Second Email June 18, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

We are excited to send you our love and appreciation from the beautiful countryside of Sierra Leone!

We arrived safely on Saturday afternoon having conquered 200 miles and one million bumps in 8 hours. There are many details to our roadtrip adventure, but for now we will tell you that we loaded our faithful poda-poda at 6:00 AM on Saturday morning. Those blessed four wheels carried 9 lovely ladies, 3 kind gents, and about 15 suitcases. With everyone in place we rolled down the guest house driveway (in the ballpark of 20 feet) whereby we immediately bottomed out at the gate exit. Everybody out! J Luckily we hadn't had the chance to get comfortable yet. And thankfully we were easily entertained despite the early morning hour, and preceded to laugh while we walked the first couple blocks. 45 minutes later we were successfully cruising (a slightly relative term) through Freetown when our poda-poda decided to…how do you say it…stop working. Once again, no worries. Our driver and his 2 apprentices did some hardcore tinkering and 8 minutes later we were off. We could continue with our second hand story about our poda-poda caravan carrying our other COTN friends, but in light of bottoming out 20 feet into the trip, an electrical fire with a flaming driver's seat pales. When all was said and done we thanked God for our safe arrival to Banta and all the memories it supplied!

Since our arrival we got to attend the church service, participate in the Day of the African Child, lead in-services for Health Animators, the Children's Home Auntys, and the teachers. Not to mention the plethora of dancing and playing with the children.

We also paid a visit to the nearby village of Ngolala. Walking into that village was like walking into a National Geographic magazine or a Discovery Channel documentary. We were immediately bombarded with a train of children who seized our hands, rubbed our arms, and huddled around us. Sarah and Kristen guided us through the small village which was home to approximately 200 people and 20 huts. Ngolala was located not far off the road, yet when we stood there under the canopy of trees surrounded by a wall of green bush, we truly felt like we were close to being in the middle of an untouched land. Communication proved to be an instant barrier and we first-comers struggled with the basic Mende greetings. The village people simply laughed at us, and I'm pretty sure their pet monkey joined in as well.

The village of Ngolala and people of the Sierra Leone countryside are among the many things we wish you all could see and experience first hand alongside us. We are privileged to walk through this place and are honored to be among its people.

Last night we had a discussion about hope. The nationals reminded us how their people have hope each day because God has given them another day to live. They trust that God will give them food for the day and will meet their needs. Many times when you greet a native with "How are you?" they will reply "Telgodtenki" which means "Thanks be to God." No matter what ails them or how hungry they are, thanks be to God. Last year a woman told Sarah, "Where there is life, there is hope."

The Lord is keeping us in good health. Thank you for your prayers. We have been blessed with good cooking by Aunty Chris who traveled with us from Freetown. And at night we laugh as all eight of us crawl into our "princess beds" with mosquito net canopies which are tightly packed one next to another. Talk about team bonding!

Thank you for your continued prayers. We are grateful and feel as though God is answering them all.

Because He lives we can joyfully face tomorrow. Tel God tenki,