grace.kindness.peace.disruption.pain.processing.rinse.repeat.have a nice day.

How do I describe Sierra Leone? Sights, sounds, smells, and heat have bombarded me since stepping off the plan almost a week ago. As a sidenote, a weeks seems like an eternity ago. Our team is a good one, a fact that I'll probably repeat many times here and through email over the next several months. Our community is forming well and strong on a good foundation of openness, prayer, vulnerability, and desire to support each other. This community will be an integral part of my time here, providing the much needed support as we laugh, cry, get angry, forgive, and encounter our brokeness.

The WMF team here in Sierra Leone is broken up into three, unequal, yet nonetheless important parts: the girls, the couples, and three guys. The girls (Faye, Cami, and Michelle) live in the Aberdeen house that I mention in the pictures. This is in a small "suburb" (for lack of a better word) of Freetown called Murray Town. WMF rents this house by the year. The last Servant Team of five girls lived there. The couples live in a rented apartment downtown Freetown. The Eichorns & Padgetts live there. The Padgetts will be headed back to the US of A on Monday in search of chocolate and a refridgerator. The remaining three guys (Chia, Micah, and me) live in a house in Murray Town about 3/4 mile away from the Aberdeen house. Two families live in the house, one upstairs and one down. Chia currently lives downstairs and Micah and I upstairs, but we're going to try to get a bunkbed in our room so we'll all live upstairs. We hope to still be able to use the shower and facilities downstairs though.

We walk a lot. I consider this a good thing. The walk from the Aberdeen house to the guy's house is about 20 minutes. We take this route about once or twice a day. To travel into town we take a poda-poda. How do I describe a poda-poda? Hmm …. work with me here. Picture a late 1980′s family vacation in one of those new-fangled Japanese boxy minivan with a catchy name (Nissan Vanette and the like). Yes, oh yes, the fuel efficiency of a Japanese vehicle and the roominess of a van, but without all the hassle of a full-size van. The seats are cushy. You may even have captain's chairs, captain. It seats seven comfortably, including driver and front seat passenger. Ok, now remove the air conditioning, the padding, the carpet, the muffler, the seats, some windows, and make sure that it burns some oil. Now, put in three benches, the front two with a slide-out fourth seat. The back seats four (un)comfortably. The vehicle now seats twelve in the back (three rows of four), plus the driver & shotgun seat that will most likely seat two. The right seat in front bench in the back is reserved for the Apprentice. This is not some cocky twenty something trying to impress Donald Trump's hairpiece. No, this is the teenager that sticks his head out of the window calling out the transport route and who takes passenger fares. Now you have a poda-poda.

Travelling around Freetown is exciting. A large honky/cracker/apoto (white person in Mende) like myself draws quite a lot of attention. People like to stare. I stare back. They'll call out "white boy." We respond back with "black boy." Everyone chuckles. Being a spectacle is a novelty now, but I think it will get old after a while. The anonymity that is fairly abundant in a multi-racial soceity like the U.S. is a luxury that I will miss when my introvert self wants to be alone. But this challenge will make me stronger … or drive me crazy. Ahh, culture.

Things are going well. Relationships are forming in the team and with the Lighthouse kids. We'll go into Kroo Bay tomorrow to do the Good News Club for 200-300 kids. We walked through the Kroo Bay slum yesterday for the first time. It is quite an experience. From above, looking down on the bay you see a chaos of different colored roofs, garbage, dirty water, and pathways for travel fashioned with no planning. Once you dive into the slum you are greeted with a strange sense of orderliness. The shacks become houses with windows and doors. The threshholds are swept and clean. There is still trash and dirty water to remind you that you are in one of the poorest areas of the poorest countries on this planet. There are people in school. A church. Laughing. Cooking. Cleaning. … Life happens. I'm still trying to process what I've seen. It will take much longer than four months.

My team leader informed me that I may have lied to many of you before I came and may have led you to think that things would be a cake walk over here. For that, I am sorry. I promise I intended no harm. I was incorrect in stating that we would get two hours of electricity a day at our house. I've been told that we'll more likely get two hours a week.

This week has been an exception. We've had about seven hours so far, but between the hours of 3-7 a.m. People get up to enjoy it when it turns on. You can hear the BBC blaring from radios all over the neighborhood when we have it. Many of you know that I like news, but no matter how cool a British accent sounds, I still don't want to hear it at 7:30 in the morning while I'm trying to sweat out a few more minutes of sleep!

Ah, yes. The body is fine, thanks for asking. We tried to hit an Internet cafe yesterday, but all of them were without a connection. Apparently this is very uncommon. We're back downtown today without our leader … venturing out on our own! We came in to register at the US Embassy so Uncle Sam knows that we're here. We attempted to register yesterday, but it was President's Day. I don't know how we could have forgotten that one.

My team is great. I would put a picture of them directly below this paragraph, but the powers that be in this cafe have locked down the computers so I can't connect my camera. I'll get some up soon. My team is made up of Micah, Ben (a.k.a. Chia), Michelle, and Faye, our leader. Cami, Keith & Laura, and Joe & Mindy are other WMF staffers here with us. All of us are very easy going and laid back. We've had some great times of joking and laughter, as well as good conversation, prayer, and worship. We have a long road ahead together, and we are laying good foundations now.

We went to Lighthouse yesterday for the first time. We met about fifteen of the seventeen kids that come to the program. We meet from 9am-1pm in a building near the center of Freetown. The time is filled with playing, reading, and talking to the kids. About midway through the time one of the kids will lead a Bible lesson. I understand (from others) that yesterday's was really well prepared … even though I didn't capture much. I'm excited to learn the language so that I'll be able to communicate with all of them. They have amazing stories to tell; I look forward to hearing them. The crew is a lively bunch, playing basketball, soccer (football), and a checker-like game called Draft. Keith, the WMF staffer, is a former collegiate wrestler. When he and his wife head back to the states next Friday I think that I will be taking his place … whether I want to or not .

I'm living with a Pastor and his family in a suburb-like town to Freetown called Murray Town. The house is nice – I looked at the ocean through the window on Sunday while I shaved. I'm sharing a room with Micah and we hope to bring Chia up from downstairs soon so we can share the room together. The beds each have mosquito net coverings that keep the little buggers out (or in, if you're so unlucky), but also prevent any breeze that enters through the windows from reaching you to provide the maximum relief from the heat. I've come up with a new weight loss program. It's called journaling in bed. The last two nights I've sweated off what seems to be pounds as I journaled under the mosquito net. The journaling time has been good though, and I know that I will appreciate later any time that I put in now.

I think that I'll do some smaller, topical posts for specific questions I'm getting …

Simply put, I'm here. Wow, I'm here. There's so much going through my head right now that I'm having a hard time deciding what to write. Let's start off with those of you concerned with my safety … I'm good and safe. All the people I've met so far are very nice. We landed last evening around nine and were met with humidity accompanied by a slight breeze. Two WMF staffers and one of the Lighthouse program guys met us at the airport. The airport in Freetown isn't actually in Freetown; it's north of the city and across a bay. To get into town we hitched a ride on a helicoptor … quite exciting. We made it back to Faye & Cami's house around 10ish where we proceeded to slowly unwind and to let the fact that we are in Africa to sink in. It still doesn't seem real. The heat and humidity are helping me realize that I'm no longer in Indianapolis . The heat really isn't that bad and I have yet to really mind it.

I woke up around 9:30 today and chatted with Cami while she did her laundry by hand behind the house. The conversation was good. I'm surrounded by very capable, loving people to lead me on this four-month journey. Her initiative motivated me to do some laundry as well. The hand washing thing isn't so bad. You can forget about April freshness, but you're still left with clean.

After some breakfast and simple orientation the guys packed up our bags and the whole team journeyed to Murray Town where the guys will live. Murray Town is closer to downtown Freetown than Aberdeen, where the girls live. We'll be living with pastor Zizer and his family who have generously opened their home for us. Micah & I will live upstairs with the pastor's family and Ben will live downstairs with the Kelly's.

We chatted with the Zizer's for a while and discovered that they are good friends with the pastor that just visited Indianapolis three weeks ago. My world is small.

We left the Zizer's and went to lunch at a Lebonese restaurant … a tasty meal.

Yeah, so this post is pretty boring. There is a lot going on in my head right now and it's difficult to put my thoughts into words. In the absense of my wit I've told you about my day … not too exciting. Things are good; tough, but good. My team and the WMF staff are great. We've had good conversations and good times so far. Seeing the poverty both in the surroundings and the people is tough. We haven't even seen the slum yet. I'm not sure yet how I'll react to that. Despite the constant presence of the poverty, there is a beauty that permeates everything. The sky is blue and the ocean, viewable from the windows, is peaceful … that is when you don't hear the booms from dynamite fishermen . The situation will be very tough here soon. The language, Krio, has many English words which can give me the illusion that I have a clue of what others are saying. However, I am wrong most of the time. It's been a while since I've been in a situation where communication is so difficult. This will improve in time, but for now it is tough.

Thank you all for your prayers. They mean the world to me. Please stay tuned and I'll try to post some more interesting stuff next time.

I really don't have time for this, but I wanted to say thanks to all of you who have blessed me so very much in the last several days with phone calls, emails, meals, and time. I am very thankful to have such a base of support to go on this journey. I hope that you will go on this journey with me … by reading my stories and emails and viewing my pictures. Please comment or reply back. Please, please let me know that you are thinking about me and praying for me … it will mean the world when the nights are long and the days are dark with doubt.

My schedule for the coming day is as follows:

• Leave Indy @ 2:45 for Cincinnati
• Meet up with two of my team members in Cincy
• Leave Cincinnati four hours later for Gatwick Airport, London
• Meet the fourth and final member of our team at Gatwick
• Maybe take a quick jaunt into London
• Leave Gatwick six hours later for Freetown, Sierra Leone
• Arrive in Sierra Leone and take a helicoptor into Freetown
• ????

Again, thank you so much for your prayers and thoughts. Please let me know what is going on in your life through email. I may be out of sight, but please don't let me be out of your mind.

Let the adventure continue!