I know this is long-ish as blog posts go, but here is another team member's thoughts on his recent Sierra Leone experience. He gave me permission to share it. His thoughts--written less than 24 hours after returning, itself a feat--are found after the scripture and prayer below.
Wednesday Re-charge: Jim’s Journey
After Africa…
Scripture – John 3:16-21 – New Revised Standard Version
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all those who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.
But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”
Let us pray…
Dear Lord, we ask that you send the Holy Spirit to be with us tonight and through our celebration of the Advent season. We know as Christians that the season of advent is really about two things. It is a great time of joy for a God who would send his only son so that we might be saved from sin. And it is also a good time for us to remember that much is asked of us. As Christ said in Luke, “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.” Be with us tonight, Lord. Heal us. Help us. Make us more mindful of our responsibilities and opportunities as Christians, and how you might continue to enrich our lives and light our Advent season celebration. Amen.”
It’s 1:30 in the morning in Freetown, Sierra Leone right now. If I sound jet lagged, I am. I am truly leaning on the outstretched arms of the Holy Spirit tonight.
I am Jim Cox and my story tonight is a bit of a travelogue – and one that includes air miles and spiritual growth.
On Palm Sunday this year, Barbara and I joined Oak Hill. We visited only once and knew this was our new church home. Joining Oak Hill was a great start, but God still had a lot of work to do with me.
I remember sitting here one communion Sunday when we were doing that heavy-duty prayer asking for forgiveness for our disobedience and willfulness, and thinking, but I’m not that bad. I didn’t do anything terrible this week.
I truly was like the Pharisee that Jesus talked about in Luke who prayed, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector next to me.”
But in this persistent way that God has, I read another scripture with Jesus talking in Matthew 25:34 about the return of the Son of Man in his full glory: “Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by the Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”
The living Christ was finding ways to speak to me. God’s persistence started to open the door to new abundance in my life.
· Barbara and I signed up for the Disciple Bible study led by Pastors Pam and Stella and met a great group of new friends.
· We were sponsored by Donna and Scott Broberg and went on our Walk to Emmaus weekend this year. It was an amazing experience. It was a time when I choose to re-dedicate my life to Christ.
I have also gotten a very clear call from God in two ways recently:
1. The message to join the Oak Hill mission trip to Sierra Leone; and
2. A call to participate in a Kairos prison ministry program.
There is no way that a trip to formerly war-torn African country was on my “bucket” list. Nor did I have any burning personal desire to visit a Texas maximum security prison. The thought terrifies me. It is clear that these calls came from God.
I just got back last night from two weeks of travel to Sierra Leone. Chris Jackson led the Oak Hill team and was joined by Tracy Stewart and me and Chris’ friend BJ Janek. We met up with Bob and Carol Stoner, who have a decade of experience in mission work in Sierra Leone, and their friend Robin joined us for a team of 7.
The trip to Sierra Leone is rigorous. It is hot, humid and dirty. The showers are a dribble of cold water, when it is working. Electricity to power fans is unreliable. The generator worked some times. The traffic is atrocious. The air quality is awful. The floors were gritty. A lady on the flight home had to be taken off the aircraft because she had both malaria and diphtheria and was too sick to travel.
And I had an amazing time.
The experience was simply too large for me to get my head around. It is people living in many cases at the fringe of day-to-day survival – but with very strong religious faith, family ties and warm, friendly, supportive attitudes. The high point of the trip may have been the strenuous Sunday hike into the hills to attend a 2-1/2-hour service at a Wesleyan Church with mud bricks, a tin roof and rough wooden benches. It was truly alive with the Holy Spirit.
There is something overwhelming about Sierra Leone, too. The problems and challenges seem crushing. Crowded roads, terrible air quality, no sewage treatment, a lack of potable water, unreliable electricity, a weak government, a complete lack of public services, fear of more conflict, widespread illiteracy, extensive poverty, limited educational and economic opportunities and more. A school we saw was, in some ways, like a window into the challenges.
The very cutest, bright-eyed kids, dressed nicely in school uniforms, lined up in the mornings to sing about God’s love. After school, you get smothered by children wanting to hug you and interact with you. But you also see shy kids – more poorly dressed and speaking English less well – who cannot afford to go to school and are on the outside looking in. My posse of pals in Sierra Leone included Augustine, Frederick, two Davids – who were school – and Patrick, an older boy who was not. You try to reach out to kids like Patrick to be sure they know they are God’s children, too.
Primary school costs about $25 a year, plus the uniform expense, and that’s simply out of reach for most families. Even in the Methodist hospital, you have to pay for services, and wealthier patients get better facilities.
And even for those with the means, it is not the best medical care and it is not the best education. It is just so much better than the lack of either.
There is much to be proud of in Freetown, Sierra Leone about what the worldwide United Methodist Church is doing. The complex where we stayed in Kissy has a leading maternity hospital along with a children’s hospital, general hospital and leading eye clinic. Construction is under way for a major new maternity and children’s hospital that is being funded by US Aid and the Methodist Church that will significantly improve healthcare facilities there. There is also the children’s school and a Methodist Church on the site.
Our project was building a paved, covered sidewalk that connects physical therapy and the medical lab with the hospital complex. The sidewalk was to replace a rocky, dirt path or stairs and ramps that looked like something out of a bad joke in a Monty Python sketch. “Yes, we have physical therapy – if you can climb these tall steps or negotiate this steep ramp.”
We had people coming up to us all the time and thanking us for this project. The physical therapy department staff each signed a card for each of us – addressed by name – with personal messages of support and thanks for the project we were building – because they saw the value for their patients.
To say that we “built” the sidewalk is a bit misleading. We organized it, funded it, designed it, hired the African crew and helped a bit – but the African crew really built it. These guys are ripped – with abs and lats and arm muscles I can only dream about. I even saw some small African men – that weighed maybe 90 pounds – throw 50 kilo (or about 120-pound) bags of cement or rice up on their heads to carry them with relative ease. Chris Jackson did that – I think mostly to show off – but most of us had better sense.
Last year, the Oak Hill mission team completed a large security wall at the back of the complex to keep out the dirt, bustle and chaos of a nearby street.
I had a really amazing experience there I would like to share with you tonight. Any construction project in a third-world country will have some frustrations of various kinds along the way. We certainly had our share. One night last week, I was at a particularly low ebb. The heat and humidity were getting to me. I was tired. I hadn’t personally done anything amazing. I prayed that night and asked God why he had sent me to Sierra Leone. What was I supposed to be doing here?
On December 27th, I will be in Ferguson maximum security men’s prison as part of a Kairos team for Ferguson #54. Reverend Suzanne Steves is organizing the children of Oak Hill to make 240 children’s placement drawings for our meals with the prison group. One of the ways that God can break through to hardened criminals with strong self-protective shells is through the love of God from children. And, my wife Barbara has been busy baking lots of chocolate chip cookies as part of the agape love for the weekend. We need lots of other support, too – prayers throughout the weekend, notes to prisoners, lots of cookies, agape love, children’s artwork and more. While the inside team is behind bars, the outside team is busy cooking and preparing meals for the Kairos weekend. It is an abundant expression of God’s love.
On a Kairos prison weekend, many men and women will see the very first positive love and support they have experienced in their entire lives. In Sierra Leone, we are there to say that the world loves them and supports them – and they are not alone.
My life today is filled with abundance. As the Advent season is here, I am blessed in so many ways, thankful that my past sins are forgiven by Christ, and excited about what else the Holy Spirit might call me to do.
I want to be able to raise my hand, and say, “Here I am, Lord.”
Amen.
