October 12, 4:28 PM (UTC +1:00)

So this morning has been pretty come and go, sometimes I feel at peace with what I am doing here and in the next moment I suddenly feel sad. But it’s been getting better every day and I’m hoping as I draw nearer to God and begin to shed my doubts and fears that by the end of a week that I will be at peace more often than not. We had dinner last night with a family who just arrived last night, the Mahers. There are four of them, Linda and Peter who are both doctors and their two kids Jordan and Philip who are 10 and 8 respectively. They are really nice and they are going to be here for 4 months. I couldn’t believe how well their kids are taking it. I understand that their parents are here but my first night here was devastating so figured they would be cranky or at least a little down but they are doing remarkably well, all excited about getting to go to school with all the African kids. We helped them set up their fridge and stove today. And I got to see the primary school where their kids will be going. It’s so crowded with little kids who are all so adorable, we peeked into one room and the kids just came flooding over just want to touch me or shake my hand, saying all kinds of stuff from their names to a bunch of stuff I couldn’t understand. It was really cool. Anyway, I taught for the first time today, that was an adventure that went from bad to worse. I started out feeling really good about it. I got ready to go and at 12 I started heading to the school with my loaded backpack and a box with 14 biology books in it, now that’s heavy. And because it’s hot here I was immediately dripping with sweat. Anyway, I got lost, I thought I knew where I was going but definitely not. Thankfully I ran into two students Siman and Nabi from the school getting ready to go and they led me there. Once I got there I met with principal Kimaro. He got me my schedule and I was getting ready to teach when I realized I hadn’t brought any water, I had to walk back to the hospital the long way because I still don’t know how to go the short way. I got my water and headed back. I had to teach two hours of chemistry to the Senior Secondary 3 class, which is like the seniors. This started off bad because I couldn’t get them to talk about what they know, then they suggested I work on radioactivity which basically turned out to be a math tutoring session as I attempted to teach them about radioactive half lives. But I held on and felt ok once that ended. Then came the two hours of biology with the SS2 class, the juniors. Well that didn’t go so well. I fumbled for a bit trying to find what they knew, got no response so I tried to begin teaching about the skeleton system but that was going well either. They know English but it’s not good and when three or four of them are trying to explain how they were taught before you pretty much cant understand anything. I got so overwhelmed by the feelings of being inadequate and worrying about how I was going to last 8 months when I wanted to give up on my first day. Eventually we decided to end class early and I left and cried part of the way back to the hospital. God must have some serious growth plan for me. There is no way I can handle this with what I have, I need Him so bad. Please pray that I can focus on Him and somehow manage to teach the 19 hours of class I’m scheduled for, because the 19 hours of class doesn’t cover any of the planning I have to do or anything and I’m just feeling seriously overwhelmed right now. I’m finally getting adjusted and now I have this. I don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into but I know God is the only one who can pull me through this.

October 11th 10:53 (UTC +1:00)

Hey, getting to freetown was crazy. I had to fly for what felt like forever. First to Brussels which was eh, I didn't do anything there because I had no Euros so I couldn't get food, really glad for those snacks. So I pretty much went right to my gate. The Brussels airport sucked because they didn't offer free internet or anything like that. I was hoping to write a few letters and stuff but I didn't bother since I couldn't send them. After brussels my flight had to stop in a place called Dakar in Africa. That was about a five hour flight. Then a little more than an hour to freetown. Once in Freetown things didn't get much better. I got off the plane and it took so long to get my lugagge I was sure I lost it. It finally came out and the guy from the airport helping me led me out to the pelican taxi, then he took me off into a side room, asked for the ticket money, then a 20 dollar tip, then he said he needed one for himself, so I gave him 10 because I was just overwhelmed and a bit scared. So I'm starting out $30 I hadn't expected to use. Anyway, I had to wait forever to get on the water taxi but once I got on that was scary too, the water wash very choppy and the boat kept bouncing up and slamming down, I thought for sure we were gonna sink. But we made it, I met Dr. Asher and then we proceeded to wait another two hours because we thought there was a family coming, two doctors with two kids sadly 8 and 10 so not really good friend material. They never came and here they had other arrangements. So we left and stayed at a place in freetown for the night, I didn't have to pay at least, which wouldn't have mattered cause the place we stayed was only 10,000 Leones, or 2.50 for the night. I'm having some trouble with sticker shock when I see something marked 36,000 leones I keep forgetting thats only like nine dollars. Anyway, so we set out in the morning for Kamakwie. The road to Makeni wasn't bad, it's paved and so we made good time. When we got to Makeni we did some grocery shopping, I didn't get anything that I feel like snacking on because my stomach is in a foul mood with all this stress. Anyway, then we ate at this place, chicken in fries. It was good but spicy so my mouth hurt. From there we headed to Kamakwie, which was the worst part of the ride. It took forever to get here because the road is dirt and has so many ruts and trenches we had to slow down a lot and all the bouncing gave me a killer headache. I haven't had a headache since arriving which is good, though it's only been three days. It's crazy here, the hospital is a big campus with several houses, I'm staying at the doctors at least for now instead of my own place because I couldn't take it, being alone and in the dark is what triggered my panic attack on Saturday evening, which was my first night here. I got to see the village some which was interesting. It's very poor, everything built of wood and mud brick. I got to see the house of the former president, the one in power before the war. They never finished building it which is sad because I think it could have really been nice, instead it's pretty much a dump. Anyway, thats about all I have for now.
By His grace
Ryan Brooks

October 9, 9:17 pm (Kamakwie UTC -1:00)

So I made it safely to Kamakwie after a long arduous 7ish hour trek across the country, the roads were so awful I think I am suffering brain damage from all the bouncing. But I’m here and the people have been nice. I met two of my students, Abu and Abdul. Abu wants to call me Mr. R.W.B. for some reason, I think he thinks it cool cause I said he can and he goes by A.K.K. among his friends, I don’t know for sure though. Sitting here in the dark because our two hours of evening electricity is over, so I don’t want to stay on too long so I don’t run down my laptop since for now they are only going to have the evening two hours of electricity, the two in the morning won’t come till later when more people have come here. I’m feeling a lot better, Abu and Abdul are really nice and want to show me around at some point. I miss everyone a lot and while I don’t think that will go away I am at least doing better now that I’ve met some people. It’s crazy hot here, it’s only in the 80s but the humidity is almost that high as well. My little house is nice but the bugs are going nuts over my candles and computer screen. Anyway, I will write more later.

October 9th, 12:55 am (UTC -1:00)

I’m in Sierra Leone now and can’t sleep because I spent all day sleeping on planes… Anyway I feel a lot better now that I’m with Dr. Tom Asher and am not all alone. My last flight to Sierra Leone went pretty well, it stopped over in Dakar before making its final one hour journey to Sierra Leone.
Once I got here it was crazy, it took forever to get my luggage and I was afraid it hadn’t made it but it did. Then I got outside and one of the airport workers led me to the water taxi to get across to the mainland. However he got me pretty good. He pulled me aside saying I shouldn’t pull money out in the open but he pulled me into this little room where I felt very intimidated. He asked for $40 for the taxi, then he wanted a $20 dollar tip and since he had been so nice, and I was freaking out, I gave it, then he wanted another tip saying it was for all his help, he told me the first one wasn’t for him. He wanted another 20 but I only gave him a 10. So basically I got swindled out of $30 because I was alone, never done this before, and very insecure. Crap… anyway.
I made it to the taxi thing where I waited for what felt like forever, though I got to see a crab wandering around which was cool. When I finally got on it I prayed the whole way across the thing didn’t sink because it wasn’t very big and the water was very choppy, every time the thing bounced I was sure it was going to either sink or fall apart. Upon arriving at the mainland I met Tom and we talked about a lot of things but especially what I’ll be doing and all the people waiting to meet me which really helped me feel better. I’m super excited for all the opportunities I have here to build up the people of Sierra Leone and God’s kingdom. I assure you I am doing well, just being a little melodramatic because I’m missing home and friends and feeling very much like I skipped the frying pan and just jumped in the fire. I promise that my updates are not all going to be like depressing. Oh, one more sad story, there are dogs everywhere and I’m not allowed to pet them because they might give me rabies, lame…

October 8th, 10:02 AM (UTC +1:00)

I’m currently sitting here in Brussels waiting for my last flight, from Brussels to Lungi International in Freetown, Sierra Leone and there are about a million things running through my mind. The biggest thing is that I was totally naïve thinking it would be no problem to leave everyone I know and love behind for eight months for a place where I don’t really know anyone, I was wrong. I currently feel ok but on the flight from DC to Brussels I cried for almost an hour doing the best I could to keep it under control, hopefully the low lighting helped but regardless I am sure at least some of the people around me noticed. I have not felt as torn inside as I did last night on the plane in a long time.
The last three years have been an incredible period of growth and change as I went from hurting anti-social introvert to somewhere closer to content super-social extrovert. In that period of time God has placed amazing people in my life that have helped me make that transition, however as I have realized for a while I really put too much of my faith in people, relying on people to help keep me sane as I’ve struggled through a lot of things in my past. I can’t help but find myself wondering if this may be part of God’s plan for me as I go to Kamakwie to teach for eight months, to break the bonds of needing people so much that by myself I get apathetic and quite frequently depressed.
I know moving from needing people in my life to help me deal to wanting people in my life because I love them is important because when I rely on the people in my life I don’t rely enough on God. This is going to be a hard experience regardless and I would ask for your prayers as I confront and deal with this during my time in Africa.

A Great Adventure

As you may or may not know, God has blessed me with an amazing oppurtunity. I leave for Africa October 7th, a mere 15 days away. I'm going to be there for 8 months teaching chemistry and biology to African students in Sierra Leone in the hopes of helping them to move on to higher education in order to better themselves and to better their country.

It's such an amazing opportunity and I am so very excited. I am sad that I will be away from the amazing people God has placed in my life, but I will be back and they'll still be there.

Anyway, I'm hoping to be able to use this blog to keep people up to date while I'm in Africa, at least monthly hopefully. God bless.

2 Kings 22:11 "When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his Robes"

As I was reading this today it really spoke to me. This king of Israel, Josiah, began his reign at the age of 8, his father Amon was no example of a Godly man, nor his grandfather Manasseh before him. Both of them did great evil in the eyes of the Lord. But Josaih did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and walked in all the ways of David. After ruling for 18 years, the Book of Law was found after being lost during the reign of the evil kings.

Upon hearing from the Book of Law he was incredibly distraught by all the things the Israelites were doing. He was grieved by how far the Israelites had strayed from God’s path. What did Josiah do you might ask? He changed the course of the entire nation. He went out and destroyed all the idols and shrines to all other gods. He brought ends to all sorts of wicked practices including human sacrifice.

The thing that struck me most about all of this is that Josiah managed to do what was right before the Lord without even knowing exactly what that entailed. I know that many times I do things I shouldn't, I am guilty of stumbling off the path. The worst part about that is that I have two bibles within arm’s reach at all times, and I still do it. Knowing fully what God desires from me and what path I should follow I don't even manage to successfully apply it to myself. Josiah was able to change an entire nation and to bring it in line with God's word. He practices obedience to God that is rivaled by no other king of Israel.

His actions can be summed up in three steps.
1. He recognized the sin.
2. He eliminated sinful practices.
3. He attacked the causes of sin.

The first one is the easiest of the three. Sin is generally hard to identify. Sin can be defined pretty generally as anything that separates you from God. Having access to God’s Word means we should know what we are not to do if we want to have a relationship with God. However, knowing what to not do and not doing it are two completely different things which brings me to the second point.

Eliminating the sinful practices can be a lot harder than recognizing them. There are many times when I’m doing something that I know I probably shouldn’t because I know they aren’t right, I know I’m not alone in this. It’s so easy to get caught up in doing something just because the people around you are doing it. Or because it’s something you’ve done for so long and you kind of just end up doing anyway. It could also possibly even be something society tries to tell us that it’s really not that bad and ok to do. Or maybe because it’s hard to change you just decide that you aren’t going to do it.

Making the necessary changes in behavior only goes so far. Removing causes of sin can be the hardest of them all. Sometimes it involves leaving a situation, possibly losing friends or giving up something you’ve done for years and love. We are called to leave worldly things behind, attachments that inhibit our spiritual growth and the furthering of our relationship with Christ.