Sierra Leone, conducting workshops in Freetown, Makeni, Kenema and Bo.

My housemate Heleen is a psychologist and has worked at City of Rest as a consultant for about two years. She is Dutch, but has lived and worked in Freetown for almost seven years. She is a beautiful example of Jesus’ love for the poor in spirit, the broken and abandoned. She recruited me to come alongside her for these trainings. I felt extremely inadequate to prepare and train professional journalists, since I’d hardly call myself one. Yet just as Moses expressed his inadequacy and ineloquence of speech, God truly blessed me with the courage, the wisdom and the words to move and motivate as I truly believe He desired.

While the morning session was a brief overview of teaching on the most common forms of mental illness seen in Sierra Leone, issues surrounding substance abuse and current (or the lack there of) legislation. It was incredible to watch the eyes of grown, educated adults opened to the reality of what the ‘kraze man,’ ‘mad man,’ and ‘lunatics’ they see everyday and admittedly fear, call names, even forcibly restraint – actually face. It was as if they realized for the first time that these are real human beings. Human beings that if given proper treatment and care many times could recover and actively participate in society. I was brought on to teach the afternoon session about how to use the tool of media (which in Salone is newspaper and radio) to advocate for changed attitudes, better care and more services for this vast portion of the population.

And for all of you who know me best, advocating for something I believe in and care about is what I love to do most. It is why I write. I recognize the power of the media, the power of a story, and the responsibility that comes with it. Preparing for these workshops and compelling others to put into practice what I so strongly believe is possible, was an incredible opportunity of learning for me as well.

So now it’s my turn. To advocate for this issue of widespread need in Sierra Leone and for the hope and possibly of life at City of Rest.

City of Rest is a small city of it’s own within the bustling, chaos of Freetown. The small three story building houses forty guests, most of whom suffer from substance abuse but also mental illness. Pastor Ngobeh started a deliverance outreach to drug addicts in 1985 which became a day program in 1994 and by 1996 City of Rest residential rehabilitation center was opened. The guests meet each morning for devotions with Pastor, they cook, they clean and live life within these walls.

The current City of Rest in Freetown

But the walls are small, the space is cramped. City of Rest receives no funding from the government and is supported entirely by individuals and churches, mostly from within Sierra Leone. The funding is small, the staff underpaid, medical supplies limited and the facility badly in need of repair. Yet with the little they have, Pastor Ngobeh and the rest never cease to love – love God and love the guests – and that’s more than these guests have ever received and all that God requires to work miracles of transformation.

Some guests come and go quickly. Others have lived at City of Rest for some time. One man, once a guest who suffered from a severe drug addiction, is now fully recovered and a full time volunteer. His is a story of recovery, of redemption, of resilience. It is a story that could be told so much more if the love and care he received could be felt by the many others outside these walls.

City of Rest just recently acquired property in Grafton, about 30 minutes outside of Freetown. It is beautifully nestled in the hills, away from the noise, the smog, the chaos of Freetown. It is quiet and peaceful, truly the site of a City of Rest. Plans have been made for a facility that will have the capacity for 70 guests, rather than only 40. There is room to breath, fresh air and fresh perspective. Yet the building process is one of prayers built upon prayers. As the miracles come in, they have built what they can. A wall now stands with the sign of what will, by the grace of God, one day be inside. A City of Hope. A City of Love. A City of Rest.

The site of the future City of Rest!

Working on mapping out the foundation!

I invite you to be part of these prayers. Pray for the building funds, for miracles. Pray for the staff, for endurance and perseverance, for wisdom and strength. Pray for the guests, for them to know and feel their worth, their significance, the love of God despite the rejection of man. And pray for their healing. Pray for the people of Sierra Leone, for eyes to be opened to the hope and opportunity for transformation of the lives that suffer from mental illness and substance abuse. Pray for compassion and sympathy. Pray for the journalists to use the tools they have within media to positively influence public opinion and advocate on behalf of these issues. And pray for the government of Sierra Leone, for the urgency of this issue to be addressed through programs, funding and legislation.

Thank you to all who are following my journey. This is continuing to be an incredible experience and I am so grateful to get to share it with all of you. I love your comments, emails and updates. Please keep them coming. Blessings to everyone and Happy Thanksgiving!

Seven wonderful friends + the tallest mountain in Sierra Leone = one wonderfully beautiful weekend

2009-11-12T17:22:00.006-05:00

What do you get when you have…very, very bad roads, bridges made of a
few tree trunks lying side by side, villages with chiefs whose
permission to pass through must be bought and paid for, thick, lush,
dense rainforest, and a raft tied together with vine to navigate a
strongly flowing river…between you and the tallest mountain in Sierra
Leone?

The most wonderfully, challenging, frustrating, painful, breathtakingly
beautiful, backpacking excursion to Mount Bintumani.

 

While in theory we were relatively prepared for most of these
adjectives, I am still pondering the range of emotions I experienced
packed into four short days.  From the awe of God’s breathtakingly
beautiful (think the island from ‘Lost’) creation, to sheer physical
exhaustion after hiking over 18 miles in one day, through more
diversely beautiful terrain than I have ever been immersed in, finally
reaching camp (aka what became a clearing after our machete bearing
hunter guide so kindly deforested an area large enough for our tent)
after hiking the last hour in the dark with headlamps that often
missed illuminating the root that is out to trip you or the branch
that pokes your eye out or the vine that seems to stretch out and grab
you from behind – and this was just day one.

The weekend painted a picture of Salone I had yet to see.  A lush
landscape of every shade of green tropical leaf and every pattern
colorfully winged butterfly you can imagine.  The beauty took my
breath away - every time I looked up from the path my feet were
attempting to follow without tripping, sliding, buckling or giving out
from beneath me.  And the night sky beamed with the brilliance of more
lights than Candy Cane Lane at Christmas time, a sight only seen when
the nearest electricity is hundreds of miles away.

(yes those sticks to the left...is a bridge!)

 

I discovered that the words for bridge and raft are quite relative
terms and can be used for anything that attempts to assist you in
crossing over water without getting wet – although its success in
this, is not required.  And I discovered that the strength of a Salone
teenage boy who carries a backpack filled with food and water up the
mountain I am stumbling up empty handed, is astonishing – yet does not
come free of complaints. (teenage boys are the same everywhere in the
world).  I discovered that seven white people coming to stay in your
village, which is inaccessible by motor vehicle, is probably the most
strange and curious thing to have happened in a long, long time – and
warrants spending the entire evening watching every move they make.

a raft?!

A few of our porters (he carried that rice on his head the whole way!)

'Snap me snap me!' (they wanted a picture taken) Pikin dem at one of villages we stayed

 

Yet the weekend painted another picture of Salone I had yet to see.  A
picture of chiefdom culture.  A culture that is so far from anything
our western culture can even begin to compare to.  A culture of
hierarchical respect to be paid in currencies of money, rice and time.
Which reminds me, I have also learned never to be in a hurry – ever.
You will only always be late.

We never actually reached the top of Mount Bintamani.  Between
unplanned delays in the village, awaiting a chief’s decision of whether we
can pass through and our porters' unknown commitment to afternoon prayers, an unwelcome fever that
attempted to slow down our toughest member, and the looming threat of
the nine hour ride home (on roads that should not be called a road)
and work at 8:30am Monday morning – we cannot claim to have summitted.
 Yet while we never made it to the peak, if was a weekend filled with
more than we had set out for.

Maybe once the sore muscles relax, the bruised hips heal, the scrapes
and scratches disappear, the bug bites stop itching, and all that’s
left are the images of exquisite beauty and the ambitious drive to
summit the tallest mountain in Salone…we will toy with the idea once
again.  Until then, I am left with the masterpiece God continues to
paint of this country and its people – the masterpiece I am so
grateful He has painted me a part of.

a breath of fresh air

2009-10-27T07:28:00.002-04:00

Our car speeds down the nicest road I have been on since arriving in Sierra Leone. As the most “main highway” the country has, it is in relatively good condition. We stop in Waterloo, the last town outside Freetown on the way to Makeni. The car stops and we are immediately bombarded by children and young adults trying to sell us anything and everything. Bread, fish, biscuits, cold soft (soda), fried plantains… If the window is down you practically could eat an entire meal without moving just by biting down on the array of food thrust in your face. A get bocu padi dem. (I have many friends) One boy tells me he loves me and another asks for my number. Maybe this is what it feels like to be a celebrity. If it is, I don’t ever want to be one. I laugh and joke with them in my bad bad Kiro. And then we are off again and they promise me they will remember me forever.

As we continue on away from the busyness of the city, the landscape is not at all what I thought Africa to look like. It is lush and green—full of tall grass, tropical plants, flowers and palm trees. We pass through villages with houses that all look alike. Villages rebuilt after the war. The fighting left nothing but remnants of life scattered throughout the beautiful landscape. Housing projects and IDP programs came to rebuild, to get people to move back out of the overcrowded city of Freetown where the last refuge from the fighting was found. One after another, African versions of housing developments. Some villages reconstructed with mud bricks, others with thatched huts.

We pass through a larger village at a main crossroad on market day. People from all the villages within walking distance come to buy and sell goods. Colorful women with baskets piled high upon their heads line the roads as we pass.

There is freedom outside of Freetown. I sense it. Less chaos. More simplicity. A greater sense of peace. I take a deep breath of fresh air. There is freedom outside of Freetown.

***

I have come to Makeni, a town about three hours outside Freetown, where World Hope has another office. I have come to conduct communications trainings for the staff – how to write a basic impact story. FAAST is based in Freetown, but most of the work of World Hope is rural development out in the village communities surrounding Makeni.

I wake up to a baby crying outside and the dissonant praises being sung out to God in the next room. I have to pee, but it’s not light enough yet to not need a flashlight and to bother with winding my non battery powered light source doesn’t seem worth the effort yet. We have no NPA in Makeni. If people have power at all, it comes from a generator. No electricity, no running water. This is the Africa I was expecting. The Africa that gets along fine without these simple “necessities”. The Africa that sings praises to God for clean water pumped miraculously from the ground, as if Moses himself tapped the hard stone earth. The Africa so thankful for the opportunity to learn and grow and develop – eager to pass along not only knowledge but seeds to a fellow neighbor.

I see the work of Jesus – the way he calls us to live. And I see those living it sing praises to papa God for every chance at living one more day of life.

It is a breath of fresh air from the smog of Freetown. A freshness in the literal sense but also a clarity seeing the excited willingness of people to embrace new ways of life.

While I conducted the training, and Praise God it went extremely well, I am also here to capture stories for WHI general programs as well. I accompanied the staff to schools recently built, wells recently dug, and communities being transformed. I talked with villagers, laughed with their children and listened to their stories. It excites me to see the work of international development with true, tangible excited smiles to tell of the transformation.

I see people willing to break cultural norms that tear each other apart and replace them with a sense of unity and a spirit of working together. People learning to love and embrace their women, “we learn to call our wives honey” and empower them to take ownership of the work their own two hands can do. People learning to problem solve among themselves. To settle disputes and come up with solutions and even innovative ideas such as a shop for selling basic necessities to local villages to avoid the cost and time of traveling to Makeni or the inflated prices of sporadic good brought by traders. People learning to save money as a community for future development, for a bad harvest season, necessary repairs or a family in need of some extra help with school fees. People learning to value the next generation. To raise up healthy, educated children to carry on.

I am excitedly fascinated by what I see taking place and even more excited to sit down and write all the stories I’ve heard.

Yet, while my time in Makeni was a breath of fresh air, I am warmed by the feeling of peace in coming home. As we turn down Scan Drive I realize that this is home. I see familiar faces and hear little voices yell ‘Auntie Crissa!’. I am exhausted from the week but delighted to think that it is Sunday and we will have Scan Drive Pikin Club in a few hours. These are my neighbors, this is my community, I’m glad to be home.

Communications Training with WHI staff

Water is Life!

village life

stories...

2009-10-15T07:21:00.002-04:00

She aged at least 15 years as she continued to tell her story. Each sentence she spoke was another step carrying a heavy burden that seemed to be getting heavier. I hadn’t seen her without a smile, without her playful glee and high-pitched squeals, since I met her. She was child-like almost, although she’s a grown woman. But as we sat out there on the balcony and she revealed the truth about a life desperately shameful to have lived, I found my heart filled more and more with the burden she spoke, the burden of truth. That she had actually walked the path she described. That she was a survivor.

The story is not new. The story is not uncommon. It is a story that I thought has lost its shock value to me, a story that once would make me cry but now has become common knowledge. But sitting there, face to face, with a woman I have grown to love already — the story became alive. Her story of survival, God’s story of redemption. The story became alive.

***

Maka’s small, frail ten-year-old body seemed to fold up into itself as he sat on the couch next to me. That is, until I brought up football (soccer). At the very mention of the game, I saw the sweet bright-toothed smile I knew had to be in him all along. “I play center mid,” he said proudly. “Me too!” I told him. And from then on I knew I had a friend.

But Maka doesn’t play much football anymore, or any rough and tough games kids his age love. If he gets hit in the shoulder where a blistering burn has forever scared his skin, “it hurt so much.”

Maka was a victim of child labor trafficking which led to an accident that will never let him forget this. The woman he lived with forced him to do hard house work, much too hard for a mere eight-year-old. And when he would forget what all she had said to do or took too long to do it, she would beat him.

One morning, two years ago, Maka awoke to the harsh sound of her yelling that he should not still be in bed at 5 am. But when he stumbled out to light the fire for the stove, the candle flame caught his shirtsleeve and lit up in flames. Maka suffered from severe burns across his left shoulder and chest.

He lifted up his shirt to show me the scar. We are sitting on the couch at his parents' house where he has been reunited with his mother, father and four brothers and sisters. His littlest sister is climbing all over him, before she decides I look like I might be more responsive.

“A glady fo de wit mi fambo,” he says as he smiles at his sister. He is glad to be home, glad to be back in school, glad to be a boy again. But his scars will always tell, they will always remember and never allow him to forget.

a few pictures...

2009-10-10T17:59:00.001-04:00

The FAAST staff at our celebration dinner

God's masterpiece, painted for me everyday

When it rains, it pours...and the lion doesn't sleep tonight.

2009-10-10T16:46:00.003-04:00

The rainy season. The dry season. There is no such thing as in between. It is wet, or it is dry. Well, if there is an in between, we are in it. During the middle of the rainy season it seems as if the sun has gone into deep depression, never to show her face again. Yet since I’ve been here, the rain usually doesn’t last longer than a few hours, giving us a breath of fresh cool air. Last night, I was awakened to a sound that could be felt with every part of my body. It was so loud, so deep, I could have thought it was a bomb going off right in my compound. But I was so disoriented by sleep, the fear fortunately didn’t cross my mind. Instead I waited for what came to follow. The falling of water that cannot be described as rain, for rain entails drops. But here, it is more of a stream…a river of water pouring from the sky as if all the clouds were completely concentrated over this little patch of earth.

I heard from someone, although I don’t remember who, that Sierra Leone was named for the notorious roar of thunder that shakes the water from the clouds as if the lion commands it. If it is loud here, on the bottom floor of my thick concrete compound, I can’t imagine what it sounds like from inside the thin medal structures, most call home. The sound of the rain alone must make for many restless nights with the wind howling through every door way, window opening, crack or crevasse thrashing in rain and anything else it picks up along the way. Yet this is the sound that promises life. With it comes the water that will grow desperately sparse as the dry season stretches into the long dusty future.

Water is life. And the lion knows it. Sierra Leone knows it.

***

This morning was set to a different sound of life, the music of crowded markets teeming with people selling everything you can imagine. Fruits and vegetables, pots and pans, cookware and clothes to wear, shoes, sandals, radios, electronics and any film you could possibly think of – even if it came out in theaters last week.

I was in town for the lapas. Beautiful fabric in every color, pattern, design and style. Tailors will make any and every style of modern or traditional dress perfectly to fit. I have determined that this will be the most stress free shopping experience of my life - despite squeezing through crowds of people, dodging anything with a motor (for clearly the bigger you are the more right of way they have), bartering prices that have doubled from the color of my skin and tripled from my bad krio speaking, and stuffing my way into a very overcrowded poda poda while grasping to keep hold of my load and still being able to see the landmarks that tell me when I’m almost home. Not quite a trip to the mall, but so much better. These are the stresses that excite me. Simple, beautiful, messy, chaos. And to get a beautifully hand made, perfect to fit, skirt or dress that is exactly the right length for about ten dollars...simple, beautiful, messy, chaos...and wonderful.

daily life

2009-09-27T15:50:00.002-04:00

I have finished my first week of work, and have settled into some idea of the lifestyle I will live here. The mornings have been cool and breezy (at least in comparison to the rest of the day) giving me the little incentive I need to start my day with a sunrise run. I am not the only one to wake up with the sun, many are already out and busily starting their day.

Daily chores take on a whole new meaning here. Even in my home, with it’s fairly modern westernized appliances. To wash the dishes requires washing in a bucket of tap water and rinsing with water that has been boiled to be clean. Although we do have a washing machine, it is small and must be filled with water for each load. The laundry is then hung out to dry (which in this humidity and during the rainy season is a relative determination). Then every article of clothing must be ironed to kill the fly eggs that have been laid in the clothing, so they don’t hatch into your skin. And unfortunately, contrary to my usual behavior, clothes must be washed every time they’re worn unless sweat stains become a new fashion statement and body odor the new perfume. Sweeping and mopping the dust and dirt that get tracked in or falls from the ceiling as the ceiling ants nibble away must be done every day and food for the guards prepared from scratch. I was a little uncomfortable at first with the idea of having Marie, our wonderful house help, come every day to do the things I feel should be household responsibilities. But I have quickly discovered that if she did not, we would spend the extent of our days cleaning, instead of working for and loving on the people we have come to this country to serve. Also, for Marie this is much-needed employment. A job that means life for her and her family, although it costs us little.

And while we are so taken care of by Marie, we are also protected by Mohammad, the day guard, and Ali and Jr., the night guards. Our house is considered a compound because it is surrounded with high walls and barbed wire. We have a very large iron gate with a little door to walk through. The guards are wonderfully friendly. I feel extremely safe. There is a compound just up the road that has been abandoned since the war. Over the wall, you can see bullet holes in the upstairs windows. Reminders of the war are everywhere, although it’s hard to know what was destroyed by the rebels and what has been destroyed by this harsh climate. The heat, humidity and heavy rains make it difficult for anything to last.

When I leave the house for work at 8:15 I take the path less traveled, at least by vehicles. The road is so steep and broken leading down, I don’t think a car would make it if it tried. I have begun to recognize the same faces I will pass every morning with a ‘good morning!’ and a ‘how de bodi?’ ‘Fine, fine’ or ‘to go tanki’ is the correct reply. When I get down to Wilkinson Road, it is busy with traffic and people with places to go. The market stands have started to open up selling fruit, vegetables, bread, eggs, candy, soda, phone credit and other random things. And the day is filled with horns that interrupt the voices and street sounds. The roads may be dirty, but they are so colorful. Women wrapped in lapas of every shade and pattern with bright bowls filled with anything and everything atop their heads. Market stalls painted in bright orange, pink, yellow and blue. Taxis and poda podas (old van-like mini-buses) with mismatched doors, bright yellow hoods and hand painted sayings scribbled across the back usually claiming praises to Jesus, Allah or Manchester United.

The colorful street is matched by the colorful voices that sing shamelessly out at the start of each day in the office, a beautiful dissonance of clanging voices calling out praises to God. We meet at the FAAST (Faith Alliance Against Slavery and Trafficking) staff at our office just off Wilkinson Road at 8:30 am for devotions. It is a time of singing praises and listening to the Word brought by a different staff member each morning. It has been a time of learning about my colleagues and their own, sometimes different, cultural perspectives of the same God whom we love and serve.

I have mixed feelings about being back in an office environment. While it is not quite the business suit professional high-rise office experience that I had in DC, it is very customary for Sierra Leoneans to dress quite “smart” for their jobs and although the atmosphere is relaxed, I still find it hard to be indoors all day sitting on possibly the least comfortable chairs possible until the work day ends at 5.

I have started organizing my thoughts and ideas about the work I will do throughout my time here. While I will be writing alot of stories and have started talking with the staff about some ideas, I am also recognizing the importance of the communications training I will be doing. I am thinking that to best benefit the program long-term I want to develop the training manual and conduct the training early on in my time so that the staff can work on writing stories themselves while I’m here to coach them and edit.

During my workday I have also started Kiro lessons. The language seems relatively easy since it has so many similarities to a sort of pidgin English. It was created when Freetown was the British colony of Freedom, where slaves who were pardoned from the Americas and Britain were taken. These slaves brought back broken American English and broken British English, which mixed with the local tribal languages. It actually seems much more practical and simple than the English we speak, using more phonetic ways of spelling and speaking and structuring sentences. For example, the common greeting ‘how are you?’ is asked ‘ow de bodi?’ (how is your body) And verbs and nouns never change tense, just a tense indicator before it. For example, ‘a don go to Freetown’ is ‘I went to Freetown.’ Simple, beautiful, messy, chaos.

While proper English is spoken and taught in all schools, anyone with even a little education knows English. But learning Krio will help me to understand everyday talk and will help me establish mutual respect with people. They love it when I try, although they think it’s pretty funny. Everyone here truly is extremely friendly and always wears a smile.

Well, except maybe all the people crammed into the tiny taxi cab I take home. Transportation in Freetown is a crazy experience in and of itself that I will try my best to explain, but to be honest, it is an experience you just need to have someday. You will never complain about traffic, bad drivers or road rage ever again. The taxis run more as public transportation than taxis we are used to, on specific routes yet not always so specific, more like specific directions. They will cram in as many people as possible and pick more up on the way who are going in the same direction. There is one-way transport, which will take you a specific distance (although you can get out anywhere along the way but you still pay the 800 leones one-way fare approximately 25 cents). Then you catch another taxi to go the next leg of the journey, unless the driver is willing to take you two-way (for an additional 800 leones) which usually only happens if someone else is traveling that direction as well, if there is someone else to pick up or if you offer him more money. In other words, lots of people cram into cars that drive way too fast on extremely crowded streets yelling and pointing in different directions, driving on every side of the road, and never looking to see if someone is coming before weaving in and out of the mess. I heard someone say that you just worry about what’s in front of you and honk to let anyone and everyone know you're there. You never worry about what’s behind you because they will worry about you. I just hope and pray to get in the general area of where I am going. Poda-podas are similar, except they are vans that cram even more people in making the driver have an even harder time hearing. It is an experience I have not had yet, and may try to avoid. They may be cheaper, but for 50 cents, a taxi ride home is enough of an adventure for me.

Whew! I’ll save the after work adventures for another time. But as promised, here are a few pictures of my daily life in Sierra Leone. (I added some photos to the previous post as well)

The FAAST office and Anti-slavery advocacy posters.

Beautiful beaches (River #2)...

and beautiful new friends.

i take a breath

2009-09-20T15:53:00.002-04:00

...further excerpts from my journal the past few days...

I am standing at the front of this little cement building, one room filled with plastic lawn chairs. About twenty or so faces stare back at me, half of them children. I am the only white face. It is the end of the service at Wilberforce Christian Church. We have sung, clapped, prayed and praised the Lord with Alleluias and Amen’s! The children are a bit fidgety in the front row, but they are quiet. The baby suckling at her mother’s bare breast hasn’t made a sound the entire three hours we have been here. Now all eyes are on me. The only white girl, the only visitor. The pastor’s wife (who has presumptuously taken over the role of pastor) introduces me and praises the Lord that I am there. She prays and then proceeds to make the entire congregation come up row by row and shake my hand. I am an outsider. But I feel welcome.

Letty takes my hand as we walk outside. Gwen (my house mate) helped round up the neighbor kids she has been trying to get to come with her to church. Gwen had another church commitment this morning, but the children knew where to go. Aminata, Katiatu, Letty, Elizabet, Salina, Isaac and Tomba. Isaac and Tomba I knew already because they come to our compound to work on their homework with Mohammad, the day guard. But the others didn’t seem to mind that this was our first meeting. I feel so much more comfortable walking down the road hand in hand with them. It is as if I have been accepted. As if I am known.

We come back to my house as has become the routine after church with "Auntie Gwen," as they call her. The children sit and read the only books most of them ever get to hold and read themselves. Old, ripped, discarded and donated. Books kids in America deemed unfit.

Me and some of the neighbor kids.

***

Right now I sit and am mesmerized by my surroundings. I am on the balcony of my home, a palace in comparison to the many small tin and dirt shacks that paint the hill side brilliant shades of yellow, red, and blue—nestled between the lush deep green collage of the rainy season. I am not in the only palace on this hill, the west side of town, and not a palace by any stretch of the word in western terms—but a palace, nonetheless, in this country.

The sun is setting out over the expanse of ocean beyond the foliage collage. Caribbean music is playing from somewhere below me and I can smell something cooking over an open fire. The thermometer reads a pleasant 83 degrees and a nice cool breeze sways the branches of the tree that hints a smell of lavender. It feels good on my cool, freshly showered skin and wet hair. I do not mind having no hot water, I wouldn’t use it if I did. Especially after the run Gwen and I went on this evening. Living on the hill creates a beautifully breathtaking view, but makes for a killer hill to run up. The people we pass give greetings of kushe or how de bodi? Kiro for hello, how's your body? Some even join in for a few steps. The cars passing by come frighteningly close, giving only a honk as fair warning as to evade any responsibility if they swipe you with a mirror. I will learn this community. The faces. The names. The lives.

The view from my balcony...this picture does not do justice - I will take another

***

I am taking a breath. Slow and deep, after a wonderfully full four days. My spirit is overwhelmed, maybe overflowing is a better way of saying it.

I have already seen many faces of Sierra Leone and I am basking in the warm glow of it. Friday was filled with the joys of children singing, contrasting the harsh noisy reality of life in the city of Freetown. I will not officially start work until Tuesday, after Ramada, the Muslim holiday. My housemate Gwen, a women who has committed her young adult life to the mission field, seeking to bring transformation into the lives of Sierra Leoneans through transformation of their education system (her organization is called Transformation Education), has introduced me to this life, to the city, to its people. But she is more than a guide, she has become a friend.

I traveled with her to Freetown proper and the east side of the city. This is where the ex-pats do not live, or at merely a few at most. Where the famous cotton tree stands, the once symbol of freedom. Where industry meets primitive living just as the hillside meets the coast, tumbling over itself and spilling into the murky depths.

The streets are filled with cars and busses. People selling anything and everything they can balance atop their heads. As we leave the main road and head up into the hills, we enter into village life. Children bathing in the natural spring, rejoicing in the cool water that will soon dry up forcing them to seek another water source at the bottom of the mountain. The sounds of joyful splashing will be muted by the long treck to the bottom and an even longer treck back up with full buckets of waters balanced a top the heads of women and children. A bucket to wash, drink and cook. A bucket to sustain life. The ground is littered in trash, runoff from those living above. As we climb, the road becomes less road and more pot hole, the area between the holes getting thinner and thinner. Gwen’s 4x4 bounds along until we can go no further, so we get out to walk.

We are visiting Mother Ester’s Preparatory School, one of the schools Gwen works with. We are greeted by a welcome of praise songs and chants as the children open their day with an “assembly.” Each one can steal my heart away with a simple smile or touch of my hand.

I taught in Prep III. Just a simple book and song about storms. They love to sing and to raise their hands regardless of whether they know the answer. Mother Ester is an incredible women who has transformed this community. She and her husband pastor a church and have started this school. They are beautiful pictures of hope and of promise.

***

As I sit and think back over these last few days, it sinks in more and more that this is the lifestyle I have always found myself daydreaming about living. A lifestyle I have felt both excited and fearful to live. Not admittedly fearful of the lack of amenities, the color of my skin, cultural differences, political instability, safety risks or any of the unknown—but under the surface, fearful of these very things which excite me.

from my journal...day one

2009-09-20T13:44:00.002-04:00

...taken from my journal, Thursday morning...

The rooster is crowing and I can hear children playing outside—shouting things I can’t understand. But laughter, the sound of happiness, is universal.

It takes me a moment to realize the white cloud I’m enshrouded in is just my mosquito netting. My face is a little damp. My whole body is a little damp. I think dampness must become my friend. Otherwise it will be a constant unwelcome companion—and who wants someone annoying hanging around all the time? The dampness does bring the mosquitoes, which are annoying—which reminds me, malaria meds time. The sooner I take it in the AM on an empty stomach, the sooner I can eat breaky. Sometimes it makes me think my body is fighting the war against the malaria right then and there. But my body will win, the nausea will pass. It’s amazing to me how the one tiny tablet, seemingly insignificant, smaller than a frosted flake, could protect me from the #1 cause of death in Africa.

And I have it.

I paid fifty cents a day for it. I fundraised and got donations for it. But why me? Why me and not the feverous boy on the streets just on the other side of town? Why me and not the mother of five who can no longer work because of her violent fever shakes so strong sometimes she can't stand to fold the laundry. Why me and not the millions more who deserve it just as much? This is the first of many of these questions. Questions that will be strung together like heavy beads on a frail chain. Brilliantly colorful beads that reflect light and create dancing images of different colors flying through the room. Beads that are so old, their origin is unknown. Beads that are sometimes seen as a nuisance because of their heaviness, the weight they carry.

Those that have, those that have not. Those that are healthy, those that are not. Those that are safe, those that are not. Those that welcome destiny, dreams, futures…and those that welcome food on the table and can’t see past that which will sustain them one more day. Why me?

As I rose above the clouds of London on my way here, I realized I was leaving a world of haves, a world I am used to. A world of organization, of order. A world I can understand and predict. A world of $5 coffee, designer jeans, make up, do ups, whatever ups. Street cleaners and park cleaners whose job is to make the trash and themselves invisible. I leave my clean, pristine, organized, routine, complicated life—for one much simpler.

It is now 7:30 am and I hear the world is alive outside, not just the rooster.

I am tired. I don’t even know what time it is at home. But I am excited. To see my new life splashed with daylight, colored in—and maybe not all within the lines. Maybe a little messier than I am used to. The simple beauty of a painting that does not claim perfectionism—but rather realism. Because life here is messy. Life everywhere is messy, but here they don’t try as hard to complicate it by making it look neat and put together. Simple, beautiful, messy, chaos.

But will my heart be content? Will my selfish, egocentric, instant gratification seeking heart be content?

It is 8 am. The NPA just left the country. No, not some political group. Just the National Power Authority which rations the country's power to different areas at different times everyday without warning. To most in this country, they will barely notice. Simple, beautiful, messy, chaos.

I take off the heavy string of questions that hang inquisitively around my neck.

It is time for a cup of coffee and the beginning of a brand new day, a brand new story.

I have arrived!

2009-09-17T16:39:00.001-04:00

11:30pm Sierra Leonean time. I stepped through the door of my new house after 24 hours of planes, airports and speed boats! It has already proven to be a beautiful country full of beautiful and friendly people. I feel so at home already. I promise to write more later...I just wanted to let everyone know I have arrived!

The journey begins.

2009-09-03T00:17:00.002-04:00

Fundraising. I dreaded the thought of asking people for money, especially people who I know don’t have much to spare. But when given this opportunity to do exactly what I have dreamed of doing—to help the voices of the oppressed be heard throughout the world, ringing truth about the plight so many face and so many ignore—fundraising seemed like a cowardly obstacle to let stand in my way. Yet as my projected time of departure neared, the daunting task of fundraising grew simultaneously with my love for a country I’d never been and a people I’ve never known.

Humbling? Yes. While most people graduate from college and get their first “real” job with a salary and benefits, here I am with my dream job trying to figure out how to raise $13,000 to support myself for the next six months. Sure I believe the cause is good and the work is necessary. And I truly believe God has brought me into this opportunity and therefore I truly believe, in my head, that I should trust Him to provide. But the reality of how to actually come up with $13,000 by mid-August just seemed impossible. Trusting God to provide meant trusting people would give me money when I asked…which meant I had to ask.

So here I was. My job in DC had finished in June, I moved out of my cute little row house and into a backpack, and I had enough in savings to get my fund started. Now I only had two months and $10,000 between me and Sierra Leone.

***

It is now the end of August and while I went into this summer anxious for it to be over, funds to be raised and for the journey to really begin, I have realized that it already has. The last few months have blessed me more than I ever anticipated and prepared me in ways I didn’t realize I would come to rely on. In an attempt to find ways of fundraising without the traditional support letter, I “cris”-crossed (as I like to call it) the US planning events that would allow me to spend time with family and friends, share about what I am setting out to do, and hopefully raise a little money.

I was excited at the idea of connecting with people from so many seasons of my life but had no preconceived notion of how blessed I would be by every one of them. From a Farewell Fundraising Picnic in Edmonds with my dearest family and friends I’ve known my whole life, to a Freetown Field Day Fundraiser in DC with friends I’ve known less than a year, to beautiful new friends I met while speaking at churches in Edmonds and Chelan—I have been left utterly speechless at the generosity, support and encouragement I have received at each of these events. With games and raffle tickets I expected to raise a few hundred dollars at each event and instead walked away with thousands.

My mind is left buzzing, wondering how I can ever thank my supporters for this kind of sacrifice. And my heart is bursting with the realization of the love and faith all of these people have for me and what God will do through me in Sierra Leone. While the monetary funds are an easy way to measure support, what is even so much more meaningful and overwhelming is the love and prayers behind these gifts.

I am not only encouraged in God’s faithfulness and His ability to provide for me, I am inspired by the faithfulness and trust my family and friends have that God will provide for them when they make this sacrifice for me.

While I am not quite to my goal, I have no doubt that the funds will come and all will be provided. But what has really changed my heart is realizing how much more prepared I am to go, knowing that so many are praying for me with complete faith. Where my faith falls short, it is made up for in leaps and bounds. While packing lists and immunizations, research and fundraising are all necessary in preparing for this journey to Sierra Leone, it is this true understanding that I am not going alone, but with an army of prayer and support along side me, that has truly been my preparation.

I am going to Sierra Leone to be a voice for the voiceless, to help those who are oppressed and abandoned to tell their story. Yet what I am realizing, is that my own story is also being written.