Giving a Hand-Up

Yesterday was was my favorite day in Africa so far! On Saturday I had the chance to go with 8 people from Mercy Ships to help a family in need. A friend of mine, Rosie, told me about the Bangura family a week ago, and she began to plan a trip out to their home. Rosie told several friends back in the US about this family's situation, and donations began to pour in. Because of this, she is helping the Bangura family start a business of selling frozen water and various vegetables. The family has already received a generator and freezer for the water. We are hoping this will be more of a hand-up out of poverty than a hand-out. 

This family has been through a lot recently.

The mother in the home died a year ago. The aunt, Sally, is now raising her sister's children. However Sally has recently had fibroid issues and is currently in the hospital after being operated on. So this has left Sally's elderly mother to take care of several grandchildren and great grandchildren. One of the granddaughters who is 16 years old has been pregnant, and we found out that the night before we came she went into labor and the baby died. We wished that their friend, James, who works on the ship would have called the ship. One of our doctors could have come to help. Knowing that this had happened on Friday night put us in a somber mood for part of the day.

The house was quite small for about 10 people living there, but compared to many of the shacks here in the city, it was actually large. It had 3 rooms and was made out of mud bricks. Recently, stucco has been placed over the bricks so that we could paint the walls. 

One of the grandsons, Usman, is only 20 years old and has been crippled for a year. There is something wrong with his hips - we guessed it may be a disease like polio. So when we walked into the house and into the room on the right, he was sitting on a mat on the floor. This is where he spends most of his days because he can't walk/stand without assistance. At one point, someone brought in a can for him to urinate in since he can't walk outside. We are planning to go back to the house later this week - a guy from our group knows how to make bed frames, so he is going to make one for Usman. This will allow him to get up by himself once we take him a walker. 

Here are several photos from our day:

This is the home that we painted - you can see that a ton of neighbor children came to watch us working. :)

This is Usman. He was very nice, and we are planning to return to help him get a raised bed and a walker so he can be a little independent.

This sweet little girl did the cutest song and dance for us. Only afterward a lady told me that she does the song for neighbors to beg for food when there is none.

I loved the kids! The girl on the right was wearing a santa claus style dress...made me laugh.

 Painting!

See the Santa dress? :D

This was an impromptu puppet show put on by Jenny and Mourad. The kids loved it, even though the puppets were made out of shirts!

This was just some of them watching the puppet show.

Next, Jenny and Mourad led the kids in some goofy dance routines (marching?) and a game of "Simon Says."

We walked to a neighbor's house, and they took us to the back where they have a bakery. It was neat to watch them pounding the bread dough and rolling it through this machine. Seemed like a lot of work! They also had a large clay oven to cook the bread in.

It turns out beautifully!

We walked down to the river, and apparently Saturdays are wash days! It seemed like the whole community of women and children were there. The women were working hard scrubbing clothes while the kids had fun jumping in the river. Many of the kids who walked down there with us just threw off their clothes and jumped in the water!

This is where they come to get water, and the women or kids carry it in large, heavy buckets on their heads.

Walking back up from the river - the kids just loved walking with me and holding my hands. At one point I counted 6 kids holding on to me wherever they could! There were two in each hand, one holding on to the back of my shirt, and one holding onto the flap of my back pocket. The children here have really captured my heart.

This is us sitting on a rooftop that overlooks the valley where the river runs. It was a beautiful view, but a little scary to look down!

This was a chunky great-grandchild, eating mushed plantains.

Don't you just want to take him home?

It is very common to see kids who are only 4-5 years old carrying babies around on their backs.

 This is the main method of drying clothes...

But it doesn't work well when it rains like this! When it started pouring, we all gathered in the house and kept painting. Because the roof is tin, I have never heard such a loud roar from rain before!

This is the grandmother who is running the home while her daughter is in the hospital. I believe the boy is her great grandson. 

She broke out in song thanking God. The main line is "Tell Papa God Tanki" which means thank you. We all joined in singing with her. After that she began to cry loudly, and kept saying "Don't forget me...don't forget me!" Rosie told her that we had come to help them because Jesus sent us, and that even though we were leaving, they still had Jesus. 

When we drove off, several of the kids ran after us as far as they could...waving and smiling!

We were sweaty and tired...but very blessed.