"I like reading your blog, but I have one request... You need to write in it more!" Sarah Saunier

Okay, okay I know I'm not very good at this!!! I've been told that I'm still in the 16th century when it comes to all the new technology stuff. I remember hearing something about our generation being remembered for the "you tube" revolution and I had just recently heard about it. Maybe it's true, I'm behind the times. But rightfully so, I was away from all this for a year!

This last weekend I had a reunion with my dear friend and partner in Sierra Leone. We finally got to re-attach the string we had between us for a whole year! Even if it was only just for the weekend. Sarah came up mainly to visit Quami, Massah and Eddie(it's okay, I know where I stand) but we also got to spend some good time together. It was weird to see her here because we've never really been together in the States at all. We were both so clean, and not sweaty, and we didn't have any children hanging off of us.

We met up with Sarah on Friday and took the kids to the Library in downtown Seattle(what a great library, I think I could spend hours there). It was a lot of fun and I think the first time the kids and Quami had ever been in a library. They had a great time reading all the books and trying to get us to read the books that were written in Japanese! Afterward, we went to lunch at Red Robin. Sometimes it is still strange to see these kids just walking down the street in downtown Seattle!

Saturday we went to the aquarium. When the Sierra Leoneans were in California for our benefit, they went to Sea World, so needless to say, the aquarium was not that exciting. But it's just great to spend time with them. They will be leaving soon, so I'll take all I can get!

It was great to catch up with Sarah and for all of us to be together. I must admit that all the Sierra Leone talk made me miss it a lot. Sarah is planning on leading a teacher team down in June and she's asked me if I would co-lead with her. I know this would be blast, but we'll see what happens.

This weekend we have our final benefit in Bremerton and then the benefit season is officially over! I'm excited for things to get back to normal, or maybe this is normal, I'm not really sure! My parents and Kelsy will be attending so I'm excited for them to see what I've been up to and to learn more about the other faucets of Children of the Nations.

I Did Mt. Townsend!

On Monday I got to celebrate Columbus Day(which I haven't done since third grade), with the day off! A lady I work with, Robbin, invited me to go hiking. So we hiked to top of Mt. Townsend, starting at 2,880 elevation and ending at 6,280! It was quite a hike, but the view was absolutely gorgeous and it was actually sunny! Once at the top we could see Mt. Rainer, Mt. Baker and Glacier Peak, incredible. Along the way we met up with the Retired Hikers Club, so when we were feeling a bit tired and wanted to rest, they pushed us on. Geez, I hope when I'm in my 60's and 70's I'll still be able to do things like this. It was just a beautiful day, enjoying God's creation and getting to know Robbin better.

Thought for the Day

Last night I was reading and this thought kind of "popped" in my head...
Because our God is a relational God and He desires to have relationship with us, do you think that maybe He is speaking to us all the time and we lack the wisdom or the ears to hear Him? If that is true, how much of His guidance and direction, we in our humanness must miss.

The Loss of a Dear Friend

This past Wednesday night, my dear friend and pastor, died, due to complications with a post-op hernia. Last week, Pastor went in for surgery on a strangulated hernia, a few days later he went in again because he was having internal bleeding and infection, he never recovered. Pastor Sorie Morrah, 31, is survived by both his parents and siblings.

Sorie grew up in a Muslim home, but as a youth, started attending a Good News club, which is a outreach program. It was there that he made a decision to surrender his life to Jesus. After this he started recieving severe persecution from his family--he would be the last to eat(if he got to eat at all), while his brothers and sisters would get new clothes, he would get none, his parents even stopped paying his school fews, but thank God for a local pastor who took Sorie under his wing and paid his fees and was a life-long mentor for Sorie.

As Sorie graduated high school, he wasn't sure what he wanted to be doing, but he knew he didn't want to be a pastor, because the life of a pastor is very difficult financially, especially in a third world country. But again his mentor encouraged him and helped him get some training. In 2005, Pastor Sorie was hired by Children of the Nations to be a pastor at our Church of the Nations in Marjay Town, Freetown. Within six months, he was sent up to Banta Mokelleh to start a church in an area that is 95% Muslim, to a village setting where life is vastly different from the Freetown life he grew up in, to a people who speak the native language, Mende, and very few speak Krio, Sorie's language. As the COTN vehicle drove off and left him there, he went into his room and started crying. He prayed, "Lord, if this is your will, just give me peace, that's all I'm asking." Moments later he fell into a deep sleep, but when he woke up there was a knock on the door, and a man outside. He said, "Let me take you to where you can get water, I'm going to be your friend," and at that moment Pastor Sorie knew, "this is going to be alright."

The next two years, Pastor Sorie devoted his life to those people, bringing the light of Christ into a dark, dark place where spiritual strongholds like witchcraft and voodoo have reigned. However, when light is brought to a dark world, there will be opposition, the last six months of Pastor Sorie's life, he has been battling one spiritual attack after another. Lies had been spread around the village destroying his honor and credibility and created division amoung the COTN staff members and the people of Banta Mokelleh. But never once did Pastor Sorie fight back, he continued to greet and be friendly to the very people who started these lies, praying for them unseizingly.

He will never know the difference he made in the lives of the people of Banta Mokelleh or the lives that he has touched with all the people he has come in contact with. Pastor Sorie was the most honorable man I met in my entire year in Sierra Leone. To me, he is such an example of Christ, not once did he retaliate when he received opposition, not once did he ever question his faith; throughout his whole life he stood firm for the Lord and what he believed. This is the kind of faith we are all called to. I thank God for the amazing gift of having been able to meet such a man as Pastor Sorie Morrah.

Since Pastor's Sorie's convertion as a youth, one by one, each of his family members have surrendered their lives to Christ. Please pray for his mother, as she is still a practicing Muslim.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade--kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressable and glorious joy."

1 Peter 1:3-8