November 10th

I’m going to start out with a funny story that happened
yesterday but I forgot to share about it. I went to meet with
Pastor Jarr, the hospital chaplain. She was formerly a Muslim
and I’ve been trying to figure out what that means in order to
better understand what is going on here. So we went to her
office and talked to her for a bit and she told me a bit about her
childhood and how being a Muslim impacted her as a child and
how she came to be a Christian. After she finished her
testimony, she asked if she could pray and I said sure. She
proceeded to pray that I would receive Christ… Oh Pastor Jarr,
a very nice lady but I’m not quite sure she understood what I
was asking. I thanked her and left because I had no idea how to
respond, haha. You’d think that my being here would be a hint
that I might likely be Christian but I suppose that not all people
come here, a lady named Kim, from our trip through Makeni with
Karen, told us the story of a medical student who had come to
Sierra Leone a non-Christian. He had a terrible drinking problem
and would get into fights. One night he got into a fight and was
punched in the nose. His drinking had impaired his ability to clot
and he very nearly died of blood loss from his nose. This
experience affected him so deeply that his life was totally
altered, he became Christian and is now a pastor.

So, I had a really crazy but good day. I think I walked to and from
the hospital from the house like 20 times today. It’s only like a 4
minute walk or something but it’s quite a walk in the heat. But
today thankfully was a fairly cool day, not that it wasn’t warm but
there was a nice light breeze that would come and go. I went to
chapel at the hospital, but getting the Asher’s generator running
and getting some stuff for the clinic I got there just in time for it to
be over. Today, as part of the celebration, the hospital was
offering a free clinic for everyone to come and have the basics
checked, blood sugar, blood pressure and eye sight. I spent about
20 minutes helping set up then I had to up to the house to shut off
the generator and get it over to the house where the work team
was building the beds. Which I might add is pretty impressive. The
wood they are working with is rough cut, and they have to plane it
down, and then try to cut it to the right size, no two pieces are the
same thickness. It’s pretty impressive. The clinic was supposed to
go from 10 – 12, and I was going to be down there to help, but
several times Kadiatu, the cook Karen hires, called me or Karen
because she couldn’t find something so I had to come back up and
sort it out. Then I would go back down only to have to do
something else. It was nice though because without school today
and no planned activities to do I was afraid I would just sit and feel
homesick like I tend to when I don’t have anything to do. The clinic
ended up running later, till about 12:40 and when we tried to close
it up the nationals decided that they wanted to keep it open, there
were people still waiting to be seen. The doctors and the visitors
needed to stop because many of them were going off to another
village nearby to have a clinic in the afternoon. I spent the
afternoon running about doing errands, running here and there;
again I enjoyed having stuff to do if a bit hot. I have a request,
there seems to be a real attack by Satan on our efforts here, things
have been breaking down with such frequency that it just doesn’t
seem normal. The sink faucet broke, several times. The 110
electric system has gone down several times in the last 6 days,
without which we can’t store all the food we need to feed the
guests who are here. Of the three generators the hospital has only
one of them works, the water filter broke today but I managed to
fix it. In the house where the guests have been trying to work on

building the bunk beds, that the 11 nursing students who are
coming are supposed to sleep in, has had a ton of trouble with
wires shorting out. So my request is that you would pray for
the work here and that we would manage to keep serving and
reaching out to the people here. Some new strangers came
tonight for the celebration; there are a few more coming still.
Then the people who went out to the clinic got back, it rained
again and it kept them from showing the Jesus film sadly, but
they got to see over 140 people, so they now know if they
need to seek medical treatment and or to get glasses, which
will hopefully be ready by December. Karen finally got her
machine (the last one she got was broken) that measures the
glasses strength and we got about 70 pairs measured today. I
had to chase some kids away from the house the team is
staying because they were trying to lift some of the smaller
bits of the wood, I was afraid that if they thought they could
get away with smaller bits that they might get the idea to try
and get some of the bigger bits. Oh, I worked on one of the
bunk beds with Bud and several of the kids, which was an
interesting experience since the kids were having trouble
understanding what to do. Hopefully there will be school
tomorrow, though the school lost their football game today,
they might decide to take a day off for “mourning” haha.
Anyway, have a great night everyone!

Blessings from Kamakwie,
Ryan Brooks