One of the advantages of growing up as a “bush missionary’s kid” was that I got to drive a big truck at a very young age…similar to many of you who grew up on the farm or in rural areas of the States.  I used to absolutely LOVE it when Dad would say “Hey Faith, you want to drive?”  As if I would say NO… are you kidding?

I remember being very young the first time that he did it… maybe 6 or so… I am not sure of the age. He would set me in his lap, put my hands on the steering wheel, and let me “drive” our big old 4-wheel-drive truck.  There is nothing like it…that feeling…I couldn’t get enough of it.  Do you remember that feeling?  I thought I was big stuff then.

            The reality of it was that I was not really driving at all.  Oh, my hands were on the steering wheel and I was turning it, but Dad’s knee was really steering so that I would not get myself into trouble.  His foot operated the brake, gas, and clutch…especially since mine had about 2 feet to grow before there was even contact with the pedals, much less control.

            That is how I feel being here in Sierra Leone.  God is steering.  He doesn’t really need me...but He wants me along.  Just for the fun of it, He lets me “steer” (see patients, diagnose them, and give them medications), but make no mistake, if it were really ME steering we would have crashed and burned a long time ago.  The difference is that now I am grown up enough (at least for the moment) to know that I am not really steering… I am just having a great time working with my “Dad”…my Abba.

            Here is one example.  On November 27, I had a patient named Balu come to see me.  She is family of one of our staff here at the Bible School and has been seriously sick for over a month.  There is presently no nurse available near her home 70+ miles from here, so she and her mother scraped together enough money to come here to try and get medical help.  In fact, she was so ill, that a nurse that came to their village had to give her IV fluids in order to get her well enough to travel.  Balu is about 5 foot 6 or 7 inches, and when I assessed her, she weighed 90.6 pounds.  As I listened to her history and assessed her I (as usual) found myself praying, “Please Lord, show me what to do”.  I don’t have any lab testing materials, but I thought maybe I had found the source of the problem.  Got her started on the Medications that I was able to find that were appropriate, instructed them on how to feed her so that she could rebuild, and we prayed together.

            Yesterday (December 7) after 7 days of treatment, I reweighed her.  She weighs 106 pounds.  She has gained 16 pounds in 7 days.  In fact, after just two days of treatment, she was up and walking around, and after three days, started doing little jobs around the house.  It sure seems miraculous to me, especially when you consider that one of the medicines that I had her taking was a hefty dose of Flagyl.  If you have ever taken Flagyl, you know that it is very unpleasant.  Everything tastes like aluminum foil, and your stomach is upset and queasy most of the time.  There is some debate among Flagyl takers as to whether or not it is better to just stay sick. J

            I am so blessed to have a daily front row seat, on the lap of my heavenly Dad, to the miracles that He does in the lives of the people around me.  To those of you who support us, in finances and in prayer… Thank you…from all of us here in Sierra Leone.

A MK's perspective

My 13-year-old daughter wrote this for her homework assignment.  I thought you might enjoy hearing her perspective:

          If you walk down the road going out of the Bible School, you will see mango leaves blowing in the wind, plants growing, charcoal smoking and people working.  The people you will see will have all different kinds of clothes on. They could be going to work at the farm, walking to town, going to find wood, going to make potato heaps in the swamp, or maybe going to plant rice, peanuts, or sweet potatoes.  They could be going to make charcoal.  If you kept waking, you would begin to see fewer people.  All you would see would be birds of many colors calling to each other and many different kinds of flowers, insects, plants, butterflies and sometimes animals.  All you would hear would be frogs croaking and every once in a while, the sound of an axe on dry wood.          

          This is the place where I am spending part of my life as a missionary kid, around people who act like one big family. They call each other brother or sister even if they haven’t even met before.  They live the life of hard working people, but they always make time for fun.  They have fun working as a group and are always laughing and joking around.  Most of the people here are skinny and don’t get enough food, but that’s what people look like… not WHO he or she is.  They may be the ugliest person you have ever seen but they have a happy, loving feel about them, and their hearts are the most beautiful part about them.  If the world were full of those kinds of people there would not be as many wars.

Sometimes humbleness can come to us in the most unexpected of ways, and most often it is when we were not even aware we were in need of it.  When I teach the Bible School students here about the definition of humility, I teach them that it means being aware of the reality of who we are as compared to God…

I learned that today.

I try on this blog to share some of everything… the funny, the adventurous, the spiritual lessons that I learn, the cross-cultural experiences…

… and - every once in a while, the nitty-gritty, the rubber-meets-the-road realities of life as a missionary..

You get the nitty-gritty today.

There is a Bible School employee who, by Sierra Leonean standards is very well off.  Both he and his wife have jobs, where for most, employment is very difficult to find.  He came to me today to ask for help because he said that he was unable to feed his family.  I suspected that he just wanted money, as he has exhibited that tendency in the past, but didn’t want to ignore a plea for help, so I decided to have compassion on him.  It so happened that we had about a dollar in the house at the time, so I literally had nothing to give him.  I expressed sympathy for him and let him know that I had no money but that I had some groundnuts (a staple food here) that I would give him.  He said groundnuts would not help him.  So, I offered him some sweet potatoes, which he hesitantly accepted. 

Now, here is the nitty-gritty part.  I don’t know how we are going to make it through the month, giving is down.  I am NOT complaining.  I know that December is a hard month for everyone, and we have it good compared to so many others...  I only share this in order to explain that those sweet potatoes were a part of what I was depending on in order to stretch our food supply through the month. 

 Roy helped me bag up some sweet potatoes and gave them to the man and he began to walk away….

     ….WITHOUT so much as a “thank you”.

And I got mad.

I called him back and quietly said, “We shared our food with you, you need to tell my husband thank you”.  That was all I said.

He very sheepishly went and thanked Roy.  And that was all that was said.

But….

In my heart, I was still really frustrated.

About an hour later (yes, I am ashamed to admit it) it was still on my mind as I sat on our verandah doing our hand wash.  (The clothes were getting VERY clean!)  As I washed I was venting to God and asking Him to help me let it go.

I looked up, and there came little 4-year-old Tomue (Too-mway) trit-trotting happily along on the way to our house with a little broken-handled pot on her head.  She walked right up to me, informed me she had brought me a gift, and set her pot down in front of me…

….full of sweet potatoes….

As I looked into those adorable brown eyes, I am quite sure that I saw Jesus looking back at me.  In the quiet of my heart, His voice spoke to remind me …

HE is my protector…

       HE is my defender….

                        HE is my provider…

                                    …for ALL that I need.

Somehow, I think these potatoes are going to taste a lot like humble pie…but ever SO SWEET!

Do you remember the nursery rhyme that we learned in childhood, the one that ended with "...and all in the house that Jack built." ?  One thing just lead to another in the house that Jack built. I have felt an odd sort of affinity with Jack recently.  A series of events has occurred which, had I known what was coming I would have felt quite intimidated, but God in his loving kindness, allowed me to take one step at a time. 
   It all started with one man...the chief's uncle, who had a two month old wound on his foot that would not heal.  He came to me one morning asking for help.  I was happy to help him, but felt a little nervous, him being in the paramount chief's family and all.  Since he could not walk well, I went to his house every day to assess the wound, clean it, and apply a dressing.  The wound was quite large and deep and I was sure that it would take several months for it to close.  This meant paying for a honda taxi everyday to go and come... and I wasn't sure where the money was going to come from.  I kept telling myself that after a few weeks I would be able to cut back to every other day and train family members to change the dressing.
   God is good.  Mr. Balansama's foot healed at record speeds that were amazing to me.  The wound generally shrank by 1 to 2 mm each way, every day.  AMAZING!  On top of that, I have gotten to be good friends with Mr. Balansama and his family.  In fact,he and his family have now given me a Kuranko name... they named me after his mother.  And, if I pass by that side of town and don't stop by to say hello, I get in a little bit of trouble. :)  As his foot began to heal, other patients began to appear on his front porch to be seen, usually 2 or three new ones each day;  his younger brother, with high blood pressure and kidney problems, his wife with a stomach ulcer, and many others.  When his foot was well, and I was ready to sign off on his case... he asked me to see his neighbor, the Fula Paramount Chief for Koinadugu District.  In no time, I was also seeing every one in his family who was not well.
    I did NOT see that one coming.  So now, I see two or three patients a day at the Fula Cheif's house, and two or three patients at the Koranko chief's uncle's house.  In addition to that, going into town each day (now every other day) has led me to form a friendship with my Okada driver (honda taxi) who is a Fula (fulani) by tribe also.  I have had the priveledge of getting to know his family as well and am now trying to learn a little Fula along with my Kuranko ( yes, I do mix them up some days).  A 12-year old girl in the Okada drivers house was not feeling well, so she was warming herself by the fire one morning and her lapa (skirt) caught fire, burning the full length of her outer thigh up on to her buttocks.  This poor child has allowed me to clean her burn, change her dressing each day, and even pull off the dead skin without ever crying out or even shedding a tear.  She has been so very brave.
   Had I known when I started, where this would lead me, I would have probably stayed home... after all, I am not exactly twiddling my thumbs in between homeschooling, teaching the Bible School students, preparing a clinic, and having one-on-one bible studies in addition to running the home.  However, I have gained a lot of experience in treating different illnesses, some of them a little daunting.  I have also gotten practice in trusting God through this.  He has provided every day for the honda taxi... a lot of times it was close, but He provided.  He has blessed the medicines that I have given to make them successful.  And, I have been reminded every day that "..He has prepared, in advance, good works for us to do..."  and "...He who called you is faithful and HE will do it."  It's pretty cool, because all I have to do is just be faithful to show up... and I get a front row seat to the miracles.  Is my Dad (heavenly Father) cool, or what?

It rained today…

I mean it REALLY rained today…a good heavy downpour.  As many of you know we don’t have running water….at least not in the traditional sense.  I like to say that we DO have running water… you run to the well to get it, it runs into the bucket, on the way back it runs down your back or leg (depending on how you are carrying it)… and then it runs into the sink as you pour it.  That being said… whenever it rains we take all of our buckets and put them out under the edge of the roof to catch the water as it runs off.  We don’t have any eaves troughs, but Roy recently put a cut piece of 4 inch pipe about 4 feet long along the edge of the overhang, so the water comes out of both ends of it at a pretty good rate. 

     But, I digress.  As this torrential downpour came unexpectedly, the kids and I ran to quickly put all of our buckets out. We needn’t have hurried.  In about 15 minutes we had filled all of our five gallon buckets, poured the water into our water barrels, and filled them again for a total of 10 times.  Yes, that is 50 gallons of water in less than 15 minutes.  When our water barrels were full, I lined the full buckets up in our hallway…and the rain kept coming.  I had nothing left to put water in, I was out of buckets. 

    Why am I telling you this!  As I walked down our hallway past the row of buckets….I had a lightbulb moment.  See , I have to confess that I have been a little discouraged, perhaps even lost perspective.  I have been sick with a fever and headache for the last month.  (Yes, that is not a type-o).  I have run a fever continuously for a month.  It is finally resolving, but I don’t sit still very well…and not feeling well enough to do anything started to get on my nerves.  So, I got crabby….and then I got discouraged.  The enemy really started to do a number on me.  In the middle of all of this God sent me to the same scripture multiple times.  I am telling you, I would start out turning to Paul’s writings or the gospels and yet I would still somehow end up in II Samuel.

  A woman whose husband had died had fallen on hard times… she and her sons had run out of food and had run out of money.  She came to the prophet Elisha asking for help because she had nowhere else to turn.  He told her that God wanted her to go and borrow as many jars as she could from her neighbors.  She did as she was told and then she began to pour the meager amount of oil that she had left into each jar.  God did a miraculous outpouring of His blessing for her that day… and she filled ALL the jars.  As she filled the last jar, the oil finished. 

     God spoke to me in my discouragement and pointed out that  I needed to be about getting ready for his blessing.  Never mind what is happening right now, the blessing is coming…. But here is the trick…

  What if the woman had only borrowed a few jars? 

I have often heard people talk about “according to the measure of your faith”  but was never really sure what that meant.  I think it is about having enough buckets.  His blessing, like the rain we had today, will come in HIS time and in HIS way.  Do you and I have the faith to be ready for it?  When the rain starts falling, it is a little late to run out and buy more buckets.  The widow didn’t have the chance to go borrow more jars.  She could have, in the name of practicality, borrowed just a few jars and said, “we’ll see how it goes and then if we need to we will go borrow more”.  Guess what?  She would have run out of oil.  As many jars as she had the faith to borrow… that was how many were filled. 

    I struggle with the balance between practicality and faith.  We value being realistic…. But are we prepared for the norm…. or are we prepared for an overflowing abundance…
“beyond all we ask or imagine’ (James)… of GOD’s blessing?  I have come to the realization that I am not prepared.  So, once again God is stretching me (do you hear the creaks and groans?) reshaping me into someone who will hopefully be more like him.  In the process, I am being stretched and enlarged into someone with a greater capacity for catching the outpouring of HIS blessing.  I just can’t wait to see what happens. 

For now…

 I am going to buy more buckets!

Our first use of the Clinic-in-a-Box

In Africa, at least here, things are rarely used for their originally designed purpose.  I could go on for quite some time about the unique and inventive ideas that I have seen in practice here.  One definitely learns to think outside the box.  That being said, I have discovered that I had packed a Rubbermaid stationary box in our crates.  Lately, I have noticed that I am needing a little more than a basic first aid kit when I go places.  So, I have taken my office box and turned it into a clinic box.  I am really excited about it because I had been looking for a way to go with Roy and the guys when they do evangelism in nearby towns.  I would like to offer some basic medical care as a compliment to the evangelism.
One of our students has been faithfully continuing to do evangelism in his assigned town, in spite of the fact that school is no longer in session and he is not required to go any longer.  Because of his faithfulness, a church has been established and are meeting faithfully each week.  A child of one of these families had been sick for about 2 weeks without improvement.  A medicine man approached them, saying that he could help them.  The pastor tried to encourage them not to go to th medicine man, but instead to trust God, so he came and asked me to help.  The kids and I took my clinic-in-a-box and walked with him to see the child, only to find that the family had already left to go and meet the medicine man in a nearby town.  Disappointed, we headed for home, but as we walked, we prayed that the family would be unable to meet the medicine man and would return home unsuccessful.  Sure enough, the next morning the family arrived on my front porch.  They had walked quite a ways to the village and then could not find the medicine man.  I was able to treat him and he is now doing better. That same afternoon, someone else from another town came and asked me to come and see his wife, whose leg was swollen up so that she could not walk.  I was able to take my clinic box and walk to her house, and not only treat her, but three other people as well while I was there.  I was humbled and grateful to discover today that all of the patients I attempted to treat are doing well and have almost completely improved. God is so GOOD!  And yet at the same time, I am more aware than ever that physical care is much more than just physical, especially here.  One cannot treat the physical without touching on the spiritual realm... and in that there is a battle... please pray for us whenever you can... and pray for these people who need so much... have so little... and try so hard.

Hello to all...it has been such a long time and SO much has happened since I was last able to write.  We have had several guests, which was a lot of fun... AND we got our shipment... FINALLY!  WOOHOO!  The clinic is also underway now and we have plans to open it in September.  However, it is going to be tight because, as we were about to start moving in, we discovered that the floor under the exam room was hollow... yes, our friends and constant companions, the termites, have struck again.  Sooooo, now we are breaking up the floor and digging down to where there are no termites...pouring bug-killer in the space, putting down SALT (of all things)...and then refilling the space with rocks and then cement.  Oh well... sigh.... we wouldn't want things to be BORING now would we?  :) 
Anyway, I was thinking the other day about the 12 men who spied out Cannan land.  I was teaching my kids the song I learned as a child...
     12 men spied out Cannan land, 10 were bad and 2 were good.
     And what did they see in Cannan's land, 10 were bad and 2 were good.
    Some saw giants big and strong, some saw grapes in clusters long,
    Some saw God was in it all...
    10 were bad and 2 were good.

Such a simple song...
And then it struck me...
WE are like that!  Whenever some new adventure comes along, there are generally 3 responses to it: 1 - We see the "grapes in clusters long" - the benefits that we can experience and the opportunities... not necessarily bad per se... but somewhat "self-focused".
2 - We see "giants strong" - those things that could go wrong...the dangers... the risks... the what-if's...

Now,
 I tend to be... I must confess... a "what-if-er"...
 big fan of the safe side...
 always wanting to prepare for "just-in-case"....
Yet, here I am... in the land of the giants (or termites, whichever) and I want to fall into the third category...
I want to be one of the ones who "SAW GOD WAS IN IT ALL".  There are not very many who fall into that category, but I am striving for membership in that club.  HE is in it all, we just so often fail to notice.
SO, even when my heart fails a little at the thought of spending three weeks here with just me and the kids and no one else ( Roy is in the States to see his mom, who is preparing to move to her cancer-free mansion.  Dad and Clare are back in the States as well.) and even though my heart sunk at the discovery of the termites... I CHOOSE not to be daunted.  God is in it ALL!  Blessings are hidden like buried treasure in the things that look like problems...it is all a matter of perspective!


Be a treasure hunter with me today... it is easier if you know you can work with a friend! :)


I still wonder why none of the 12 men mentioned anything about termites...