Busy Thursday

Thursdays are my busiest day of the week and today was no exception.

Every other Thursday we have our book discussion. These days, we discuss our book during lunch. I think I mentioned in some of my previous posts that I wanted to eat together as a community more. I want us to enjoy being with each other... and not be with each other because it is required for work. So I have been cooking Thursday mornings for our book discussion. I think for the most part people have enjoyed eating together while wrestling with ideas.

It is my hope that in the future more people would want to volunteer to cook with me, but for now, it is me... and which every Lighthouse youth or person is around and offers to help.

Today I made a bean soup.
Ingredients:
1. Beans- I have no idea what kind of beans they are. I bought them from a village when I hiked bintumani.
2. Hungarian sausage- Sausage that I bought from Budapest when I was there a couple months ago... yes they lasted this long.
3. Smoked/salted pork- Pork that I bought at the local market. I've been told that it is imported... so it should be safe.
4. Tin tomato paste
5. Jumbo cube maggie (MSG like thing)- I have been told that this is an west African thing. I have a Sierra Leonean friend that is moving to Cambodia and she is packing some jumbo maggie. She told me that she will be hiding the stuff under lock and key because as soon as the other Africans find out about it they will come begging for some. Apparently it is different from the other MSG seasoning thing.
6. Local cayenne pepper- this stuff is hotter then the pepper that they sell in the supermarket.
7. onion, tomato, parsley... and one avocado- because I had it in the fridge and it was going to spoil if I don't eat it soon. So I just threw it in the soup. The Sierra Leoneans were shocked to find it in the stew.
8. And some other things that I can't remember.

As you can see, I followed no recipe... I will never be able to make it quite like this again. Cami and Laura said it was good... but Cami is very easy to please.

So I spent around 4 hours cooking and shopping for some last minute ingredients. Looooong!

The book discussion was quite interesting. We discussed the book Poverty by Raniero Cantalamessa. I wish I could write about all the things we talked about. It was interesting to talk about poverty with people who experienced poverty. We were all reminded again of how we are suppose to live in an upside down kingdom. Wealth does not solve problems... instead it can be alienating. (i.e.- Alienate you from people who do not have as much as you because you don't know if they are friends with you for you or for your wealth.) Wealth, if it is not used well is the root of most of the pain in the world. War are fought over wealth. Arguments over wealth. Crimes over wealth... you get the point.
Raniero shared a story of a painting of Jesus right before he was going to be crucified. He was leading a training session for people that were going to be working at the (Catholic) embassies (around the world). He told the people to look hard at this picture and remember it. He asked them to remember the picture because this is who they are representing. They are not representing United States, Britian or any other country. They are representing Jesus... a poor man who was beaten, betrayed and killed. If that is who we are suppose to represent, it is ironic that we represent him from the safety of our wealth and comfort. Anyway, interesting discussion.

Thursday nights are also our Lighthouse meeting. This post is getting too long... so I won't write too much about it.

But I do want to share with you something...

David sewed some bags for an ex-pat here... they are pretty nice.




We are working on some new bag design ideas... if you have any, please let me know.

There is an inner city teenage group from Michigan that is coming for a short trip mid July. They will be joining us in our camp this year, as well as help with some repairs and painting in the church that we use for Good News Club in Kroo Bay. It will be really interesting for our youth to meet youth from the inner city, and very interesting for their youth to be in Sierra Leone. Please pray for that time.

If you have some letters or things you want to send for our youth (or us- hint, hint)... you can mail them to her. Let me know if you want to send something and I can give you her address.

Bike ride

Myles and Brian are the two guys that I hiked the bintumani with. I think they are two really great guys. My friendship with them is special and it is different from my other friendships here. I don't just hang out with them... infact I almost never just hang out with them. I hiked the bintumani with them. It was an intense weekend- 24 hours with 2 people that I barely knew... but who I came to adore by the end of the trip.

This weekend, we biked around the peninsula together- a little over 100 km. I have not exercised regularly since I was away in Europe this April. I have not owned a bike since high school- over 10 years ago. I have not really biked much since then. But when Brian asked if I would join them for a 2 day bike ride around the peninsula, I couldn't say no. It would be fun to be with them again. Fun to challenge the body... fun to eat together... fun to just be with them. Friday morning Myles biked to my apartment and we rode together to grafton to meet up with Brian. We rode from 7 am till 6 pm. We stopped for a long lunch and made little detours to beautiful beaches. They encouraged me to stay on my bike when the hills were steep and long. Their conversation made the day pass quickly.

We decided to spend the night at Franco... yummy italian food, comfortable bed and beautiful ocean view. The next day, we rode the remaining 20 km back to Freetown.

I adore them. It is fun to meet people who bring out different sides of who you are. It is fun to talk to them about life and future plans. I will miss Myles when he moves away in a month. Who will invite me to other fun adventures?

Field prayer request

1. Please pray for us as we try to organize and plan another week long camp/retreat in July for the youth that are in relationship with in Lighthouse and Kroo Bay.

2. We are in the midst of reorganizing our field and dreaming about where we want to be 3 to 5 years from now. As we define new roles for some of the staff, please pray that we would be able to take ownership of these roles and creatively dream about where we want to go with them.

3. Pray for the emotional, physical and spiritual health of the staff in the community. Pray that we will be able to love and support each other well.

4. Pray for the Sassenberg family as they apply for staff with WMF. Please pray for their two kids as they adjust to life here.

5. Pray for Dan as he tries to raise support to come serve in Sierra Leone. (Dan has already been approved for staff.) Dan's community has been negatively affected by GM's layoffs, so he is struggling to raise financial support.

6. Pray for our youth in Lighthouse as some of them still struggle with lack of housing and poor housing.

7. Pray for Alie, Lighthouse youth, who struggles to be consistent in Lighthouse and still lives on the street.

8. Pray for Stephanie while she is in the states. Pray that her time there will be restful. Pray that when she returns to Freetown, that she will be strong, hopeful and well rested.

9. Pray that God will continue to provide for us financially.

Hospitality

Since going to LAbir, I am a bit more excited about the idea of hospitality. I feel like people don't cook enough for each other, and people don't eat together enough. Sure, we meet others for dinner at restaurants, but I feel like it is not as intimate as sitting around a dinning room table and enjoying the food that someone especially made. So in light of those ideas, I changed the way that we have book discussions in Freetown. We now do it over a meal.

So yesterday I made split pea soup, served over rice.

I made a basil salad... we don't eat enough vegetables here.

And papaya... the cure all fruit.

And we talked about Henri Nouwen's book about fund raising. We didn't talk all we could about the book, but it was good to sit around a table, eat together and be with one another.

If you are interested in a free copy of the book, go to www.henrihouwen.org

If you have an easy, fast recipe of something good. Please send it my way. I don't really know how to cook very much.

Unemployment in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone’s population is very young. Due to the war, many of the population have moved to the city. In a country with 4.9 million people, 34 percent of them (1.7 million) live in urban areas, and 42 percent of them (2 million) are below the age of 15 years old. 1.6 million (34%) of the population are between the ages of 15 and 35 years (how Sierra Leoneans define youth/young adults). This may not seem like a significant point except when you realize that many of the youth lack higher education/skills and most are unemployed. Those that are employed are paid low salaries because there are many who seek jobs and are desperate for work, and employers can take advantage of this. The limited job opportunities can be attributed to limited access to capital, poor markets for goods and services, poor roads and weak and inconsistent supply of electricity. The result is that many of the young adults in urban areas are either self employed or work in the informal sector. Some examples of main employment opportunities for male youths are carpentry, trading of second hand goods, foreign currency exchange, driving (motorcycles) and stone breaking. The main employments for female youths are tie-dying, catering, hairdressing, soap making and petty trading. However with so many youth doing the same kinds of jobs (supply) and limited people using their services (demand), they earn very little and most do not even make enough to support themselves and their families. Some are so discouraged by the small pay that they prefer to be idle. According to the Government of Sierra Leone, the high number of idle youth could undermine the country’s development and potentially disrupt the recent stability of Sierra Leone.

When youths were asked what they needed, they suggested provision of tools for skilled labor, better regulation of industries to ensure that employers meet their obligations, need to build additional markets, provision of transport facilities for goods, and re-opening pre-conflict industries, including hotels and tourist centers.

These last two weeks, the staff of WMF Sierra Leone have been reorganizing the field and dreaming about possibilities for our future and where God is calling us. As we continue to be in relationship with the Lighthouse young men and women, and Kroo Bay kids, we want them to have education that will allow them to find jobs that will provide for them and their families; we want them to be confident individual who understand the identity that God has given them. As we look at the young adults that we are in relationship with, we pray that they will not become another static of unemployed in Freetown, but instead be transformed individuals who reach out to neglected men and women around them. Please pray for us as we try to discern where God is calling us and please pray for our young men and women as they grow up in a challenging environment.


*Statistic from “Voices and Views- Youth and Employment in Sierra Leone,” A publication of ENCISS and The World Bank

Coffee for a good cause

After I graduated from university I interned for an organization called IJM. What drew me to the organization was how they rescued women who were trapped in prostitution. Many of the women were trafficked into another country and forced to prostitute themselves. It was from my time in this organization that I learned about justice. It was from my time with them that I began to read more about what was happening globally and care about the suffering world. So almost 10 years later, I am no longer with them, but they are still doing some great things. They are still rescuing women trapped in prostitution, kids trapped in bonded labor (slavery) and other human rights abuses.

So this is the part you come in. This is especially good if you love coffee...

Simply:

1. Go to www.STORYVILLE.com
2. Purchase coffee or home-brewing equipment.
3. 100% of your purchase price will be donated to IJM. Yes, every dollar of your purchase (including shipping) will be donated to IJM.

Please spread the word by forwarding this e-mail and help IJM raise up to $1 million for the work of justice through Storyville Coffee's "Give It All Away in May" campaign.