It's hot.

The moment we stepped off the plane in Sierra Leone, Scott started sweating. He hasn’t stopped since. To put it mildly, it’s hot.

Going outside kind of reminds me of walking on a freshly-paved, black parking lot around noon in the Florida summer. The sun just beats down and without air conditioning, a refrigerator or a fan, you’re forced to simply get used to it. So, we have. We’ve come to terms with sweating and being hot all the time. Scott has even invented a finger-squeegee method for his forehead and I have to admit, its the first time I’ve ever sweat through a whole shirt. Pretty disgusting. And yet, at the same time, it’s all part of the experience. You wake up a bit sticky, you wash your clothes after every wearing, you drink a lot of water to stay hydrated, you develop a new sense of odor smell and you wear lots of sunscreen. This is what living close to the equator is like – hot. We’re told our bodies will eventually adjust to the climate. We’re also told that the late July and August rainy season will bring cooler weather. For now, though, we’ll all grin and bear it – sweating all the way.

NGolala Village

It seemed fake – the first time we walked into the village of NGolala [pronounced Guala]. Because it was really that – a village in the middle of Sierra Leone, Africa. Just like photos I’ve seen and movies I’ve watched, here it was right before our eyes and all around us. Across a road, down a narrow dirt pathway and through the jungle is how you get to NGolala Village from the COTN property. With Sarah as our guide, we made our way down the stone staircase to the stream that passes at the entrance to NGolala. Nestled in the middle of bush and trees and thick jungle are more than 50 homes made of mud, sticks and thatch roofs. They are scattered here and there – some close to one another, others at a distance. Little dirt pathways lead to this section of houses and that section. We are greeted by children carrying water from the stream up to their homes for cooking, washing or drinking. They smile at us and greet “Aunty Sarah,” water dripping down their faces and arms – their little bodies full of muscle. We stop at each home to greet each family, cooking women or a grandmother sitting on the porch, lest we leave anyone out. “Buah” [hello], they say to us and “Buah, bicea,” we answer back, hoping we’re pronouncing the words correctly. We shake hands; we smile; we laugh together when neither one of us can speak to the other very well. And yet, we recognize that both sides want to know more about the other.

Here, life seems so basic – its about working to get enough food for your family to eat that day, cooking it and keeping the house running by washing clothes, cleaning the home and raising the children. Sleep comes when its dark, on the reed mat spread out on the dirt floor and under the thatch roof. The early sun awakens everyone for another day. There are distractions in life here, sure, but they are very different than our Western distractions of TV, media, social commitments and everything else that flashes before our eyes each moment at home. Here, life is just a lot more basic – simple. The reliance on God also seems a lot more evident here because the people must trust in Him to literally survive – for their next meal, a job, protection. We in the U.S., we can pretty easily rely on ourselves for all the essentials in life. This, at times, might also make it easier for us to just push God out of the picture.

We continue through the village – trying to take it all in. To grasp the different way of life right before us. When we shake hands with people, there is a genuine look in their eyes that we don’t always see at home – a warmness in their voice that sparks our curiosities – Why do they care so much that we’re here? Why are they so happy to greet us? Why so welcoming to strangers of another color?

We left that day trying to make sense of the jungle village that we saw and the many hard-working people we’d met. Life here is so very different.

An evening of hope

Last night was a somber evening – one that intrigued us and saddened us. One where we tried desperately to understand reasonings for war and human cruelty. One that opened our eyes to the realities of injustice.
Last night, Quami shared his testimony of how he came to know the Lord and how he came to work for COTN. Involved in that story, however, was the rebel war, which involved mass murder, rape, kidnapping, cannibalism and making children into soldiers. He told us the history of the rebellion and why it took place. He shared about getting arrested himself – mistaken for a rebel – and coming close to being executed.
It was because of Christ, he said, and "my belief in Him, that I was let go."
It was a difficult story to hear and yet fascinating at the same time. Especially for those of us who have seen the blockbuster movie Blood Diamond and wondered, “Was it really like that?” The answer is yes.
To help us understand what these Sierra Leoneans who we’re meeting everyday in villages actually went through, we watched a few minutes of some raw video footage that was taken during the rebel attacks on Freetown. Though it made it extremely real – much different than watching it in a Hollywood film – I don’t think Scott nor I expected it to be as raw as it was – dead bodies everywhere, people crying and running around. I had to close my eyes numerous times. And yet, that was real life for this country. That was it. Many of the children here in the home witnessed such a massacre and it puts things in perspective to have a tiny understanding of what they went through. It also breaks our hearts.
What was most ironic thing that evening, or just God at work, was that as we were watching those moments of real horror on the screen, the children in the homes began to sing. Their songs of joy to the Lord echoed, as they always do each evening, through the houses and the open windows – around the palm trees and surrounding bush. The sweet voices of mercy and hope. Their songs were proof that this country can overcome such a war and a reminder of the precious lives that have so much potential though they were once orphaned and alone. They were a strange few moments – watching and hearing two worlds collide, the past and the present. It gave me hope and it made me happy to be involved with such a ministry of love and rescue.

Internet in the middle of Africa

(Above top: On the way back to Freetown from Banta to get the interns, we stopped at this junction for breakfast. Above bottom: Scott in the foreground and Laura in the background smashed into the puda-puda vehicle.)

Who would have thought that getting on the internet to update a blog would be difficult in the middle of the bush in Africa?

Scott and I had high expectations for our internet usage, internet availability and the time we’d have to actually write and photograph for the blog. Little did we know that our job here would need all of our time and that the internet in the middle of the African bush would not always be up and running or all that cheap! All that to somehow explain why our blog has been updated so infrequently and why we are so behind in telling you what we’ve been experiencing and what God has been doing here in Banta. Please forgive us! We’ll continue to update this site until there is nothing else to show and nothing else to write about. Even if we’re updating from good ‘ol Orlando, we’ll keep it coming. Thank you for your patience.
To catch you up a bit, the interns arrived on June 23. Scott and I spent the week before that in Banta with the teacher team – getting familiar with our surrounding and preparing for the interns’ arrival with schedules and figuring out our exact roles here. We made the very tightly-packed, public puda-puda trek back to Freetown with Quami (and about 15 other Sierra Leoneans) and greeted the interns with a cheesy welcome sign when they arrived at the guest house around midnight. They were exhausted and already way out of their comfort zones.
Girls: Stacie Sabo, Stephanie Stout and Samantha McCabe, all from the greater Seattle area. Boys: Andy Chinn (greater Seattle), Myles Hamby (L.A., Calif.) and Mark Drennan (Belfast, Ireland). Mark is special because he’s actually here in Sierra Leone as an associate with COTN – which means he’s staying on for one year. We’ll leave on August 16 and he’ll continue ministry here until next summer.
It was exciting for Scott and I to have the interns finally arrive after we had been here in Sierra Leone for about two weeks – we were beginning! We let them get rest, took a trip to the nearby beach for a few hours and began orientation. One and half days later, however, around 5 a.m., we were off again in the puda-puda headed to Banta. About 100 precious children and more COTN staff were there waiting for us. Though the journey was snug and quite uncomfortable – especially with a bunch of people who just met – the interns found joy in the eight hours of travel as they gazed out the window at the lives and people and villages that went by. And they were, at the same time, reminded of the reality of extreme poverty in this country. They also began to learn a new language called Mende – the language of Banta. In fact, we made up a “rap” in Mende. Translated, it goes something like this, “Hello, how are you? Thanks be to God. Thanks.” You can imagine the puda-puda driver when he heard us singing such things – he chuckled to himself. It was a moment of being the “loud white people.”
And, after the eight hours on dirt roads, through rain and puddles, over a few bridges, past women with water on their heads and children waving, we arrived at COTN in Banta. Greeted by Auntie Chris, Dave, Nancy and loads of shy children, we were home – our home for the next month and a half.