Money Consumes the Rich and the Poor

We flew into Sierra Leone around 9pm and stayed at a hotel the first night. The next morning we left for Banta Mokelleh around 6 am to catch the 8am ferry. The 30-minute ferry ride ended up being a three hour ferry ride because of complications. This delay ended up being a blessing because I got to talk with Mr. Ngonau. Mr. Ngonau was one of the men who looked after the team as we traveled. If you knew nothing about Mr. Ngonau you could just look at him and see the love of Jesus in his eyes.
When I asked Mr. Ngonau (gonay) what keeps people in Sierra Leone from accepting Christ into their life and becoming followers his answer shocked me. He said it was because of materialism. Now you are probably thinking what I was thinking at the time, “materialism? what materials do they want that they need to be worrying about.” He said that people are so overwhelmed with the need to make money and survive and help their families to survive that it consumes them. This opened my eyes and showed me that money has a hold on everyone no matter where you live. It controls both the rich and the poor. During my trip and when I returned people would tell me all the time, “Jesi, they don’t know what they don’t have.” I recognize that in their living conditions they don’t know what they are missing and that I agree with. They do see advertisements, listen to music, and watch movies that highlight the life we have. While on our trip Molly mentioned that it would be like us seeing the way a millionaire or billionaire lives. We think, “oh that would be nice” but we don’t envy and dwell on the fact that we don’t have that lifestyle. So when it comes to sleeping on the floor, living in one room with 10 other people, wearing the same clothes everyday it makes sense that they cant miss what they never had.
However, I think it is naïve of us in America to say, “well they don’t know what they don’t have” and make that our reason to continue to live how we live and not help others. We don’t realize that people KNOW they are starving, they know they don’t have enough food to provide for their family, they know they don’t have enough money (in most cases a couple dollars) to save their child’s life.