"Aw da bodi" everyone?

Week one has officially passed here in Freetown. I'm still feeling fine, though this is still definitely a foreign place for me!

Homestay: The Zizers continue to be very gracious and accomodating hosts. The 11-year-old, Marvin, is always anxious to know what we're up to, or to help us bruk (wash our clothes) in the bathtub. The arrangement is that Auntie Marvel cooks for us Sunday lunch, Monday and Thursday evening, and her meals are delicious. My main problems have been with the spiciness and fishiness of Sierra Leonean food. But I've found that I can close off my nasal passage while eating, scarf down the slimy fish & greens sauce and then stick a piece of gum in my mouth to erase the memory of the taste from my mouth!

Team time: We had some great team time to start our Servant Team off. Word Made Flesh (now WMF) is really intentional about the quality time we spend with each other, and the quality down time we each have to spend with God. This is great, because our team leader, Stephanie (different from my roommate Stephenie!), tried hard to not overwhelm us with activities right away. The six of us (our team plus Stephanie) meet every morning but Sunday for breakfast, and then devotional or Krio lesson (which is 3 x per week). We will alternate who provides the food and who leads the devotionals, but on Wednesdays we will all discuss the "Lifestyle Celebrations" of WMF, focusing on each one for 2 weeks at a time. The first celebration we are meditating on is intimacy with Christ, as this is our highest calling.

Retreat: Last friday night, we all drove up (in an old station wagon taxi) to Mount Leicester. the highest hill in Freetown. We spent the night there at this pretty retreat center. From there we were able to spend lots of time together. We began our discussion on "what is poverty?" and learned more about the Servant Team and our own leader, Stephanie. And then we stayed up late swapping hilarious and embarassing stories - my teammates are FUN and funny and I had a great time laughing with the group. On Saturday morning, we had our first book discussion. We are currently reading through Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger a few chapters at a time. The conversation was really good (as this is a dense book that is hard to read without sharing reactions and thoughts with others), and it looks like we'll continue our weekly dicussions every Saturday.

Walking tour and Lighthouse: As part of our orientation last week, we each went on a 2-hour walking tour of, really, the most impoverished parts of Freetown. What made this tour so unique is that we were split into groups of 2 or 3, and led around by one of the Lighthouse boys. Lighthouse is a youth discipleship and vocational training center run by WMF here in Freetown. The youth involved come from really troubled circumstances. Some were forced to fight in the war, others still live in refugee camps or lived on the streets for many years. Every Thursday night we will attend their youth program, and each of us will tutor some of the kids regularly.

So, back to that walking tour. Our guide and friend took us to 3 different wharfs, leading us through the dilapadated, smelly and wet slum housing. Trash covered the wharfs and drifted in and out of the water. Something about these conditions were way worse than Kibera in Nairobi. Stopping at the first "government wharf," our guide told me the story about this being the point where thousands of slaves were chained and forced aboard slaving ships bound for Europe and the Americas. This is also the place, he said, where the freed slaves returned to settle Freetown in the 19th century. As I looked around at the suffering in that place, and then reflected even for one second on the incredible history of suffering in that one place. it overwhelmed me.

After lunch our guide also took us to the Sierra Leone museum were there was an impressive Amistad exhibit lent out by the U.S. The Amistad was a slaving ship that left from Sierra Leone and was bound for Cuba, but a man on board overthrew the captain on the ship and attempted to steer everyone back to West Africa. That failed, and they ended up in New England, where a prison sentence and trial awaited them. I didn't realize when I saw the movie Amistad that the soon-to-be slaves on board were Sierra Leonean!

Okay, enough of my history enthusiasm for now...

Heart: At our all WMF Monday morning meetings we have been reading scripture relating to the heart. We are doing a similar program Thursday nights at Lighthouse. I really appreciate this exercise of reading and thinking about scripture and hearing each other's reflections. Again, I am thankful for WMF's emphasis on recognizing our relationship with Christ as number one importance. From there, our service to each other and the community will flow. And it can only flow from there.

Service: After all, this is the Servant Team! Our service here is meant to be relational at the core. Like I mentioned above, we will each tutor some amount per week with the same kids. I would also like to shadow/assist one of the staff here, Erin, on her medical checkup rounds in Kroo Bay (another slum area where WMF runs a Saturday afternoon kid program). As for my "main" activity, I am considering volunteering at City of Rest. City of Rest is a home for mentally challenged adults, as well as recovering drug addicts. The conditions are far from adequate, but they would love for some people to come and interact with the guests. I'm feeling a little unsure because I don't have creative ideas for what to do with the guests (like some of my teammates do), but I also know that that isn't the main point. The main point is just spending time with the people, and Ben and Kristina have this cool mural project idea that I think would be fun to be a part of.

We will all hammer out our "schedules" this week. :)

So, I appreciate so much knowing that you people support me and care about what's going on here. I continue to want your prayers -for my team and our relationships here (Oh, we are also all attempting to learn Krio, and I'm slow to catch on so far!) I love and miss you all. ~ Katharine

(By the way, the title of my post is the typical greeting here, and it is pronounced "How da bOdy?" It's great.)

I'm in Sierra Leone!

I just wanted to write a journal post, saying that I made it to Freetown!! All my flight connections were smooth-- everything passed with no problem, and my teammates and I did indeed take a HELICOPTER ride late last night to get into the city!! It was pretty darn cool, and *interesting* as it was clearly an old military helicopter from somewhere. Our "flight attendant" had a lovely little speech for us which started with, "Hello gentlepeople, welcome to the helicopter." :)

My teammates are all great people - the married couple, Ben and Kristina, are from Indiapolis, but just got back from teaching in Korea for 6 months. They're young too, both are missionary kids and they are intentionally looking into full-time missions. My roommate, Stephenie, is super sweet and tons of fun to talk to and listen to! She is 29, getting married in September, and is an elementary school teacher. Get this, she just moved to Oceanside 6 months ago! And that's where she met her fiance and everything. So crazy! And then there's Chris. Chris just graduated from college in Tennessee, and he's from Virginia. He's taught in Vietnam and spent 8 weeks in northern Kenya before. He's also interested in long term missions.

Stephenie and I are staying with a Pastor Victor Zizer and his family. He and his wife, Auntie Marvel, have 3 children. Their names are Marvick, Marvin and Marvina! All combinations of the parents' names! :) The kids are really sweet and helpful and everyone is very gracious to us. Stephanie and I are sharing a room - there is a HUGE KING size bed, and then a twin, and we don't even need a sheet to sleep under cause it's so hot and humid and here!

Today we have just had a brief introduction to Freetown. We ate lunch and are about to visit the Kroo Bay children's center - a ministry that WMF works closely with. There are something like 300 children there. Tomorrow we will have our first team meeting to really start to get to know each other and discuss the plan for this first week... more later! God has really gotten me here safely, and our team is filled with really neat people. More later!


The two Stephanies outside of the Zizer's home, the place I will be staying!


The team! (Taken our last week in Freetown). It goes: Katharine, Stephanie, Ben, Kristina, Stephenie, Chris