July 19, 2009 Sierra Leone Royal Servants
It is amazing to me that we are finally in Makeni after 2 ½ weeks in Freetown. I feel as if we have been in Sierra Leone forever! This is my 3rd trip to Sierra Leone, and of course different than all the others because it’s Royal Servants. This is my fifth summer with RS and by far the busiest ever! We have been doing a lot of ministry with Youth for Christ of Sierra Leone, every one of the Sierra Leonian staff wanted us to come with them to their different ministries.
Jeff (team leader) took a few of our students at a time to the market nearby where we get bread and fruit. They experienced a whole new part of the African culture with chickens for sale both dead and ready to eat and alive, crammed into cages. Also all kinds of fish for sale and just the crazy business that was there, they came back with many stories.
Jeff Jr. (as we sometimes call Jeff Williams, a student) when visiting one of the detention centers met a boy. When we went back for a second time, the boy remembered Jeff and said he was so happy to have a friend in California who was praying for him.
Dave Bidwell came to training camp and shared with us about differences between American and African cultures, as he has been working in Africa for years. I knew a lot of these differences, having been here before, but never quite knew how to put it into words. Here are a few of them:
- Americans want to do and are a doing culture… Africans want to relate and are a being culture
- Americans have private ownership of their things… Africans have a communal ownership/shared/belongs to us
- Americans have a democratic or autocratic society… Africans have consensus decisions/talk till everyone agrees
This has been part of our communication problems with the people we work with, we have different cultures and come from different trains of thought, so sometimes things just don’t come across the same. God is good through it all and is of course teaching us patience and endurance to keep on keeping on!
On our way out to Makeni yesterday we stopped one last time at the FHM orphanage and the handicapped village of Grafton (we have been to both twice before). It was hard for some to be able to say goodbye but we were able to leave the orphanage with 3 boxes of our team food that we have not used in addition to the rice that we purchased for them as well as some clothes. Our team went through their things to see what they could part with to bless the children there.
We are excited to be here in Makeni and have more times for teaching and longer devotion times as well as ministry in some villages. It will be great to be able to spend a significant amount of time to love the children of these places with the love of Christ.
-Tia