Pushing Back Darkness

I’ve been home for a couple of days now.  It seems the rainy season has followed me.

I’ve been joking about my return to cheeseburgers, the joy of high-speed Internet and my coffee maker.

It’s true one of the many blessings of spending time in poverty is you return with a fresh contentment with what you already have – a new realization of the ease and comfort in which we live.

Almost anyone I talk to about spending time in Africa, a good deal of what people are fascinated with is how little the children have and how much we have.

Exclamations of, “We’re just so blessed, and we don’t even realize it!” People think it is brave and sacrificial to separate myself from my things, my comfort.

Follow me for a minute on this.

Are we blessed because of our comfort?

Only in the richest nation in the history of humanity could concoct such a far-fetched notion of the Prosperity Gospel (God wants you healthy, wealthy and wise) and keep a straight face and hands raised in praise.

If this is true, God is failing miserably the 5/6 of the planet that doesn’t live in a developed nation.  And He must just be completely turning His back on the bottom billion of the planet, (Sierra Leone is in this category) who live on less than $1 a day and suffer from diseases that have been eradicated in our societies for decades and centuries.

The truth, and I say this with the deepest love and desire for my brothers and sisters here to really grasp this, is we’re wrong about our comfort.

God is not failing.

God’s economy is upside down.

The real awakening in serving the poor is experiencing how alive and tangible the Spirit of Christ is in the world’s ghettos and the halls of an orphanage where children starved most of their younger lives.

He’s alive in the villages of Rookbop where lack of clean drinking water steals life and joy.

His preference is for the ugly, the impoverished, the weak, the forgotten, the smelly, the leper, the polio victim, the amputee, the orphan, the widow, the trafficked girl who has been tattooed, branded and sexually abused since her village was burned down and her family murdered.

Read Matthew 19:23.  Read Matthew 5.  Read Luke 18:18.  Read James 1:27.

God moves through suffering and pain.  If it was His plan to reconcile the world through the pain and suffering of His son, why do we think it is any different for us?

Show me a Christ-follower who lives in the deep waters of God, who inspires you, and who walks closely with the Lord, and I will show you someone who has suffered.

I am not saying that God wants us miserable, poor and sick!  Just the opposite! I am saying there is a higher reality that is so difficult for us in America to realize.  God’s greatest calling and interaction in our lives is not to bring us comfort and ease.

John 10:10 tells us, ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

This is the big secret.  Despite all of our heartache, sorrow and pain – His love, joy and comfort are real.

This is the Good News.

God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

It’s the awe inspiring realization that He came to reach into the ghettos of the forgotten and, “…bring good news to the diseased; to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to sex slave, and freedom to prisoners; to proclaim the favorable year of the LORD And the day of vengeance of our God for all who have been wronged! To comfort all who mourn because they cannot feed their children, and give them the oil of gladness instead of mourning; The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness; The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.”

By grace, I am past the shock of taking in the endless poverty and filth when I go. I have stopped focusing on the open sewers, littered streets, and body odor.

Mercifully now, I see the beautiful red earth, vibrant greens, the bateek dresses in every color and size, the ebony skin and deep brown eyes wide with smiles. I don’t care how much I sweat!

I see beauty unrestrained.  And I am overwhelmed with the love and presence of God.

You see if we have a bad day, we can watch a movie, eat a pint of Haggen-Dazs, or go buy a new outfit.  If our heart is hurting there is a trinket of every shape and size that medicates and numbs us.  If we are sick, we have doctors.

If you’re poor, you have no options. You have Christ and the relationships around you.  That’s it.

In Sierra Leone, it has been my experience that relationships and authentic love for God, among believing Christians, is what live is centered around.

The people around you actually matter the most.  Friends are intimately acquainted with their friends’ problems.  “You need a wife?  Let me help arrange that!”

They are deeply entwined in the messy business of each other and it is the highest priority of life.

They spend hours talking and enjoying each other.  What else are you going to do?

And that’s the big secret.  From Mosaic law to present day, God commands us over and over and over to esteem highly and serve the weak and foolish things of society as His preference.

To engage this is to live life to its fullest.

We have medical clinics to operate, children to feed, businesses to start, churches to build, hands to hold, money to raise, tears to shed, and the deep, intimate love of Christ to spread.

Join us.

http://www.4-him.net/

Do you remember reading Lord of the Flies or the Importance of Being
Ernest in school? They were confusing enough with an actual copy of
the book and a teacher to interpret and expose the deeper meaning.

Imagine taking a test asking you to explain the satire in Being Ernest
never having even laid eyes on the play.

That’s what half the children in the orphanage did today when they
took their final examinations in literature.

Ninety-percent of the learning in primary and secondary schools here
is strictly copying notes and dictation.

Students are taught to memorize facts that will appear on a test
whether it’s agriculture, literature, science or “technology”. These
facts will also appear later in the West African high school exit exam
that will determine if you can proceed to college.

They’re teaching to the test.

Lectures are given in open-air classrooms where students are crammed
into tiny spaces with all the chickens, street vendors, honking cars,
Islamic calls to prayer and whatever else wafts up to the classroom
from Freetown poverty.

We are on day three of our in-house education program at the
orphanage. It is designed to supplement their current education and focuses on the basics of reading, writing, math, history and
geography.

The puzzled looks and hesitations from the children at the difference
in teaching styles are quite funny.

But we’ve had many small victories and great progress in just three
days! Little Macmed, pictured here,

could not add 0+8 or 1+7 when Amy
started with him last week. Now he’s worked through more than
30-pages of his Saxon math workbook adding, subtracting – you name it.

Many of the children are so happy about their new math skills they
come and ask for more lessons or get upset if the think their learning
group has been skipped.

Up until this week, they have only known how to add and subtract large
and small sums by creating tick marks on paper and counting them.

When we tested all the children for math and reading levels in
December, we formed two non-reading groups – older girls and several
primary children.

By day two, all our non-readers were reading bat, hat, cat, sat, rat…

They are so eager to learn. We found sweet Teresa off reading to
herself now that she can read!

Ester, one of the star soccer players for the girls exclaimed, “That
was the most fun I’ve ever had learning!”

Part of the selection we have been reading to them is a famous poem by
Langston Hughes, My People. We explained to them the history and
plight of African Americans during that time and how this poem
celebrated the beauty of African Americans.

It was so popular even the cooks, who can hear everything we are
teaching in the dining hall, wanted to copy it down.

We had our first geography lesson as well. You can see the Atlantic
Ocean from the orphanage, but none of the children could identify
prior to the “continents and oceans” song taught them.

In turn they have been teaching us how to make tea, butterscotch, sing
songs and properly eat spicy food.

To put this all in prospective, Sierra Leone is at the very bottom, even below
Haiti and about 20 other Sub-Saharan African countries in the UN Human
Poverty Index.

For 11 years, a civil war raged that completely ravaged the country.
It left a significant percentage of the country as amputees.

Rebel soldiers would march systematically from village to village.
They would first trap people in their homes and burn them alive.
Those who were left were given their preference of whether they wanted
their arm or leg cut off.

Boys who looked strong enough to hold an automatic weapon were told to
join or be killed on the spot.

All of the children at the Wellington home are orphans because of the
war. They either saw their families murdered before their eyes, or
were too young to remember what happened when they were brought to
Pastor Hassan.

One girl that was brought to Pastor was cut from her mother’s womb and
left in the street to die.

You cannot imagine the brutality and the trauma. Remarkably, their
faith and love for God has brought tremendous healing. They children
serve and love one another and function very well.

They believe their calling is to be the Nehemiah’s of Sierra Leone in
helping to rebuild their country.

You can help us accomplish this dream by sponsoring one child for $30
a month. It gives them clothing, food, shelter and medical care. Or
you can donate directly to 4HIM one-time gifts that help us facilitate
our relief and development projects around the country and in the
orphanage.

To see video of the children and hear testimony of Benjamin about his
family being killed, visit 4HIM’s website.

"The night is beautiful, so the faces of my people

The stars are beautiful
so the eyes of my people

Beautiful also is the sun
Beautiful also are the souls of my people"

- Langston Hughes

We returned two days ago from a whirlwind, three-day tour of the
country.  It included the trip to Rookbop and Njala University with
several cities in between.We took ten of the older children with us as part of our desire to expose them to different areas and needs in their country and the work 4HIM and The Lord’s Mission Church is ccomplishing.  The majority of them have never traveled out of Freetown – especially the girls.  This goes hand in hand with the supplemental education program we launched with this team. The children already go to school, but there are extreme limitations to the education they are provided with such few resources in their schools. We believe the children of Wellington are the Nehemiah’s of their country and all have different giftings and callings to help effect change. So one of our primary goals is to give them a world-class education both experiential and in traditional disciplines. When the children come back to the home from school, they rest briefly and begin afternoon tutoring sessions in small groups with Amy Kernal. We have purchased curriculum that is internationally based, and will help bring up their reading, writing, history and math skills. They are all very excited and eager to learn! Our hope was in bringing them with us in our travels it would open their eyes to different ways to serve, and overtime, refine the vision God has for their lives.

One night after returning from a very emotional trip to the village of Rookbop, we went around the room and each one of the children shared their thoughts about the experience and what they learned. Precious, one of the girls shared that when she saw “the Americans dancing with the villagers it made me think of love. And I feel you do this because you ‘ave sincere love for tem. Sierra Leone needs more love. Yes, that is what we lack. We should love one another as the Bible says.”

Martha, who is 16 shared, “When I heard the chief say their children are beginning to be sick again and they have already lost one boy to diarrhea, my heart jumped. I prayed right then the Lord would give me strength to become a nurse and possibly a doctor…” to which she received a hearty ovation from the other children and the rest of our crew. Martha has long had plans to be a nurse, and always assists when there is a cut or scrap in the home. When we toured the Bo Campus of Njala, where their nursing school is, she was able to walk through the labs and classrooms and see first-hand what nursing school was like. She was thrilled.

Our final leg of the trip was a the main campus of Njala where we “passed the night.” It is a beautiful 4,000 + acre campus. Once the agricultural research hub of West Africa, it was destroyed during the war. But President Koroma has made it a top priority for the school to be completely refurbished, and they have made tremendous progress. Last November, we helped forge a partnership with Oklahoma State University and Njala that will ultimately result in student and faculty exchanges, joint agricultural research and allow for capacity building grants for Njala through USAID. While there, we were fortunate enough to stay in the new faculty accommodations and they were wonderful. The children, who’ve never had an ounce of privacy their whole lives, stayed two to a room, had a TV and a FAN! They made me take pictures of them posing in their rooms, by the 13-inch TV or lounging in the parlor couches. (So their brothers and sisters in the home would actually believe their stories about the luxurious accommodations.) The Njala campus with its new lecture halls, dormitories and beautiful landscape is the stuff of Hollywood’s romantic Africa. Breath taking beauty.  Imagine living inside the walls of a crowded orphanage in the middle of Freetown – a city that was built to accommodate 500,000. It now has more than one million people with no lights, no water, no infrastructure and you can practically reach out and touch your neighbor through the window of their tin home. And wow – the smog when you go downtown is overwhelming. So it was not a surprise when Edward, one of the senior secondary boys, wrote a song on the last day of the trip called “Away from Freetown.”Edward will steal your heart in an instant. He is a prolific songwriter and can play any instrument he gets his hands on. He has probably written more worship songs than I’ve forgotten. He had a little help from Eric (an American) on the second verse, but I thought I would share the song:
“All the way from Freetown
Up to Bo town
On our way to Rookbop
We had a warm welcome
Down to Makini town
In Mena hotel
We had lots of fun
Everything was just too fine
We ate mango
We ate rice
We ate chicken and fish
Though everybody was sleepy
But everything was just too fine
(Second verse – Eric’s input)
At Mena hotel
I ate a fish head
Then I felt that I would soon be dead
But it was a great trip
We had a good time I sure love Africa
Everything was just too fine”

These children are truly amazing. Their love and concern for others,their maturity in their faith and their deep desire to help rebuild their nation is humbling. Oh and by the way, for $30 a month you can sponsor them so these precious hearts can continue to be educated, fed, clothed and sheltered. 100% of the sponsorship goes to the orphanage. For more information visit the sponsorship page of 4HIM’s website.

Today we traveled to a remote village in the northern part of Sierra Leone in the Cambia District called Rookbop. It is about four hours over rough terrain and is only accessible by small canoes and a narrow path.

Two years ago a water well was installed by 4HIM that brought vitality and health to the village, which was plagued by water-related diseases and deaths.

The village, which is dominated by traditional African spirituality (worship of trees/rocks) and Islam, began to see people come to Christ. Including several elders of the tribe.

Over time they asked the Lord’s Mission Church (the church community 4HIM partner’s with) to build a church for them to worship and have a community center. It was completed about two months ago and was slated to be dedicated while a team from Oklahoma was in country.

But halfway to Sierra Leone, the team got a call that a mob of Muslims from neighboring villages had come and burnt the church down and destroyed Rookbop’s water wells.

The villagers fought them off as best they could, but in the end the mob was too powerful and the church was lost. It was devastating to the community.

Even more devastating was the loss of the clean drinking water they had become accustomed to. In fact, Rookbop was a strategic location for several villages nearby to also share in the clean water, because the elders thought best to not charge others for access to the well.

Violence like this between Muslims and Christians is really rare in Sierra Leone. Historically the two groups have gotten along well.

However, Hezbollah has taken root in several parts of the country, pouring money into local schools, mosques and creating hospitals and bringing their radical agenda with them. They do this because it helps them get access to SL’s vast natural resources to further fund their economic mafias and terrorism efforts.

The Sierra Leonean government in now investigating the incident. During the course of the investigation it has been discovered the mob was paid close to $25,000 to destroy the church by Hezbollah and with the blessing of the Council of Imams in the region.

This has far-reaching repercussions for the SL government. The matter has made national press, and has caused much angst among politicians. The ruling of the investigation is being viewed by many of the Christians in the country as a litmus test to how sincere the government will be in rooting out corruption and violence, even if the source is from the influential council and dominant Muslim faith. (About 70% of SL is Muslim.)

When we arrived we were greeted by school children with songs and dance. Last time we went to Rookbop, the whole village came out to sing and dance with us.

As we made our way through winding path surrounded by mud huts and thatched roofs, we came to an open area where chairs were seated in a semi-circle.

More of the villagers began to show up.

Pastor Hassan began to address the crowd in their tribal tongue of Temne. Pastor Francis translated for us. The essence of his message was, “We will not abandon you. We are with you. Christ is with you. We love you. Christ loves you. We will rebuilt. We will restore these wells. We must forgive those who did this and pray they come to know the Lord.”

During Hassan’s talk, the villagers would interrupt with applause and you could see the approval in their nodding of heads.

The Chief then got up and said, “We did not think you would come back. After hearing of the violence we feared and believed we would regress permanently. We have already lost one of our children to the fresh outbreak of diarrhea. You have restored our hope and joy. You are taking our bitterness. We have tears of joy. We thank you.”

So, all of us Americans were, of course, blubbering messes at this point.

I want to share more details but I’m running out of power. So I will end with this. I have never in my whole life ever faced what it means to be in a life and death struggle for your faith or your livelihood. Today, I watched it unfold around me and their story was retold.

There is a real battle that is occurring in the world. Spiritual darkness is real, and it swallows entire communities of people who matter. People who matter to God. People who should matter to us, if we are believers in Christ. They are our brothers and our sisters.

The thief of joy may have one a round, but the Battle is the Lord’s. And even though our visit didn’t start off with dancing and laughing. It definitely ended that way.

We made it! All of us. Together. Two days of traveling with 16 hours sitting on various flights through four airports, one ferry ride and we all still like each other. Oh and the luggage made it as well. Remarkable.

The flight into the Lungi airport barely leaves us enough time to get to the last ferry ride over to Freetown. Pastor Hassan was very excited to see it all. However, he was driving with great concentration and speed to make the ferry he didn’t talk much, only to tell the car behind us that was honking trying to get around us, “I will not allow it!”

My mom, dad and sister are traveling with me, along with my friend Eric Webb. I think I already told you about Amy Kernal.

We pick up Eric’s dad, Mike Webb on Sunday. He can only come for a week. He’s looking into the possibility of building a bridge for a remote village to be able to deliver their crops to local markets. More about everyone later.

The ride to the orphanage is always a mixture of anxious anticipation and total exhaustion. The last leg of the journey is about a 40-minute ferry ride followed by another half-hour up one of the rockiest roads you can imagine.

We turned right over “hallelujah hill” and it opens into a small clearing and then you can see the orphanage.

When we arrived most of the children were still awake, full of hugs and shy giggles. Moses was there, “Mum! Mum…”

I was the last one out of the car because I was in the very back and everyone was so excited they forgot to put the seat down for me. I could see Moses pacing and trying to look into the tinted windows to see if I was, in fact, really in the car.

Bakarr, another boy that I sponsor and am very close to was also there. Bakarr is one of two boys who is involved in the university program we are launching with Oklahoma State University and Njala University to give the children higher education opportunities.

Chat with you all soon!

We landed at Heathrow a couple of hours ago…ambien still hasn’t worn off.   So far the crew is still happy/sleepy. 

Getting a little anxious at all that we have to accomplish while there.  I don’t want to sacrifice my time with the children for the sake of being the task master, but there is so much to prepare and launch with the education program.

We have loaded up about 300 lbs of school curriculum to begin an in-house teaching program with Amy Kernal, who will be staying at the orphanage for the next six months.

The goal is to get all of the children profecient in reading, math and writing.  It will be a supplemental education to their normal schooling, which has very little resources for the children to really learn with.

This is me with the kids at their school buidling “graduating” from a bible school we put on last year…

The focus of this team and program is a departure from the normal fun and games…creative projects that teams usually do with the children.  They will not be used to working this hard, but their hearts are eager to learn.  I hope we can pull it all together in two-weeks time enough to get Amy to where she needs to be when we leave.

Amy, who is about to turn 30, amazes me.  Tuesday was the four-year anniversary of her husband’s passing due to a tragic car accident.  They had only been married six months when he died.

John was in school in Alabama and Amy was there with him.  His plans were to use his physics degree in the missions field in underdeveloped countries. 

Before we left Oklahoma City, Amy pulled out a small white jewelry box and said “do you think it will be a problem for security?  I am bringing some of John’s ashes with me – this was his dream.  What we want ed to do together. …”

For Amy, this trip is fulfilling a lost love’s dream. 

He weaves all things together, and it is beautiful to recognize it.

Hi, it’s me, Crystal! I’m the first designated blogger for Pushing Back Darkness’s maiden chronicle of a 4HIM team while in Sierra Leone.

We’re leaving from Oklahoma City today, but we’re sitting on the tarmac.  We’ve been told we’ll be here for an hour before we leave.

While on the tarmac I can gloriously leave on every electronic device I have, but under no circumstance can I open the overhead bin or get out of my seat unless it’s a restroom emergency.

I was thinking about what to write as I was blow-drying my hair for the last time this morning.

Actually it’s odd I feel called to be a part of Sierra Leone.  I really like my hair blow-dried.  I love make up, and expensive eye cream.

I would never broach a new shopping season without consulting my beloved In Style magazine.  I like getting dressed up, roaming the halls of the Capitol in a power suit and having every modern convenience available to me.

Most days a white chocolate mocha non-fat no whip seems perfectly rational and justified.  After all I’m just as frenzied, busy and sleep-deprived as the next American.  I need Starbucks.

Wait! Pause. We’re leaving.  Be right back as soon as we hit 30,000 ft.  Time to sit back, relax and enjoy the flight.

Anyway, so why do I go?

Why go where there is no air conditioning or electric light except for a couple of hours in the evening.  There is sweat – lots of sweat, sun and grim.  Lots of grimy little hands and faces. Open sewers.  Children begging and leading old blind men with white hair and their gnarled hands that come close to you as they tap your window with a walking stick.  Polio victims on their hand-peddled bicycles weaving around busy market women with their goods piled high on their heads.  The 4 a.m. wake up chant and call to prayer.  The deafening sounds of poverty rolling through the tin shanty neighborhoods – endless clusters piled high up the hillsides of Freetown.

Why go?

I can’t stay away.

When my buddy Greg Dewey came back from Sierra Leone in May, he brought back a pile of letters.  One of them was for me from Moses.  I always wait for Moses’s letters.  He is the head boy at the Wellington orphanage where we stay while in country.

I spent a great deal of time with Moses on my second trip last year.  We talked about the tribes of Sierra Leone, soccer, God, Krio, Oklahoma…

One night coming home from watching a soccer game walking through the pitch black night on red muddy streets with deep ruts and rocks that jut out of them, I was slipping and tripping all over myself.  Suddenly Moses was at my side holding my elbow, “Creestol step here.  No – not there.  Careful, yes, yes that’s the way…”

Soon thereafter Moses began to pour his heart out to me in letters.  He now calls me “mum” and reminds me in every letter that he is “my one and only son in Jesus name.”

What’s ironic is I have been so caught up with my work and dealing with some particularly tough stuff in my own personal life that I have been down.  A little blue.  But I can always count on a letter from Moses reminding me how much God loves me and to not worry, God has an answer for every trial under the sun.   Telling me how he prays every night and day.  That he wakes up and looks at the pictures I sent him and says, “Hello, Mum Crystal!”

… “Mum, you know what?!  God has given me a special message for you.  You are the Queen!  He loves you so much.”

He turns 15 tomorrow – the day I arrive.

I have bought him a silver cross necklace for his birthday I believe is hardy enough to stand up to the rough and tumble of life in Wellington.  The back of the necklace has engraved the words “Psalm 127:3.”

I’ll let you look it up.

I’m looking forward to hugging my son’s neck.