November 13th

Today was awesome, and also stricken by some difficulty. I got to
sleep in a bit, and by sleep in I mean 7:20 or so, though that didn’t
do a lot of good because I didn’t go to bed until after 12:30. Tom
and Rebecca got called down to the hospital just before midnight,
a lady who had previously had a cesarean section went into labor,
which means she pretty much has to have another one if you don’t
want to risk rupturing the uterus, which would be bad… Anyway,
we went down to the hospital at 10:30 to go to the hospital
celebration. The president of Sierra Leone was supposed to be
coming to the celebration but he was not able to come sadly. That
would have been really cool to meet him. Instead one of the
ministers came, there were two other ministers of the country
present as well, one of them being the head of health in the
country. They’ve promised that they are about to begin a project
to pave the road from Makeni to Kamakwie then on to Guinea in
order to better foster trade and increase government revenues.
The Sierra Leone government has a health program that gives free
care to kids under 5, pregnant and lactating mothers. They pay the
hospitals associated costs for caring for them. However as a faith
based private hospital they do not qualify for the assistance and so
they still have to charge them. The minister in charge health
promised that they are working on rolling out the program to
hospitals like the one here in Kamakwie. There were some other
people, including the superintendant of the entire Wesleyan
Church of Sierra Leone Reverend Osman. There were a bunch of
speeches for about two hours and then they fed us, and by us I
mean hundreds of people. It was so crazy! While we were eating
there were a bunch of women doing some traditional dancing.
There was this person with a grass skirt on and a red cloth over his
head, the cloth was covered in horns and mirrors. Tom told me
that the person was the witch doctor, which is interesting since it
is part of an pagan belief system at a very Christian event. Anyway,
I had a great time after they fed us. Took some pictures of kids,
talked with Foday, Saidu and Albert, as well as Rebecca, and just
generally enjoyed the celebration. Oh, before they fed us we went
to dedicate the new pediatric ward they recently finished in a little
ceremony then we toured the new building. It was really awesome
getting to experience and be a part of the 50th celebration of the
hospital, though they were quick to remind the people present
that it was not the 50th year of having a Wesleyan hospital in
Kamakwie, the first one opened in Kamakwie 2 in 1920, moved to
Kamakwie 1 in 1930 before the new hospital being built in 1959.
After that I headed back up to the house to get some water then we
went to call on the work team. I then proceeded to walk back and
forth between their house and my house numerous times carrying
out various tasks. It was several trips in when I found out Karen was
not doing well. She hurt her knee climbing into the truck when she
and Tom were taking Mary Lane home. So she’s not in the greatest
of shape and feeling very frustrated I think. The work team came
over and we prayed over her, it was a really awesome experience.
However, she is still in pain and barely able to walk with a walker,
so please pray for her, for healing, strength and comfort. After
that we got ready to go to a dinner also being catered by the
Africans, which meant more spicy food, yay… haha. We got there
at 7 and didn’t eat until nearly 8:3o. It’s that BMT again. While we
were waiting the “dj” people were trying to get set up and were
playing music so loud we could barely hear each other talking face
to face, Tom got them to turn it way down but they were slowly
turning it up as time went on. About 45 minutes into our wait
some sparks came flying out of all the wiring they had just pushed
under a table. This was followed by some smoke and a bunch of
fleeing Africans, however no fire started and things back under
control. Sadly they were able to fix the problem and turn the music
back on. Thankfully this time they actually played some Christian
music instead of whatever they had been playing. Daniel Turay
was there and so we spent the most of the time just talking.
Daniel is one of my favorite people here. He’s a great kid and
he’s really got a heart for the Lord. It’s pretty cool. His plan is
to go to university for banking, make some money, and then go
to a pastoral college to become a pastor. It was hot and noisy in
the room with all the people and the speakers so Daniel and I
went outside where it was cooler and less noisy, though there
were a lot of people congregated outside hoping to get in but it
was only for the hospital staff and missionaries. We hung out
there for a little while then the dinner ended and so we started
walking home and we ran into Solomon (the community health
officer from the hospital) and he walked along with us. Daniel
turned off first and as Solomon and I continued walking I asked
him about his name. Many people here seem to take a new
Christian name when they become Christian, especially if they
were a Muslim. He said to me it wasn’t his birth name but I never
got to ask what it was because we got to the place where we
went separate ways. But he did tell me he was born into a Muslim
family before moving to Kamakwie to be with family. They were
Christians and he became a Christian. I thought that was pretty
cool. Anyway, so now I sit here at home getting ready to go to bed,
I had a really good day, but it was also the last day for the visitors
staying here, they are coming to church tomorrow but then they
have to leave to head home not long after that. I’m going to miss
having them here, it’s been crazy but enjoyable getting to meet new
people with such cool experiences from their past in Kamakwie.

Blessings from Sierra Leone, Africa
Ryan Brooks

P.S.
I was on Sierra Leone tv apparently, the Asher’s driver Steven was
here tonight, the poor man has run back and forth to Freetown
and Makeni so many times in the last week, and he said he saw me
on tv. Apparently they were showing some of the video from the
school celebration last week. I’m hoping to get a copy of it, Daniel
Turay told me that Principal HB might have a copy.

November 12th

So this morning was fun. I’ve been enjoying chapel this week with the visiting
pastors have been giving the “thought for the day” message each morning. I know
that shouldn’t matter but I can’t understand half of the things pastor Jarr says
when she normally gives the message. Anyway, at about 10am we started the march
pass for the hospital celebration. It was crazy; there were hundreds upon
hundreds of kids. Most of the students from the Wesleyan schools, both primary
and secondary, were there. That alone was probably nearly a thousand. It was
similar to the march pass that the secondary school had, obviously larger, we
walked from the hospital to Kamakwie 3 and back. I got all the kids on video but
unfortunately you won’t be able see it for months, should you want to see it. In
order to get it I had to walk down the line of students, it’s still about a 7
minute video, and then when I had recorded it all I had to run back up to the
front where the hospital staff were. It felt kind of good running up there at
first but the instant I stopped the sweat just started running in rivers. I
should have just waited for them to turn around and come back to me. It also
left me feeling like crap for several hours, my body didn’t take well to the
exertion in this heat. But I feel fine now that it has cooled down and I went
for a little walk in the “bush” this evening before dinner. I met a man who
reminded me of ten second Tom from the movie 50 First Dates. I ran into him and
he said hello and asked my name, I told him my name and asked his. He said that
he loved my friends, which I think means he wants to be my friend. He then
proceeded to say hi, told me his name and asked for mine. I felt bad because he
didn’t seem to be all there, but I was laughing on the inside. Anyway, I
continued on my walk exploring some paths I hadn’t been on, probably not super
bright but I was told by one of the Africans the path I was following leads to
Kamakwie, and it did after I met a man who said his name was Mr. B.A. Turay he
lead me back to Kamakwie, I would have gotten there because he lead me along the
path I was going anyway, they like to lead you to where you are going if you ask
them how to get there. Mr. Turay told me he used to teach agriculture at the
Kamakwie Wesleyan School and is now a principal at another school, an all girls
Christian school. Then he started talking and said that God arranged our
meeting, because he needs assistance. Not that I know what I can do, he told me
his first need is a manual typewriter. I told him that I don’t know if I can be
any help at all, it’s not like I really have resources for things like that, and
the Ashers said they probably don’t even have manual typewriters here, let alone
electric typewriters. I’m supposed to talk with him later but I don’t know what
I can do really. I’ll just have to see what his other needs are to see if I can
help; he said he has a few. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him more because I
had to return home for dinner, I am supposed to talk to him later this week.
After dinner we went down to the hospital where they were showing a movie, they
are having one every night this week. Tonight they showed a slide show with some
photos from the hospital when it was built 50 years ago and some from the 60s as
well, it was kind of cool. They were going to show a Nigerian movie, which I’ve
been told are like extremely cheap soap operas. Apparently they have a term for
movies of the type, Nollywood. They are low budget movies produced usually in
one room of some place. I haven’t watched one yet, but I saw a bit of one and I
couldn’t stand it. Now Karen, Rebecca and I are watching 50 First Dates. We
paused momentarily to go down to the staff quarters where a bunch of women were
working on cooking the food for the celebration tomorrow. Can you imagine
cooking for 1500 people using nothing but camp fires and huge pots? They had
sooo much food, onions, carrots, green beans and a ridiculous amount of chicken.
I got a few pictures, it’s so much food! Anyway, going to finish the movie and
then go to bed. Have a great day!

Greetings from Kamakwie Wesleyan Hospital,
Ryan Brooks

November 11th

Today was another crazy day, very busy but it was a good day. We
went to chapel, on Thursdays they have a thing called
singspiration, instead of having a small daily message they sing
several hymns which was good. I don’t even remember all that I
did this morning; it’s a bit of a blur, helping Karen prepare food
and Tom find things, and some other stuff. I’m enjoying having all
the visitors and hearing their stories and sharing my own with
them, but it’s also crazy with 15 extra people. I had class today
finally, well, two kids anyway. I got to school at 1pm and there was
a grand total of 17 students, out of the approximately 300 kids
who are supposed to be there, and about 3 teachers. Principal
Kamara was there and he decided, thankfully, that we were gonna
go ahead and teach. I grabbed the two SS1 science students who
came and spent over an hour and a half getting to know them a
little bit and teaching them biology. I had a GIRL, Mary; there are
no others girls in my science students so that made me happy. I
hate to see that the girls don’t go to sciences, which I think is a
product of the male dominated society here. The other was a boy
named Baimba. It was a good session with them, they really
wanted me to teach them so they had notes to study, that made
me really happy inside. After that I came back and ran into the
Todd, one of visiting pastors, and we were chatting down in front
of the hospital when a car pulled up and they pulled out this lady
who sort of flopped onto the ground. The first thought through my
mind was “Uh, that’s not good” So Todd and I ran looking for Tom
because we found out she was a snakebite victim. He said it was a
red snake and I was like good, it wasn’t a green or black mamba. A
bite from a mamba is almost guaranteed to be fatal. Sadly, I found
out that the Africans call the green mamba a red snake, the
woman who was bitten did not make it. Setting up for dinner
tonight was super crazy; we had 21 people in one medium sized
dining room. The four of us, Tom, Karen, Rebecca and I, some
missionary doctors and pastors from the past, three of them in
their 80s, the work team of 8 people, Abu and Abdul, the two
Africans who eat with us. After dinner I got to talk a bit to Tom and
Linda Garber, who are two people from Itec, a missionary
engineering and power group. Linda spent 21 years in Papua-New
Guinea. Tomorrow is gonna be a crazy day, no school since they
are having the hospital march pass with all the kids from the
Wesleyan schools and 50 kids from all the other schools, plus all
the other stuff going on with the visitors. I have been getting
really frustrated with not being able to teach since that’s primarily
what I came to do. I was getting really mad with the teachers and
the students with all the school canceling and stuff, I felt like I
wasn’t accomplishing my job here. But after encouragement from
a few of the visitors I now feel like that as long as I’m doing
anything to advance the mission here, whether it’s teaching or
making it possible for Tom and Karen to accomplish their goals by
helping with their numerous responsibilities then I’m ok with it. I
came to teach, but not just science, but about Christ and the love
He has for us. I’m doing well and I am looking forward to the
things to come.



Blessings from Kamakwie
Ryan Brooks

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

Sorry this is out of order but i didn't get a message from Ryan before I went to bed yesterday and so I read the 9th before the 8th :)

November 8th
So today was pretty much a normal day. I started out not feeling
well but that passed after I got to school and started teaching. I
haven’t had class since last Tuesday so I think that I had let myself
get all anxious about teaching again. It’s crazy with all the guests
here, especially the work team, because now we have all the
normal responsibilities plus having to make sure they have
everything they need so that they can do the work they came to
do. I still haven’t had my SS1 students, today was some sort of
orientation day, but really the students just sat in a classroom
chatting about whatever and whenever a teacher felt like talking
with them they went in and talked to them. I went in and
introduced myself to them, and I told them I have great
expectations, I told them I expect them to attend every day, to
study outside of class and to be ready to work hard and if they
weren’t willing then they should go to commercial instead of
science. I hate to be that way but the kids don’t know enough and
unless they are really dedicated to learning then they are just
doing themselves a disservice by trying to do science. They really
need people in the sciences here but I would rather see them
succeed at commercial than fail at science. Anyway, after classes I
took Rebecca to get a watch as hers had died and then went over
to the place the work team is staying and talked with them till
dinner. Then this evening Dr. Princel(sp?) arrived, he is 88 years
old, he came with his 62 year old son. He was here years ago when
the hospital was founded. No classes tomorrow, they are having
“games” tomorrow and so no classes, I’ve been here month and
still haven’t had a full week of class. But yeah that’s about all for
today; I did a bunch of things but pretty mundane tasks. Thanks to
all who continue to write and share with me about how things are
at home, I was told someone that people aren’t writing me for fear
of making me homesick but I really enjoy hearing about what’s
going on at home, then I don’t feel so much like I’m missing things.

Blessings from Sierra Leone
Ryan Brooks

November 9th
So today was an interesting day, I spent half the morning running
all over making sure things were going properly with the
generator, Karen’s phone, the visitors project, etc… But at least it
was a little breezy today, enough to take a little bit of an edge off
of the heat, not enough to keep me from sweating profusely. I
spent the other half of the morning reading because I was just
bored having gotten everything settled and class was canceled
today. Lunch was interesting, the last two days we’ve had rice and
“soup” African style, the soup consists of some limp greens, fish
bits, chicken, palm oil and a few other tidbits. It does not too bad
taste but it just turns my stomach looking at it so I’ve just been
eating the rice plain, which is really good anyway. Eating at a table
with 14 people is kind of nice; you get to hear all kinds of stories
and tales about the past, other mission trips they’ve taken, etc.
After lunch I read again for a while, I’m not a big fan of this whole
canceling class thing, partly because I am annoyed that I came to
teach and partly because when I don’t have anything to do I get
homesick. You’d think after a month that I’d be getting over that
but I just think It’s because all of you back home mean so very
much to me. Anyway, I don’t mean to be a downer, because I am
really enjoying the experiences I am having here, and I love getting
to hang out with the friends I’m making. One thing that I haven’t
shared but that is really annoying me about their school system is
that if a kid comes to school late, they get sent home, or if they
come with an improper uniform, they get sent home, if they don’t
come with the right materials, they get sent home. You get the
picture? One of their forms of “punishment” is sending kids home
anyone else see the flaw in that? It’s bad enough they cancel
school at least once a week. /end rant. Moving on, at about 3
Daniel Turay came by and brought me two pictures that were
taken at the celebration. Then we went down to the market and
walked all over to look for Thermos, the things break so easily, I
was going to bring some home because they are great at keeping
things hot but they are way too fragile. Anyway, we finally found
one and brought it home to Karen, on the way up we came across
a group of guys who had managed to catch a kingfisher, a beautiful
blue and black bird with a red beak. They tried to sell it to me, but
when I refused to pay anything they gave it to me. I set it free, but
not before getting pictures and naming it Markus, unfortunately
Abu managed to somehow wipe all the pictures I took today off
my camera and so I don’t have them… which makes me sad.
Anyway, we went to a soccer game between the Kamakwie
Wesleyan School and one of the Islamic schools. Before the
game Daniel showed me a guest house (sort of like a hotel)
that is supposed to be a reproduction of the White House, in
small scale of course. At least these pictures can be retaken.
The game ended 0-0 so it wasn’t very exciting but I saw several
of my friends which was good. When we came back Markus
(the kingfisher) was still around and I took some more pictures
(which are also gone) and then took him to see Lynda who loves
birds before letting him go further away from the huts or he
would end up as stew. Well, that’s about all I have for today.
Thinking about you all and praying that life is going well back home.

Greetings and Blessings from Kamakwie Wesleyan Hospital
Ryan Brooks

November 7th

So, I had an interesting day. Church went pretty well and I enjoyed
it for the most part. I went to the Katherie church today, Karen had
me lead the group to the church, which I did not do so well, I had
only been there once and it was my second day in Kamakwie and
here I am a month in. However we got a girl to help us get there
and I had actually been on the right path, just going the long way.
It was a much better experience this go around since I wasn’t
sulking in self-pity the whole time. They had like five offerings
today, they collect a general one, one for the parsonage they are
trying to build, they had a kids choir, a youth choir and a young
adult choir all sing and each time they collected an offering for the
youth for some retreat I think. The sermon was over 2 Timothy
3:1-4, though it was in Krio so I didn’t actually understand it really.
They sing a lot of songs, some English some Krio, but I can’t
understand either. However, they also sing some hymns at the
church, which is good because they have some hymnals and I can
actually participate. Today they sung two hymns that were really
appropriate, Are You Washed in the Blood, and ‘Tis So Sweet to
Trust in Jesus. Both of them were really good reminders that I
really need to trust in Jesus. I had never heard the first one but I
knew the second one. Anyway, after church we headed home,
unfortunately it was around this time that I began to develop a
migraine, which is still troubling me almost 12 hours later. I took
some Excedrin but that really only curbed it some, so I spent a lot
of time inside relaxing. The problem with that is that in this heat
you can’t ever really properly relax because you still sweat sitting
around. I had to go to town to get some bread and a new plug for
a fan we have here that wasn’t working, and still isn’t despite the
new plug. Osman saw me and walked along down with me and we
talked a bit about his being Muslim. However his responses
confused me, he says he’s Muslim, but believes Jesus is God’s son
and God as a man. Which I thought is the big point of contention,
that the Muslims believe Jesus was no more than another prophet.
Today was actually a pretty slow day relatively, I did a lot of things
and was fairly busy but it was all pretty mundane. Oh, Tom tried to
put in the new faucet that they brought from Freetown and it
broke. The stuff here is so low quality it’s often frustrating. Today
was a good day as a whole, ignoring the headache, I mean
considering it’s only my second migraine, and second real
headache, since I’ve been here so I’m not complaining, I usually
have headaches quite frequently at home. Anyway, I am doing
well and I love being here, but I hate missing you all. I look
forward to the day I return home so I can see you all again. But
until then, I pray that God blesses you all and keeps you all safe,
and that I can accomplish what He has planned for me here.

God’s blessing be upon you,
Ryan Brooks