One of my highlights, well at
least one of my more memorable days was my birthday….in the bush! We took a team to a couple of villages where
our organisation has a presence to help encourage and build the local church
and provide medical assistance. One of
the villages had a big problem with worms being in peoples feet..so a team went
back to help deworm and provide socks and shoes as well as do some general
health promotion.
On my actual birthday I was woken up at
5.30am with a radio held to my ear to tell me it was time to get up to help
prepare breakfast ie cut up rolls that had begun to go stale and put jam or peanut
butter on them (such a staple food here!) I was then given the massive
privilege of helping inaugurate a new village church building (my hands got to
be one of 4 pairs on the scissors cutting the string on the door!) and then
eating pork for lunch (the poor pig had been killed the night before..all I
could do was cover my ears and pray when I heard the squealing!!)
Then we had a fairly ridiculous truck ride
back with 50 people, 2 live chickens and 12 bags of cement as well as all of
our bags and the sound system etc in..and got stopped and fined by the police
for people standing…actually I think the police were quite nice to us!
By the time we got back to base I was too
tired and dirty to go out for my birthday meal so other staff went out for main
course and then came back and we all had cake together (nice lemon cake and
brownies which people had cooked..yummy!)…all that was missing was a nice glass
of white wine..which will have to wait until South Africa!
So we are now in the process of packing up,
saying good bye to students and evaluating our work. I will miss the lovely girls that I've been to house mama to. They've bonded well as a house and friends for life have been made.
So what’s next for me? On Thursday I fly to Sierra Leone, West
Africa for just over a fortnight to work with a base there who have a childrens
centre and church amongst other things.
I was meant to be leading a team but I seem to be the only person on the
team. After praying I still felt it was
right to go anyway..especially as its where I spent some of my early childhood
and so the adventure continues!
Thank you for your support, prayers and friendship! Love and miss you all lots xx
