Sierra Leone

My second time in Sierra Leone was so different than my first. The relationships I formed were so much deeper. I think that was because my time with the kids was more structured. I spent 3 hours every morning with 16 pekins, the smallest children, age 3 to 8. We did crafts, sung songs, played games, and learned the letters of the alphabet. It was so wonderful to be able to spend the morning with them. They did, however, wear Emily, Jenny, and I out. But they are adorable and bright children. In the afternoon I helped Mark, a veteran Geography teacher at a high school in Richmond, teach Creative Problem Solving and two sections of Geography. Our students were quick learners and it didn't take long until most of them could identify most of the countries in Africa on a map. All the kids are so bright and I had so much fun talking to the older youth about their hopes and aspirations. The children at the Child Rescue Center (CRC) in Bo stole my heart.

Church in Bo was an experience, as always. The second Sunday we went to the youth service at Centenary United Methodist Church. It was a 5 hour service and there were 13 offerings. The length was understandable because church here is really the only major community meeting during the week. It was amazing how many non-worship items were on the schedule. At one point in the service, they called up everyone who had donated to buy a surprise something that was going to go up in the church, there were 5 coverings over it and special people were called up to the front to remove each covering. Finally, after 30 minutes or so the item was revealed: a small framed picture. The parts of the service that the youth ran were really terrific. Most of the teens on the church youth leadership team are from the Child Rescue Center and it is so wonderful to see them acting as leaders in their community. That Sunday, there was an election for youth of the year and one of our youth was a finalist. There was an offering taken for the two finalists and whosever's offering total was the highest won youth of the year. Ganda, from the CRC won. They gave him a Crown and a scepter and sang "Crown Him the Lord of Lords." It was the most exciting part of the service. We are so proud of Ganda. I wonder though if we sixteen Americans weren't there, if Ganda would have won. I felt a little sorry for the other girl and wondered what effect our being present and contributing to only Ganda's offering had on the perception of the CRC and also on the already warped perception of us as Americans.

There is a difficult distinction between being generous and good stewards of our wealth and creating the perception that Americans or anybody with white skin is an ATM machine. It was difficult in Sierra Leone conveying the idea of partnership, especially outside of the CRC, because our prescence there was so limited. I wonder even of our closest friends in Sierra Leone, whether at the end of the day, they see us truly as friends, as partners in community with them, or whether they see only our wealth. Our presence in Sierra Leone, as partners with the Sierra Leonean Conference of the United Methodist Church in these projects-Mercy Hospital and the Child Rescue Center, already raises difficult questions in my mind about development and our role as Americans in the world. Our teams from America only go over for one or two weeks, some people return, but for the most part the majority of teams are people who are new to Africa. I truly believe in the power that an experience serving in Africa (or anywhere else in the developing world) has to take Americans outside their comfort zone and positively transform their world view. I also think that even though there are a group of churches that are invested in the CRC and Mercy Hospital and keep coming back, because it is always only for a short term and because it is always a different group of people, the kind of relationship we have with the CRC is having detrimental effects, even in the midst of all the positive ones. We aren't truly living in community together if it is for sporadic two week periods. Our constant coming and goings are an unnecessary strain on the kids who have already been through so much. We are repeating a cycle of abandonment for kids whose abandonment was the reason for rescuing them and bringing them to the CRC. Also, I don't think we saw a real picture of the lives of the youth at the CRC by only coming for two weeks. Sometimes I felt as though the things that were happening were only happening that way because the whites were there. There is a point when working with children, orphans, for such a short period time, becomes less an act of love and more a visit to a petting zoo, even though that is not the intention of our hearts. All these thoughts are part of a dialogue I have been having with myself and others who have had similar experiences about the effectiveness and ethical legitimacy of short term missions. None of what I have said is original; this dialogue has been going on for a long time. The six months I will spend in Uganda already seems too short. What I know is that missions, development work, helping someone can't happen apart from community, and community can't happen in the absence of individual relationships. Relationships take a significant investment of time face to face. I have a deep desire to go back to Sierra Leone for a longer period of time and continue my relationships with the kids I left there. My hope is to be able to go back and spend at least a month with them in the spring (not nearly enough time), but that will all depend on Uganda and on my financial situation.