I figured this was a fitting title for this blog post because it is the truth! I almost didn’t want to write anything because Idon’t know if I can even try to describe the things that I have seen and felt (and smelled!) throughout the past two-ish weeks. But with a small nap… I am feeling refreshed and up to the challenge.
First off- let me just say that currently I am sitting in the Starbucks Cafe of the Africa Mercy (yes, that means our team officially made it!! And stop laughing that there is a Starbucks… this is still Africa and I think life on the floating Western World here is still MUCH more limited that what I am used to). There are windows to the starboard side (that’s the right side, hehe I am feeling like such a mariner!) that look out over the port, which is full of huge containers. The containers are stacked at least two high to provide a wall around the Africa Mercy. Behind the wall there is probably enough room for there to be 200 deep and there are constantly big cranes shifting the containers around. They are metal and all different colors- and to be honest, they are ugly. On the ground there are Mercy Ships Land Rovers lining the wall of containers that crew use during the week for all kinds of things. I will post pictures of this new home of mine soon, until then I will let you imagine what a Starbucks on a boat looks like.
We arrived in Sierra Leone on Thursday, July 14th. Amazingly, all of our flights were on time and all of luggage arrived with us! I am going to show a terrible side of myself because I think it is only fair that I describe how I felt when I first got here, so I can then try to tell you how differently I feel now… it is a huge way that I know the Lord has moved in my heart throughout this experience already. When our plane first landed I was- let’s say, absolutely terrified. I was nervous about all my stuff and I was nervous about being in Africa and I was really nervous about what the Sierra Leonine people would be like. I didn’t want to talk to anybody and thank goodness for the buddy system because my friends kept checking on me to make sure I was okay. I am convinced that I would have been a person that came onto the ship and never got off because I was too scared. Thanks to being required to attend Gateway (which I now can better understand why) coming straight to the ship was not an option. But throughout our field service I have learned so much about what it means to love other people and I have learned a lot about myself. In my fear of being in Sierra Leone… I think that my fear was also saturated in misunderstanding of the people and how they live. We use the words starvation and poverty all the time in America to describe what Africa is like… but they don’t even come close to depicting the things that I have seen in the short time I have spent in the community. I don’t think that there are any words in English that encompass the magnitude of need that Sierra Leone has. My heart has been filled with compassion for the people because I honestly don’t know how they do it. I know that the African people are so much stronger than me, because I could not survive in the conditions that they do. The kids are the cutest little people you will ever see. Our team worked in a community, Yams Farm, with an amazing group of local people. We built latrines (which are kind of bathrooms… but more like fancy holes in the ground) and put on some VBS programs for the children. In our two weeks of being there we were greeted each morning by children crowding our poda-poda (the African taxi-van) and holding our hands all the way into their school. I think one of the biggest lessons that I have learned is that… even though I am in Africa and the people experience things that are so different than I do… at the end of the day, we are all people. I know this is a cliché thing to say, but I don’t think I ever realized it (for myself) before. Even though I have wondered everyday since I have been here how they can survive the conditions they do, I have felt really challenged to analyze my perceptions of Africa because the people are happy (and I mean that, they are truly happy) and they work together as a community in ways that are unseen in America. The Africans use their resources to the fullest and even the children always put others first. They work hard, so hard… and all day long. In so many ways Africa’s needs are SO big… but in others ways there are a lot of things that they have and can teach me.
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- Our rides for field service… it is AMAZING how many people can fit inside and how much luggage can be stacked on the top. I wish I had documented that as well!
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- This is just a glimpse of the children in the village.
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- Inside the school and church (and some of the orphans of the village sleep here at night too) 174 children attend school each day here.
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- A lazy afternoon…
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- This was the bathroom I was forced to use (4 times, people counted) at the village… please note that it is missing a wall AND it is a hole. Enough said. Thank you to all of my friends that supported me throughout the process of using this restroom.
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- Siadu- my favorite boy at Yams Farm!! He is very smart and even though he didn’t attend the school there he said he really wanted to. All week I could tell he just wanted to please me because as we taught the kids new songs he would always look at me when he was singing to show me that he had learned all of the words. I will really miss him… he cried when we said bye.
Amy & the Africa Mercy 