Its Paralyzing

“The very information that should move us is so overwhelming that is actually paralyzes us. It is like a big meal that is suppose to provide fuel for our body but actually makes us feel like lying down and taking a nap. Instead of energizing us for action, the overwhelming injustice of the world actually makes us feel numb. We sense of hearts melting and our feet sinking into concrete.”

This experience was a rollercoaster of emotions for me. Ngolala (gula) was one of my favorite villages to visit because of all the children. We would play games, chase each other, I would sit and hold any child that came into my lap. It was amazing. The first time we visited the village and left all the children followed us (as usual) and I was carrying two children in my arms. When we reached a point where we had to move on I set these beautiful children down. As I did this I looked into the their eyes and saw such innocence, then I looked up to their hair and saw that it was a light color and then down to their bloated bellies (both are signs of malnutrition) and I felt numb. Numb to the fact that these children may not make it past their 5^th birthday because they don’t have enough food. Malnutrition causes more then 55% of child deaths in our world.

Another time I was walking through a village and a young girl around 9 comes up and holds my hand. She was carrying her brother on her back and keeping track of her little sister at the same time. We were walking to visit a school in the area that some of our orphanage kids were showing us. As we were walking into the school this little girl looks up at me and says “my mom is dead” … I was speechless I didn’t know what to say so I asked her about her Dad and she said “my dad is dead” …again I was paralyzed. She said it without an ounce of pain, like she is so used to death that she no longer feels the feelings that come with it. It was then that I realized that the children in our orphanage are not the only ones who don’t have a mom and/or dad to care for them but that there are many children dealing with the same situations.

Then there was the movie night. I was watching house two girls and making sure that they were being looked after. Before the movie started I noticed the door to their home was open so I went in to see if any of the girls were left behind. I walked into their bedroom (10 beds in a room for 16 girls to live) and what I saw made me sick. There were no girls but there were many little cockroaches all over one of the beds. I went over to the bed to get them off but then more started to come onto the bed. I lost control. I was so sad, and mad that these young girls lived like this. I didn’t know what to do and how to act. I was thinking about the villages I saw earlier where children sleep on dirt floors, and wear one piece of clothing and that one piece has holes in it, I remembered seeing the little girls and boys with the light hair and big bellies.  And yet we live with more then enough resources to help them but we (myself especially) have chosen not to help.

What is one of the best was your can help? To sponsor a child. 

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.

Movie Night

Every other week they try to have a movie night for the kids. This was incredible to witness. Kids talk about it all day and wonder what movie they are going to watch (even though the usually watch the same three movies over and over again) and they tell us how excited they are. The interns set up a TV outside of one of the houses and kids bring chairs from their homes and pile around this small TV to watch the movie. Sadly, that night it started pouring when they started the film. All the kids ran back to their homes but as it began to settle down kids started to bring their chairs back out with as many umbrellas as they could find. Then everyone piled around the TV again.            

            Before starting Step Up they showed a COTN movie of the children. This would be like the movies you see on television asking you to give many to help feed children in developing countries. The children loved it! They would say “look its Pastor” “look its Massah” “look its me.” I have watched so many of those short commercial films but sitting their with these kids who have this need and seeing how excited they were that people watched this and cared about them was indescribable. What was even crazier was the fact that I was sitting with these wonderful children while watching it!

            To top off the night I met Emmanuel for the first time. Molly (another girl from my team) and I were standing in the back getting soaked by the rain and trying to see what we could of the TV. Emmanuel saw us and came over with his umbrella and told us to stand under. This little boy NEVER gets to watch a movie and instead of being focused on the movie he was more concerned about Molly and I and are needs.  

Pastor and Olive: Left for Dead

07-02-10

“I came back to my quiet time under the Baffa (picture to the left) and see alittle boy sitting on Courtney’s lap. At first she was reading the bible to him and now he is just drawing in her notebook. He is maybe three years old and as soon as I was about to sit in my chair he says, “too dirty” and gets up and starts to clean it off for me. Even at three these kids are concerned for others.”

This was my first experience with this little boy who I soon became very close with. His name is Pastor. Pastor will win your heart as soon as you meet him. He is the boy who will push you to the limit and melt your heart at the same time. His real name is Julius but when he came from the malnutrition clinic he would go around tell everyone to pray and he is always the Pastor in “church” (kids in America play “house” kids in Sierra Leone play “church”) and the name stuck. The reason I am telling you about little Pastor is because he is 9 years old. When I heard this I couldn’t believe it. He was left for dead with no one to care for him and was starved when COTN found him. He has come a long way since then but still has a long way to go. Many of these have similar stories to Pastor and it makes your heart ache to hear them.

Little Olive (the girl in the picture) was also left for dead. She lost both of her parents to AIDS and when COTN found her she was nearly starved to death. Now she is much healthier and living an active life. She is the girl you needed to chase down for a hug, she wouldn’t just give one to you even though I could tell she desired affection. 

We see and hear the stories, now its time to TAKE ACTION!

“I come from the Marcy projects, in Brooklyn which is considered a tough place to grow up, but visiting Africa showed me how good we have it. The rappers who say, ‘were from the hood,’ take it from me, your not from the hood.” – JAY-Z

“If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with action and in truth.” 1 John 3:17-18           

Journal entry: 07-10-10 

We have eyes to see injustice. We have ears to hear the stories and the cries of children. But we try to ignore it so we don’t feel guilty for not helping. So we can continue having our starbucks coffee every morning, or give up something, something that is a pleasure for us, not even a necessity. Something like a new shirt, picture, or piece of furniture that we would live without. And we don’t understand that choosing to give that up and help a child WILL save that childs life. We turn our back on the poor because we don’t want to disrupt our lives. We feel like we deserve these pleasures because we work hard for it. But these people, these children, work 5 times harder, at younger ages and don’t even receive what is needed for them to survive. 

Faith

During this trip I realized how important both faith and hope are.

"Faith is being sure of what we HOPE for and certain of what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1

"Let us hold unswervingly to the HOPE we profess, for he who promised is faithful." Hebrews 10: 23 

Without faith we could not continue to hope for an outcome that may seem impossible in the beginning. The people a had the privilege of meeting and hearing their stories showed me that with faith and hope even what seems impossible can be achieved. 

On the second to last day of our trip we were introduced to Quame and the story how he and three others began building the orphanage during the war. The war in Sierra Leone reached every part of the country and went on for about 10 years, finally ending in 2002. But during the war violence was everywhere. Quame lost his father in the beginning and began to workout to be able to better protect himself from the rebels. The rebels for fighting a war for no reason (at least they never gave a reason for starting it.) 

Around this time Chris and Debbie Clark from Seattle Washington decided that an orphanage needed to built in Freetown (the capital of Sierra Leone.) So Chris went to Freetown to visit churches to get people to begin building the church and Quame was one of the men who volunteered. At this point he was only around 17 years of age. He and three other men began to build the orphanage. But as the war came closer to Freetown it became harder and harder to build without parts of it being destroyed or supplies being taken. But they still had hope and believed in the cause and persevered. 

The men would take turns guarding the supplies to the best of their ability but one night Quame and another man were stripped down, and tied up with a number of other men by a man known as the "evil spirit"; the evil spirit was a man known for walking down the street and killing a man for no reason. One by one he went down the row of men shooting them in the head. Quame and his friend took turns praying and asking for their lives to be spared and then the other would pray while the other explained that they were not rebels and that they were building an orphanage for the children of Sierra Leone. As the evil spirit went down the row shooting each man he stopped and Quame and his friend and said "go and pray for our children"...and let them go!! 

What is even more unbelievable to me is that when Chris Clark heard about what had happened he told the men to leave Freetown and return when the war was finished and complete the orphanage then. But the men refused, they said that they were looking at it as if kids were already living their and they had faith that God was with them as they built the orphanage. 

These men risked their lives because they had hope in what was to come and faith in the God who would help them overcome all obstacles, as long as they kept their eyes on him in the process. And when you sit with Quame and look into his eyes you see Jesus. You see the amazing faith this man has. You see happiness for being able to use the building he built to house children who, he would later go out and get for the home. Children who have witnessed both of the parents murdered. Children who have been beaten and raped on the street. Children who have been left to die from starvation because no one will care from him. He sought them out, found them, loved them, and have them a their life. 

Mother Theresea once said "It is the greatest poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live how you wish." Quame gave his life for God and when he did that he served God in a way that would honor only him. He served him by worrying for others more then himself. Living a life with the risk of death at any moment is not ideal for anyone but he knew that if he didn't children would be faced with that reality...

"Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us". Romans 5:3-4

Its Hard to be Home

It’s harder to come back to America then it was going to Africa and seeing what I saw. Which may sound crazy…it does sound crazy. That it is harder for me walk into a nice house and lay in a queen size bed with a comforter. To drive down a paved road with restaurants and other nice cars around me then it is to see a family with a one room house made out of dirt and sticks while sleeping on the floor or straw beds. Then driving down a road where I see people on top of people carrying heavy objects on their head and in need of food. It is such an overwhelming feeling to be one of the 60% of the world that doesn’t have to worry about not eating today. And not only do I NOT need to worry about eating but I worry about OVEREATING! I laid in my bed last night and it was the first comfortable bed with a comforter since I got back and it felt amazing. But then I thought, “why me?” why am I blessed with a roof over my head with 4 bedrooms and three living rooms and a kitchen the size of the houses (huts) in Africa. Why doesn’t the little child who waked up at 6am every morning to work hard and goes to bed hungry just to wake up hungry and do it all over again get a nice bed to sleep in. God has put me in this life for a reason …TO SEEK JUSTICE FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT HAVE A VOICE. One thing I realized by being in Sierra Leone is that the reason bad things happen in the world is because 1. There are bad people who oppress others and 2. I let them. When Jesus came he sent his disciples out to the world to seek justice and so as Christians it is our RESPONSIBILITY to stand up for the poor, widowed, and orphaned. To stand up against the oppressors and shine light where only darkness is seen.