Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone, God’s beauty shines all around it but the scars of man’s cruelty is deep in every heart. We crossed the Guinea/Sierra Leone border late morning of June 11^th. In our home town, Rita and I picked up M a Malian believer who was born in Sierra Leone but fled the country with his family during the rebellion. M is ethnically Malian and is currently living in Mali but has family and friends all over Mali, Guinea and Sierra Leone. He came to help us with border crossing and because he was familiar with S.L. and some of the languages spoken there. This was M first trip back to S.L. since the bloody rebellion in the 90’s. During the war, many houses were burned and destroyed and even the paved roads were broken up by combatants with sledge hammers which left the landscape very different than when M last saw the country 20 years ago.

                Our first night we spent at the Hope Center in Freetown. Eagerly we began the task of making contacts to help us on our journey to find the unreached people groups of Sierra Leone.  Gd blessed our first location with many, many friends with our same vision and hope. We had only one name coming into the Hope Center but left 2 days later with a list of names, numbers and locations to visit. In Freetown we met with colleagues working through GCPN and also with the local Sierra Leone Baptist Convention. At the SLBC office, the Ch Growth Director showed us their chart hanging on the wall which followed the T4T style that I also was trained in before coming the field. I was impressed that T4T ideals are taking hold even where little SBC or outside forces are present. The T4T movement originated in Asia but has been slowly gaining speed on every continent over the past 20 years.  The chart on the SLBC wall is just what we’d hope to see, local blvrs reaching neighboring UPG’s and spreading the Good News rapidly. Unfortunately, when we asked about the UPG’s that we knew of in the North and East of the country, we were told that those areas were not their responsibility but that of other denominations present in the country.

                So we were off to the North and East to look for these UPG’s and the other denominations apparently responsible to them.  But not before we visited M’s Grandmother and sister deep in the compressed row houses in Freetown.  As we headed out that day in search of M’s Granny house, it was overcast and a storm was looming. We came from Jui which is closer to the entrance of the peninsula and headed down towards the tip where the actual city of Freetown is located. On our way in it began to pour rain, many school children were walking back from school drenched by the storm. M was having trouble finding the streets because of the vast change in the city since his last visit, so we pulled over to ask directions and a girl about 13 years old got in the truck to “show us the way.” The girl was already drenched but content to be out of the rains still falling hard outside. She spoke in Kriol to M and soon we found ourselves on a ridiculously narrow road packed with venders. Our side mirrors bumped along the umbrellas protecting the vender’s goods. Rita kept asking, “Are you sure this is the way? Are cars really allowed on this road?” M would say something to the girl in Kriol, the girl would node in the affirmative and point down the narrow road that we were now trapped in. No turns, no allies to make a U turn, just endless road with venders moving there boxes over so we would not crush them. Then the flood came. Ahead of us the road was filled with water, baskets bobbing up and down in the current and people grabbing their goods which were floating down the road… you can’t make this stuff up. I don’t know how we made it out except for Gd’s providence and Rita crazy awesome driving skills but we did eventually make it out of the ceaseless market road of Freetown.  Apparently, you should not take directions from little girls who generally walk home. 

At M’s Granny’s house we were greeted hospitably and fed a meal of spicy rice with potato leaves.  Rice is the staple of both S.L. and Guinea which is unfortunate for me since I despise it. We ate rice three times that day… and many other times over the next 9 days. Fried rice I like, it’s sticky, it’s delicious, and I’m southern fried anything is right up my ally. But that’s not generally what is served, it’s that bland white rice that feels like your swallowing larva eggs. We started to get pretty creative with our food choices towards the end of the trip... to M’s dismay because no matter where we went, even if other things were offered on the menu, M always ordered rice. Se la vie. M’s family was beautiful, especially his Granny. She was so sweet looking in her yellow Ponya and head wrap. During our border crossing a Guard at a check point gave us a bucket of curdled milk to deliver to the Guinea ambassador… yeah. So anyway during our visit with Granny we had to walk down the steep inclines to the main road were we met the Ambassador in his car and delivered the much cherished milk which he then offered half to us. Weird huh? After much thought, Rita began to wonder if there might have been something special about that milk… or maybe in the milk.

                From Freetown we struck out towards the Northern provinces and into the town of Kabala. We went on a lead to a Guest house called Sengbeh. We were met by the manager who was upper body was scrunched down… I know there is a medical term but I’m not that smart. With him most of the time was an older man who went by Seargent and whose eyes were always half closed. He tilted his head back slightly whenever he spoke to you (only in Kriol) and was dressed in a long white Islamic garb with a round white cap. The first rooms we were shown the windows were nailed shut and since there is no electricity we could just barely see the holes in the sealing above the bed. No sir. “Ah yes very nice…Do you have any rooms without boarded windows?” Yes, the best was held till last… there was still no running water but at least we could see (during the day) what was looming in the corners. We got up with the sun to take the… um road, to Bafodia. 30 miles in three hours, the truck multiple times spinning its wheels and lurching backwards as Rita fought for ground going through the S.L. Mountains.  Each village we putted through, the people greeted us with waves and stares… crazy white women. 

Welcome Home

The seats are crowded in front of my gate, I look up to the gate monitor it reads Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I check my watch, when I came to Africa it had a crisp white band now it is a grayish brown. My clock shows 30 minutes until my board time. “Is this the gate for Conakry?” I ask the lady at the desk, hoping she speaks English. She shakes her head yes then looks up at the monitor and runs off… apparently they forgot to change it. Soon an announcement comes over the loud speaker, it’s in French but I gather by the crowd rushing towards our gate that my flight has arrived. I stand in line perplexed by the mass of people pushing towards the gate entrance. “Don’t these people have tickets? What’s the rush?” I wonder, as I too begin to feel the panic in the room and push forward in the crowed. We all take a bus to the runway where we board the plane; the same mob mentality takes over on the tar mat as people push in towards the plane. Some Asians and I stand towards the back a little ruffled by the chaos.

Soon I am in my seat and the stewardesses are cramming bags in every space possible. There is no space for my bag in the overheads nearby me. “Madame” I say as sweetly as possible to the stewardess and then gesture towards my bag. She takes my bag but also my ticket stub. When the stewardess passes my seat I say “Pardon? Ticket?” She looks confused “I did not return the ticket?” she asks in broken English. “No” I reply trying to be as friendly as possible.  After waiting a long while, she returns with my ticket I smile and say “Merci.” There is a man dressed in a white robe and circular hat sitting beside me. Just after take off the plane groans loudly as the wheels pull into their place. An older woman dressed in an African out fit with a head wrap sitting across the aisle clutches her armrest and looks distressed, the young man sitting beside her looks at me and we both smile and laugh at little. Africa is funny. Sometimes I feel like I’ve walked into a comic strip, there are brightly dressed people walking down every street, many of them doing things that seem silly to me.

When the plane lands in Conakry, we all rush off much as we rushed on and heard into a room to fill out entry papers. As I fill out the paper a young man asks for my pen. I had been guarding my pens like they were gold for the past month and had kept up with the four I carried with me all throughout 40/40 which seemed like a giant feat to me. I wanted to say “no get your own” but that would have been too complicated to say in French so I begrudgingly handed it over to him.  In the Senegal Airport, I had been met by dozens of men with little laminated blue cards speaking in French and flashing the card like it should mean something to me. “Your friend sent me to pick you up,” one of them said. “Oh did he?” I asked, “Then what is my name?” I got a blank stare in return. “You don’t know me.” I was wary that the same scene awaited me behind the fence beyond the passport check.

In line at the passport check I see a small bat is flying inside the building. He is diving and swooping above us. I laugh at the creature and look around at the other airport visitors, no else is as amused with him. I can also see gnats have gathered around the heads of the two Asian girls in front of me. I half wish that the bats would dive down for those gnats and add more fun to the chaos. When it is my turn at the passport check line, the man asks me for an address. I have none to give him, “A friend is picking me up. He said he would be out in baggage claim.” The man does not say anything he just motions me to the side and does not give me back my passport. “Well this is annoying,” I think as I pull out my computer to see if I saved anything with any address at all. “Madame! Madame!” A man is waving at me, my first instinct is to ignore him as one of the mass of men waiting to take advantage of me but then I can see him waving a sign with my name on it. I am afraid to leave the guard-stand at the passport line but he doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to me so I walk over to the gate. “Is this you?” demands the guard standing at the fence as he takes the sign from the man calling me. “Yes that is me. But they won’t let me though.” The man with the sign gives it to me, there is a note on the back introducing Mr. Conde as a friend who will help me through baggage claim. Mr. Conde passes through the gate and argues with the man at the passport check in French until I can see them scratch out and rewrite a few lines, he then grabs my passport and we are on our way to another world of chaos known as the baggage claim.

 Mr. Conde and I stand and wait for each of my trunks and bags to come around the conveyer belt. I am startled by a young man who taps me on the shoulder and hands me my pen. “Merci” he says as he smiles and leaves. I had already forgotten the pen after waiting in line for 25 minutes. I felt sheepish taking the pen back, he had searched for me in the baggage area to return such a small thing; that would never happen in America. I am happy to see all three of my checked bags made it but worried for my guitar which has not turned up yet. “Is this? Is this?” Mr. Conde asks of each bag passing. “No, we are looking for a guitar.” “Oh okay… Is this?” he asks pointing to a large duffle bag. “No a guitar. Guitare?” I try with my best French accent. He still looks at me confused. So I mime an air guitar. “Oh Guitare!” he exclaims and then runs off to his friends at the conveyer belt. We have my guitar in just a few moments and are again cramming into a mass of people. There are no lines in West Africa but apparently there is some sort of order because the guard yells at a man ahead of us and sends him to the back. Mr. Conde is on his best behavior and we are soon through the mess and headed up the ramp. Mr. Conde is motioning towards the crowd, “There are our friends” he says. I am looking but I do not spot them, finally the crowd opens and I can see my new friends and team mates, finally home.