Sierra Leone has made me a bit exhausted lately. A friend has recently left that I will miss very much. My feelings are a bit numbed from it that I don't think I am even really aware of how I feel. After being here for four plus years, I need a change, even if it is just for a little while. The dynamics of working cross culturally is draining. Sometimes I feel like I am taken for granted that if I do nice things for people it becomes expected, and if I stop doing it people are annoyed. So... exhausted... that is what I have been feeling lately. So I have been a bit negative lately. Not really complaining about Freetown, but just not excited about this place... not passionate about being here.
But as I was riding in a poda poda today going to Aberdeen, I crossed a bridge and I was filled with "like" for this place. In a few month I will no longer be in a poda poda crossing this bridge. I will miss this feeling. I will miss this place. I will miss the view of this city. I will even miss the challenges. Living in Sierra Leone is not hard. With money, connections and charisma you can live very happily. But really living here is messy. Really living here means you have to acknowledge that there are some relationships that will be superficial; that will be draining; that will be challenging. Most days you just have to throw up your hands and admit you just don't understand. And when I have days like that, I treat myself to something good to eat and escape to the air conditioned gym. I talk to a friend that I know actually does care for me and want the best for me... and I feel a little bit better.
House is coming along
Chris has gone to the house almost every day to check on the progress of the house. I go maybe once a week. Today when I went I saw that they "polished" and varnished the floor. I am not sure about the quality... but it looks nice right now. The only bad thing is that when you step on it you can see the dirt really well. Notice Cami's footprints.
The construction guy says the house should be done in a week. Once he is done, we will be able to sign the lease and slowly start to move in. There is much planning and discussion about how to use the house that needs to take place. We only have 3 rooms upstairs and one parlor downstairs. There is a garage in the front yard that we can use as a meeting space too.
We also have ideas for a basketball net, swing and slide set, garden, concrete the front for basketball...
Lots of conversations....
So many ideas....
U.S. Embassy
So Steph and I went up to the Embassy with Sheku and David. They have this craft fair thing during their lunch time. So local artisans go up there to show and sell their stuff. It was fun to have them there and introduce them to faucet that turn on automatically! Magic! Sheku loved it, David... not so impressed. David sold two bag... see picture below... and we made some good contacts of people who can give them more suggestions of how to sell their things in Freetown. Now it is off to Lighthouse!
Possible HOME!! Walking tour...
So read the post below to understand what is going on with these pictures!!
HARDWOOD FLOORS!! For those of you that have ever been to freetown know that hardwood does not really exist! Now-a-days floors are either tile, concrete, or plastic sheets on concrete. To find a house with concrete house is a really a needle in the haystack! They may have used hardwood floors 50+ years ago! For those of you who know the staff of WMF Sierra Leone... guess whose feet!
This is a picture from the living room looking out the the back porch. The open space would be great for meetings with our kids.
This is the view of the house from the backyard. As you can see there is lots of work that still needs to be done. Some of the staff want to plant a garden in this space. In Romania, the kids that come into the drop in center have a plot of land that they can plant vegetables. When it is time to harvest the vegetables, the kids have the option to sell it back to the center or bring it home for their family. Wouldn't that be fun for our kids!!
To the left of the front yard is the garage and boy quarter (two single rooms). t We still have not come to an agreement of what we want to do. We may convert the garage to be another room for small group meeting space or a physical therapy room. We can also rent out the space to some of the teens that we work with that still live on the street. We are still dreaming!!
As you can see we are already dreaming what we want to use this space for and we have not even rented it yet!! Hope your support can make this happen!
HARDWOOD FLOORS!! For those of you that have ever been to freetown know that hardwood does not really exist! Now-a-days floors are either tile, concrete, or plastic sheets on concrete. To find a house with concrete house is a really a needle in the haystack! They may have used hardwood floors 50+ years ago! For those of you who know the staff of WMF Sierra Leone... guess whose feet!
This is a picture from the living room looking out the the back porch. The open space would be great for meetings with our kids.This is the view of the house from the backyard. As you can see there is lots of work that still needs to be done. Some of the staff want to plant a garden in this space. In Romania, the kids that come into the drop in center have a plot of land that they can plant vegetables. When it is time to harvest the vegetables, the kids have the option to sell it back to the center or bring it home for their family. Wouldn't that be fun for our kids!!
To the left of the front yard is the garage and boy quarter (two single rooms). t We still have not come to an agreement of what we want to do. We may convert the garage to be another room for small group meeting space or a physical therapy room. We can also rent out the space to some of the teens that we work with that still live on the street. We are still dreaming!!
As you can see we are already dreaming what we want to use this space for and we have not even rented it yet!! Hope your support can make this happen!
Email from Steph with some faye tweaks...
Dear Friends of WMF Sierra Leone –
I’m writing with a piece of very exciting news! We have found a property that WMF Sierra Leone would like to call “home” (picture is taken from the front of the house...notice the space for playground).
Word Made Flesh has had a presence in Sierra Leone for nearly 7 years, and since then we have made the best of our resources by using our homes and various other places for all of our meetings and activities. Most of you in this facebook group have spent some amount of time with WMF in Freetown, and you know: we are all over the place. I do most of my administrative work and servant team meetings in my home, staff meetings and morning prayer/worship are at Cami and Faye’s house (which also functions as an office for many of us), community dinners are at the Harrell home by Special Court, tutoring/lessons for Lighthouse youth and Kroo Bay kids is held at the Freetown Youth Center by Victoria Park, large group meetings for Lighthouse are at Scripture Union on Pademba Road, small group meetings are held at various other locations around town, Good News Club is at the church in Kroo Bay, and Erin travels to each of her physical therapy patients houses.
All in all, WMF Sierra Leone has not had a place to lay its head. I know, sometimes this is the best way to do things, and I would say that was true of our community until lately. But it seemed that many of us were thinking/feeling the same thing at the same time, and after much consideration about whether this was the right thing, we have all agreed that it is time to find a home for WMF Sierra Leone.
In our search for an appropriate property we had a variety of needs in mind. Those topping the list are as follows;
1. Office and meeting space for staff.
2. Space for the Lighthouse small groups to meet.
3. Space to develop a tutoring program and outreach program to the teens in Kroo Bay.
4. A place for Erin to do her physical therapy.
After more than a month of roaming the streets of Freetown and watching for locked windows (the only reliable sign that a place is empty) Chris Harrell found a house that some of us fell in love with instantly, and others fell in love with eventually. It is a 2-story house in a roomy compound on May Street in Kingtom, right on the edge of Kroo Bay. It has been sitting empty for some time, so it is currently under repair and the compound is a mess, but from the moment I saw it I couldn’t help but dream of what it could be for our community. There are trees and quiet and room to grow – all of which are rare in this city – and the back of the house looks out over the very neighborhood where we feel our efforts will be focused in the future. It is easy enough to reach for those who know us, but out of the way enough that we will have some privacy. The compound is large enough that we have room to grow, and we all have shared dreams of a garden or some play equipment for the neighborhood kids.
This property is a bit above our proposed budget for yearly rent. The truth is that this price is actually quite a steal, we just weren’t expecting to find the perfect place right now—we thought we’d settle for satisfying our most basic needs and re-evaluate in a few years. Well, we found far more than we were looking for, and the chances of a place like this one coming along again in a few years are quite slim. There are a number of other factors that have fallen into place for us, like the path just keeps opening before us. I really feel strongly that this is the place where we should be, and I’m not alone in that feeling. We are currently working through a contract with the landlord's agent, and are moving forward in faith that our needs will be provided for.
All of us on staff have committed to asking our supporters for help in raising funds for this house, but we would love for this property to be funded largely through gifts of love and solidarity from people who have a heart for Freetown. Some of you may have lived here. You have seen the beauty of this country and its potential. You have hope of what this country could be. Others may have only read about this place and been shocked at the brutality of what the people in this country have gone through. So we invite you to join us in rebuilding the future of Freetown.
If you are able to give and enthusiastic about giving toward this project, please include a note with your check stating that it is for the “Sierra Leone Ministry Center” (we’ll think of a better name later) and mail to:
Word Made Flesh
PO Box 70
Omaha, NE 68101
With Love From Freetown,
Steph
P.S. Please feel free (and encouraged!) to share this appeal with friends and family who know your heart for your friends in Freetown.
This is the view of Kroo Bay from the back balcony of the house.
Som' tins a brewin'
Since Cami came here in 2003, she has felt that God was calling WMF to Kroo Bay. When she was looking for a place to rent she found an apartment in Kroo Bay. Six years later that desire is still on all of our hearts. We have seen many kids slip through the cracks of Kroo Bay. Many without a safe place to go hang out and many who feel they are too old to come to Good News Club. So that is our dream... to find a place in Kroo Bay that kids can go to to play, study, rest, and be discipled. Stay tuned to find out all that is brewing with that dream!!
Servant Team Halfway Retreat
It is tradition that servant teams go away during the halfway point of their servant team to process their time in Freetown and to think about how they want to spend the rest of their time here. Stephanie did not want to be in a cabin by herself so she asked me if I would join her and the servant team on their halfway retreat. I was happy to keep them company. It was great to get away from Freetown for 3 days... time to play on the beach, to read, to journal, to think...
While I really enjoyed the peace and quiet... I am glad to be back in my own room. There were too many mosquitoes bites on my body. There were too many huge insects. Too many rat fetus in our room(I think they fell down from the ceiling). One too many bat flying above our mosquito net as we tried to sleep.
Enjoy the beach pictures... we had fun building sandcastles and jumping around...
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