Sabbatical Day One: Ready for Sierra Leone
1st January, 2023: Day one of sabbatical. In less than twenty-four hours I will board a plane in Minneapolis and be on my way to Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone, and Tikonko chiefdom in particular, holds a big place in my heart.
It all started back in 2013 when Alice Karpeh came to our church to share her vision for Rural Health Care Initiative (RHCI) and her desire to build a birth waiting home in the village of Tikonko. At the time both maternal and infant mortality in Sierra Leone was the highest in the world. The birth waiting home would provide a place for pregnant women to stay just a short distance from the Community Health Centre where they could receive the medical care they needed to support a healthy delivery. I was on board right away.
The following year as part of our congregation’s 150th anniversary we raised funds to help build the birth waiting home. I then made my first trip to Sierra Leone in January of 2018 for the grand opening of the Mbao-mi birth waiting home.
On that first trip I spent a week riding all over Tikonko chiefdom on the back of Joseph Sogbandi’s motorcycle. It was an eye opening experience as I saw firsthand the impact that eleven years of civil war (1991-2002) and two years of ebola (2014-16) had on the people and the infrastructure. The country had gone from being the jewel of west Africa to one of the poorest countries in the world.
Today it is estimated that 40% of the population lives below the international poverty line which is currently a PPP (purchasing parity power) of $2.15 a day and 90% live on less than $5.50 a day. Here in the United States many of us spend more than $2.15 a day on gas just driving to work, let alone our entire living expenses for the day.
Turning to Scripture I am reminded over and over again of the obligation the rich have towards the poor. As John the Baptist explained what repentance looked like he said, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” I have lots of shirts, way more than I need and I have been in villages where many folks genuinely had no shirt, or if they did it was old, ripped, and falling apart.
I have now been to Sierra Leone three times and this will be my fourth trip. I am going to spend time with friends and look into some new opportunities to expand RHCI’s mobile outreach services to additional villages. RHCI continues to work hard to restore health to local communities which is a huge first step in helping lift people out of poverty.
On the first day of my sabbatical I am reflecting on my responsibility to be a faithful steward of all God has entrusted me with to support and lift up the dignity of others.
