Short Term Mission Trips

I don’t think I could do another short-term mission unless it was in Sierra Leone again (since I want to continue the relationships I have built here.) The reason being that I always think of the future. So being in a short term mission you can be involved in peoples lives but you only allow a certain amount of your self to be fully immersed because you know you will be back to your “real world” in a short matter. So if you face trials “well I only have this much time left and then ill be home,” I am not saying short-term missions are a bad thing because I think they are wonderful. They have opened my eyes to realities I was blind to before going but personally I could NOT do another new short-term mission trip. If I go on another mission trip I’m going there with the mindset of being there for life. Without a pre-purchased plane ticket home. 

Sick In Africa

So I am sitting in the house with Mark. We are both in for the day because of the sickness that has overcome him, Matt, and I the past couple of days. Being sick in Africa without running water and living with 8 other people has defiantly been an adventure in itself.  It is not fun being sick in Africa.  Although it has been eye opening for realizing what it is like for the people living here. I became sick the morning we were still staying in the village and had to leave the village earlier to get home. The walk from Sinuhun to where I stay in COTN goes through a swamp and takes about 30 minutes to walk. COTN is also the only place with a nurse and so whenever people are sick they have to walk to COTN to get treatment. As I walked I praised God I didn’t feel worse and that I was able to walk straight to my house, but I thought about all the people who are sick past to point where they should be walking and yet they have to walk in the heat of Africa at least a mile (usually more) to get help. In America we get sick and we have a nice big bed to lay in, tv to reoccupy our mind from the pain were feeling, light in the night when we cant sleep, air conditioning, a car to drive in if we need help, and ambulance to pick us up if we REALLY need help, and yet here they have none of this. 

Car Accident in Africa

Obstacle #3 car accident in Africa. Courtney, Matt, and I were exhausted. It was 1pm and after picking up some needed supplies to hold us over until we got our bags we started to head to Banta (where the Orphanage is.) This is about a 7 hour ride. Needless to say we all started to pass out in the back of the range rover. I woke up without knowing what was going on, but with immediate fright. I began to be tossed around the car and all I remember is looking out the window and thinking “im going to fall out of the car, im going to fall out of the car…Im going to die”…by the power of God (and I still don’t know how I stayed inside) I was pulled back inside of the car. Then everything stopped. We all got out of the car and I see Courtney lay immediately on the ground with a bloody nose. I look at the side windows and they are both smashed out, I check on everyone else as other people stop their cars and run up to the scene to make sure we are all ok. I didn't know what to do. I hear Mama Angie tell me to get water and so I go to the back of the truck to get water and things are everywhere! There is a mix of water, eggs, food, and glass. I grab a bottle of water and go back out. It was then that I noticed that I was also bleeding and the natives around that ran when they saw the accident tried to care for my wound. Then we all piled back into the car without knowing what happened. As we sit there Courtney begins to cry, the shock of the accident begins to set in on all of us and we are paralyzed by what we just experienced. We head to the nearest “hospital” just so everyone can be checked out. We get out of the car and see the front completely smashed. We asked Uncle Magnus and Mama Angie who were sitting in front what happened and they couldn’t tell us. They said there was a force from the car pushing us to the side. We ran off the side of the rode through a ditch and back on. We still don’t know what hit the front of the car or why the two side windows were smashed out. Again I praise God that His glory shines through this situation. He continues to put situations in my life where I can ONLY rely on Him and ONLY trust in Him more and more. Father knows best! As the drive went on (we still had 6 hours a head of us) more bruises and aches began to arise. We finally arrived to the orphanage around 9pm where we received the most powerful healing, beng surrounded by the children. Before I even got out of the car I heard “auntie Jesi!.” The kids knew someone would be arriving but they had no idea who it was. I got out of the truck to the children overwhelming me with hugs and praise that I “kept my promise and returned.”Then, I walked into house 2 (the house I looked after last time) and saw pictures I had left with the kids all around the room. Pictures of my mom, dad, brothers, sister, grandma, friends…it was breathtaking to see that I have a special place in the lives of these children just as they have a special place in my life as well (if you cam to my house before leaving and saw an abundant amount of my Sierra Leone children you would understand.) Its now day 5 and I am feeling almost 100% better. Courtney and Matt still have pains in their back and shoulders and Mama Angie went to a doctor today for the pain she began to feel. But we are all here to continue to walk down the path God has laid out for us to shine His glory. 

God is Powerful!

This path God has been leading me on…has been…refining. I don’t like to fail, I like to succeed and succeed well at everything I do. And so the realization that I was not going to be able to go to India and that there was nothing that I could do about it, forced me to realize that need and fall on God and listening for His voice instead of forcing my own ways. Of course that whole process of getting both the Sierra Leone and India visa was chaos. I spent numerous hours, a lot of money, lost one passport, and lost nights of sleep worrying over the situation. God showed me that he can make things happen but he also has the power to take it away (something we rarely recognize.)

            Then by the power of God alone, Courtney surprised Matt and I in the airport and hour before boarding the plane. Recently we had come to the conclusion that Courtney would not be able to come because her second passport was lost in the mail and she was not able to obtain a visa. Amazingly, she received a emergency visa within hours and was given the go ahead to get on the plane and the visa would be handled upon getting to Sierra Leone. Another way God showed his power. We arrived in Freetown and went right through security because of the connections the COTN has with the natives.

            Obstacle #2 all 6 of our bags get lost. We were told that our carry on’s needed to be checked in because of space and so the only things we had were the cloths we were wearing, a couple books, and our medications. We arrived in Freetown at 3:00am and did not leave until 7:00am waiting to make sure we would be notified when our bags returned. But again God showed His glory. None of us were upset. We were so glad to be there that the bags did not even seem to matter. God will provide our every need.