Driver's Ed

I got back from Freetown yesterday, a trip during which I experienced many different types of transportation. This, coupled with my traveling experiences over the last year and a half, have led me to my own classification system for driving styles. In order to fully understand, you have to first understand that many of the roads we travel on are either rough dirt roads, broken up pavement, or extremely congested city traffic. The classifications are as follows:
1. The "grass-is-greener" approach.
This driver begins with the very best of intentions...on his own side of the road. But then he begins to notice that while his side is full of potholes, the other side does not appear to have nearly as many. So, he switches to the other side. Logical...except that once he is there, he begins to notice that now the other side of the road has less potholes than before, so...as any good driver would do... he switches back again...and again... and again... ad nauseaum... LITERALLY.
2. The "Looney Tunes" school of thought.
This method is fairly straight forward. You just pretend that you are in a cartoon, get up a lot of speed and figure that, like the cartoon characters who run off of the edge of the cliff and just keep going, you also will just have SO much momentum, that you will fly over the top of the pothole, and not experience the inevitable drop until you have reached the other side of the pothole. The trick is to just keep going fast enough. This approach is very similar to the Evil Keneville (sp?) approach. The difference is that the Evil Keneeville driver is at least aware of the jarring jolt you get to your spine... he just doesn't care. He views it as a necessary evil in order to soar over the next 5 potholes to a new world record. After all, one bump is better than 5...right.
3. The "Secret Treasure Map" approach.
I think that this type of driver has probably seen too many pirate movies, or Indiana Jones movies. He truly believes that, if one tries hard enough, there is actually a way to pass through the maze of concrete swiss cheese... unscathed. So, he seeks to find the exact sequence of left and right turns, swerving sharply from one side to the next, seeking to prevent any discomfort to his passengers. There are two problems with this theory... the goose eggs that each passenger gets from alternately knocking his head on his window and the head of the passenger next to him... and the ONCOMING TRAFFIC!!!!
4. The "007 - Licensed to Kill" driver.
This driver is legitimately appalled at the careless and risky driving of those around him and will talk at great length ( in words I can't repeat on this blog) about their foolishness and carelessness. He, however, will take the same risks...and worse. According to him, that is okay because he is actually SO skilled in his driving that he can come within centimeters of oncoming traffic as he passes another car at a very high speed, without any problem whatsoever. The only reason that his passengers and the other driver are upset about this... is because they are just ignorant of how truly skilled he is. He is so skilled that such behavior is actually not a risk for him. So, he just informs them, in no uncertain terms (again, unrepeatable) that they are silly for being afraid and ignorant.
5. The "Tortoise and the Hare" approach.
Being the Tortoise AND the Hare is very tricky business, but it does allow the driver to slow down enough to soften impact for each pothole...He just makes up for it in between with crazy high speeds. On the upside... you have frequent brake checks... on the down side...you have frequent brake replacements....and frequent visits to your chiropractor...that is, if there WERE one.

All drivers operate on the basic understanding of a few simple unwritten rules:
1. Lanes are optional
2. It is okay to not have brakes, mirrors, headlights, or a seatbelt...but a horn is a necessity.
3. Wherever you are going, get there as fast as you can.
4. 1st and 2nd gear are to be used only in absolute emergencies.
5. All written rules are for every one else.
6. If anyone is in front of you, they should get out of the way.

All that being said... Buckle up and enjoy the ride.

P.S. on the Baby Boy

I was able to weigh Kunku's baby...at about 9 lbs! WOW! Mom and baby are both doing well.

Baby Boy

Hey all! I just had to post this real quick! I just delivered my first Sierra Leone baby. Mom (Kunku) went into labor at around midnight. She has had four other children, without any difficulties, and all of them quick deliveries. I figured this one would be a good one for my first run, since it would probably be a walk in the park...WRONG! I was really scared, even of a normal delivery, as I don't have any experience other than labor coaching and observing in nursing school... and I felt woefully inadequate as I walked to her house in the moonlight. After all, it is two lives at stake... not a good place for amateurs. Prayer was, as always... my only option...and it went something like this.
"Dear God, PLEASE don't let me kill anyone!"
As time went on, Kunku and the women with her became anxious, as she had always delivered quickly in the past. Each time I examined her, it seemed that the baby was still high, albeit progressing slowly. I had a hard time figuring the baby's position for sure, as Kunku is a large woman, her uterus was not relaxing well...AND I have very little experience. Eventually, I called my good friends, Sarah (SJRMC Pediatrics) and Ruth (SJRMC OB), who gave me good advice. I am happy to report that the assistance of these two ladies really paid off and at about 9:00 am Kunku delivered a VERY large baby boy (for Africa anyway) with his cord wrapped around his neck...and he was facing the wrong way. Thank you Sarah and Ruth... and God, without whom nothing is possible. Two of the bible school women were also present and did a fantastic job helping Kunku and helping me. I am SO grateful!

Answers to Prayer

Well, today was a little more exciting than we had expected. We began our day with bible study as usual. Roy gave the last exam to the diploma students. As the students finished their exam, we called a meeting with all the students in order to address the issue of cheating. Rev. Samson spoke strongly to them about a call to holiness, and Dad shared as well. We ended with chance to come forward for prayer and many of them did. Please pray for them as they seek to change over from something that is accepted in their culture to a life style that goes against the norm. It cannot be easy.
As I have shared with you before, this is dry season, and this is the time of year that people burn off the bush in order to make their farms. Someone had lit a fire on the far side of one of the hills on the other side of the road from the Bible School. As the wind picked up this afternoon, the fire began to come down the hill... and initially was just something of interest...until the smoke began to block out the sun... and burning ashes were falling into the grass 200 yards away. Then, the fire jumped the road and began to burn towards some of the dorms. Many of the men were able to go and control it, but we lost many banana plants, pineapple plants and a small store of potatoes that a student had. Additionally, one of the students lost over half of his garden.
We thought that we had things under control...but remember I told you that the fire had been on the far side of the hill. Well another part of the same fire came around the edge of the hill, crossed the road on another side of the bible school and began to burn away from us...and then the wind changed. That fire began to burn straight towards the Bible School... and specifically the orchard and our house. The students all worked together and were fantastic!!! Women and children were running back and forth from the well with buckets while the rest of us attempted to fight the fire by beating it with branches and clearing a break. Unfortunately, the wind was coming towards us so strongly, that we couldn't even get to the base of the flames because the flames were coming towards us at a 45 degree angle. It kept driving us back no matter what we did. Obviously, I had been praying the whole time, but at that point I stopped and just said...out loud..."Lord please help us...we can't do it".
Just then, the wind changed.
We were able to get the water to the base of the flames... AND... the water had an effect. The flames began to die down, and we were able to walk through the burned area, dousing any areas of continuing flame. PRAISE GOD!
We were definitely protected by God.
1. We had planned on being gone today. If we had, we would have never known in time to do anything about the fire.
2. Snakes come out of a burning area. In fact, as the first fire burned down, two Gabon Vipers came out of the brush at an area that I was checking on. We were able to kill them both. However, in the second fire, we were walking through the grass toward the fire, putting our hands into it to pull it up and create a break. No snakes came toward us...which was a definite possibility.
3. Not one of the Bible School students was injured in any way in fighting the fire. WOW!

All the same...
A little less excitement tomorrow will be just fine with me!

In our family, most evenings we play a game over dinner. It is called "High/Low". Each member of the family shares their lowest point of the day and their High of the day...kind of a "best and worst of..." It has served us well as a way to avoid the "how was your day...fine" scenario. I wish I could take credit for the idea, but we actually got it from a movie.
My high and low for yesterday were pretty much polar opposites. It is final exam time here at the Bible School and that is always a tough time for Roy and I for several reasons. First, it is labor intensive with the writing of the exams, administering of the exams, and of course grading of the exams. Secondly, it is the time in the year when we find out just how effective/ineffective our teaching is. It is usually the ineffective that we discover. It is not easy to teach or learn cross-culturally and one must learn to be content with small gains. While we know this in our heads, it is still difficult at times. In addition to that, we caught some students cheating, which really breaks my heart. In this culture, while it is difficult for us to understand, cheating is the norm rather than the exception. Even so, my heart is torn by the knowledge that they are missing out on the joy that comes from living a life that is above reproach.
Needless to say, that was my "Low" for the day. My "High" came from out of nowhere and I am still celebrating. On the bottom of one of the exams...incidentally it was the student who did the worst (obviously NOT one of the cheaters) was a note...
"Mommy Faith, please help me. I want to understand"
Hmmmm......???
I was not exactly sure what that meant, so I went to visit Mariatu (the student in question). As it turns out, she did not want help understanding the class... she wants help understanding the Bible!!!! WAHOO! She told me that, until she married her husband, she was a muslim and since she became a Christian, no one has taught her about the Bible. She is hungry to know more and really wants to be able to understand and be able to read and study it for herself!!! WOW! It doesn't get any better than that! We are going to start a Bible Study together Saturday morning. I can't wait.
I know that missionaries don't usually share the nitty-gritty stuff...you know the low times...
Well, tough....
here I am...
what you see is what you get...
and I left my holy-roller shoes in the States because of the weight restrictions.... SO...
I do get discouraged. It is disheartening to me that students who are training to be pastors would cheat on exams. It is appalling to me. BUT, we are all human, we are all vulnerable to temptation... and every single one of us will let someone down at some point. However, if in the middle of that...
just one person... just one...
learns to fall in love with Jesus and is hungry to know His Word...
Well...
then I am a very happy woman indeed!

Many people picture the life of a missionary as being full of jungle vines, screaming monkeys, and pith helmets; while others picture daily evangelistic services in which someone with a bone of some sort through their nose lays down their spear and converts to a life of calm biblical study while wearing khakis and a button up shirt.
My life is not like that, and I have to say that in spite of being a 3rd generation missionary, I don't know ANY missionaries who live that way. Maybe somewhere, but not here. My life is a lot more like yours...just hotter and with more bugs. Most missionaries live day to day, doing the little things faithfully and the best they can, so that others can come to know Christ...Not so different from you, eh? Granted, everything does take longer to do. For example, you want granola for breakfast, you stop in at Walmart (or wherever) and pick some up. I, on the other hand, spend one day grating and roasting coconut, another roasting groundnuts and bene seed and grinding the groundnuts into peanut butter with a hand-crank meat grinder, and then a third day mixing it all together and roasting it in a metal pot on coals. On the up side, I can literally say that I personally know where my food comes from and that it is all organic! :) Every day has it's challenges, just like yours, and every day is spent trying to live out Christ to those around us.
Yesterday we got to experience one of those moments when all that work bears fruit. Each student at the Bible School is required to do evangelistic outreach one night per week. Mr. Thuranka has really taken it seriously, and, in addition to his assigned night in the town of Boonbon, he has begun preaching there each Sunday morning as well. I am so impressed with his dedication and his vision for seeing others reached with the gospel. Sunday afternoon we were privileged to visit Boonbon for a baptism service in which 9 believers were baptized and we were taken to see the land that the chief has now given to the believers, inviting them to build a church on that land. Praise God!
These are the days to be treasured and celebrated. THIS is what it is all about...training people to reach their own people with the Gospel of Christ... and seeing them rejoice in the fruit of their labor. WOW! It doesn't get any better than this...I wouldn't trade it for anything... not even granola in a box.

Yesterday was a bit of an adventure. I woke up to a woman calling me saying that one of the pregnant women on campus, Mariama, had gone into labor. Now, I am trained as a nurse, but I have worked in Pediatrics, Oncology, and Medical/Surgical. I have only been in on 4 or 5 deliveries...and that was back in nursing school in 1994. Needless to say, I was a little nervous. I took a quick review in "Where there is No Doctor" and went up to take a look at her. Sure enough... it was the real McCoy... puddle of water on the floor and everything. Thanks to a small box of rubber gloves I had brought with me, I was able to do a quick exam and see how far along she was. If you are a labor nurse, you have probably noticed that...like drunks... some women are funny, some are weepy, but most laboring moms get out and out mean. This was one of them... which all of the rest of the women found ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS. The small room she was in was filled with about 6 women all of whom were chuckling as she chewed them out in Kuranko and occasionally took a swing at one of them. It may sound a little shocking and cruel... but, I did notice that when she took a swing at someone, that individual immediately hugged her, spoke a word of encouragement and began to administer some sort of comfort...backrub, drink of water, etc. It was definitely an interesting experience.
I did not deliver the baby. With a hospital 3 miles away, there is no sense in that, but getting her there was a challenge. Her contractions were 2 to 3 minutes apart and she would not have been able to hold on to the back of a Honda for that. We have our van, but it had a flat tire. On changing the tire, Roy and Dad discovered that the spare was also flat. In order to remedy that, we had to call a Honda driver from town to come out, carry the tire and someone into town, get the tire patched and pumped up, then bring that someone and the tire back. We did just that, and once the tire was on, we took Mariama into the hospital. I am happy to say that about two hours later, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Isn't God good!
When I got back, I had to teach class, cook lunch, made chips, treated someone else for severe abdominal pain, cooked supper, and did an exam on another woman to help her know when her baby is due... (in about three weeks)...and make sure that all was going along well...(which it appears to be)! Nothing like learning on the job... but whenever I start to feel overwhelmed and inadequate... I remember that it is all just part of the adventure.