What are you going to be doing in Freetown?

We are about to go to Sierra Leone and looking forward to it. The team of eleven flies out on Sunday, 28th February and returns a week later to arrive at Heathrow on Monday morning, 8th March. I am the only one to have been in the country before. We have a busy week and believe that the Community Health Care Programme that we shall share could begin to transform the health of the communities taking part. It has done so elsewhere in Africa.

Nelson Mandela was so impressed with the reports he heard that he asked for the programme to be taken to his home village in South Africa.

Linden Boothby

Linden Boothby, the leader of the programme, has recently been to Malawi where a participant wrote, "The workshop was an eye opener. We discovered that we can influence our community to follow preventive measures against most of our killer diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, dysentery just to mention a few. As we were discussing we recognised the need of concentrating on sanitation in our community, and we agreed that sanitation will be our starting point. Our mind set has completely changed towards our community. The fact that we have a role to play in our community cannot be emphasised enough. This workshop was worth attending!"

The Malawi report quotes Chief Chapsinja, ‘The training was timely. I will ensure that my community is practicing good health practices. In our country Chiefs are keys to the community, that is why I personally attended the training. I am convinced that the training is good so I will personally teach my fellow chiefs in their monthly meeting and work closely with the Village Development Committee to ensure that what we have learnt is being put into practice. I want my village to be a model village.’

Teaching taking place in Malawi

Linden was in Tanzania last December. She described her first meeting there. "We started this session carefully feeling our way, being very sensitive to local issues and local culture. “What makes you feel unhappy when you wake in the morning”, we asked and out it all poured! Relationship breakdown, wife beating, unfaithfulness, children dying, female circumcision, child marriages, HIV/AIDS, diarrhoea, alcoholism, malnutrition and so much more. When the group prioritised the issues, it clearly showed that they wanted us to start teaching on Family Matters."

What will we be teaching on? Whatever the groups decides are their priorities, so we don't know till we get there, but we have a team of dedicated people, including many with medical qualifications,  Psychiatrist, General Practitioner, Paediatrician, Nurse, Health Care Assistant and a Health and Social Care Student.
The programme takes  around 4 days to present, after which the leaders and influencers present will have workable ideas to share with their communities.We hope some of the team will return several times in future years to help with the implementation and give extra support. A major thrill for me is that I shall have my younger daughter, Grace, with me for this trip and also my nephew, Samuel Warwick. Sam featured in the last post and is now setting us all a shining example of committment.

Grace (right) with her elder sister, Kate

Friday is the School Sports Day. A major event in the yearly calendar and great fun. There are four houses in competition against each other. I should be impartial, but I think I will be supporting Swindale House.

Swindale House

On the Saturday I hope we shall be visiting parts of Freetown, a market and a Beach. After the service on Sunday in Wellington, it will be time to say farewell as we take the ferry back to Lungi Airport. We hope to report amazing things on our return.

Going, Going, GONE!

It has happened at last. What a day for a haircut!. Sliding our way through freshly fallen snow to church, we praised God, were prayed over as a team before we fly to Sierra Leone on the 28th February, and at the end of the meeting a crowd watched Samuel Warwick set a shining example of grit and determination as he lost his hair in a good cause.  In this case raising funds to allow him to see first hand the health problems resulting from poverty and ignorance in the world's poorest country, and learn how to do something about it.

What do you want off?

A bit of help is offered

Nearly done!

The result - It suits you was the general verdict.

Our thanks go to Tim, professional hairdresser from"The Cutting Club" in Alvaston, Derby, for doing a super job, not just in the hair care department but also for working the crowd for extra support! Thanks, it was great!

Also to Lucy of the Derby Evening Telegraph who suggested the poses and took enough photos for a

Special Edition.

Hair today and gone tomorrow!

My nephew, Samuel Warwick, is raising money for his visit to Freetown by having his glorious mop of hair shaved off.

The event will take place at the Riverside Centre in Derby at 12.30pm on Sunday, 21st Feb.

If you are around at the time there may even be the opportunity to help!

Walls going up for Secondary School

At Christmas my wife gave me a Project Book, "250 pages of Premium Quality writing paper". This was supposed to replace all the scraps of paper on which I had written notes, reminders or details of phone messages and which litter my desk. I am learning to use it.

On 11th January I see I entered "Alpha. needs another £500 to get walls finished." And also noted that the Government will pay for two teachers in the Primary School from end of January. Originally I understood that they would pay for three, but there is not enough money. Still £112 for two each month is a good start. Money needs to be prayed in for the remainder of the teachers salaries, for aspects of the Healthcare trip and for the building work. I am learning to trust God more in this.

Anyway a friend in our church said he would like to give me a gift as a result of reading this blog. Great, I thought, expecting perhaps £25 or at the most £50.  Last Sunday, he said "I've got a cheque for you."
There it was £500. wow!   I have just looked back through the blog. Does it ever specifically mention the need for £500? No, but God put it into his servant's heart to get it just right! Thank you, Lord.

It's the roof next!!!!!!

It's getting nearer!

In just over a week eleven people will fly to Freetown to implement Community Healthcare Training for leaders and influencers in the Wellington and Kissy areas. It is a large and varied team that has come together. I am the only one that has been to Sierra Leone before, although some are familiar with other parts of Africa. We shall tackle the issues that the community see as their most pressing concerns and will help the leaders to formulate plans to bring about change in their communities. The modular programme that we are following has been successful in many parts of the world. Nelson Mandela specifically asked for it to be taken to his home village in South Africa.

Linden Boothby from the charity Links International in Sussex is guiding us through whatever may be seen as the initial problems to tackle.

Linden Boothby

We are very grateful and excited to have her with us, and an exceptional team has come together to learn from her. We have three medical doctors, a psychiatrist, G.P. and a paediatrician. They will double, I understand, the number of qualified psychiatrists and paediatricians in Sierra Leone during the week they are there. There are two healthcare students, not yet out of their teens - OK let's come clean on this, one is my daughter, Grace, and one my nephew, Samuel.  He's the one without any hair - at least he will have been shorn by the time we set off!
We also have a nurse with us, and four others, including me, who are here to learn. Actually we all will be learning. That is what makes it all so exciting - we don't know what the outcome will be. We don't know what the questions will be, or who will turn up. However we believe that we shall see the will of God unfold and that he has some encouraging surprises for us. Some team members will commit to going back four or five times until the work is well-established.

Hair raising!

One of the team on our March trip to teach on Community Health Care is Sam Warwick. Sam is a young healthcare assistant in a Derby Hospital, and needs to raise money for his expenses. He decided to do something that would be costly
  " To raise this money I am going to shave my head. If you are interested in sponsoring me and seeing me bald" ... he invited members of his church to sign a sponsor form. (pictured)

 If you know him, please get one. If you don't know him, but admire his courage and want to help - contact me and I can put you in touch. tswindaleuk@yahoo.co.uk

The British Obsession with weather.

People keep asking me how hot it will be in Freetown. The team leaves in three weeks. Well the forecast from Freetown from today, Sunday to Thursday, is 'Sunny' every day. Average maximum daytime temperature is 31 centigrade or 87 fahrenheit. Average minimum temperature at night, 26 centigrade/ 79 fahrenheit.  OK it's hot!

Moving on - Keep going!

I am reproducing a thought from the UCB 'Word for Today'. This applies to any task in life, but for all of us who love Sierra Leone and see the problems that must be grappled with to lift people from the suffering and poverty that are all too real, it is inspiration.  To find the original, click on the 'Christian Radio and Daily Readings' link on the left.

It is highly relevant to our interest in Sierra Leone, as the events it describes are contemporary with the founding of Freetown.   The original settlement was founded in 1787 and re-founded in 1792. John Wesley died on the 2nd March, 1791.

John Wesley

...in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.' Galatians 6:9

Why don't we see more of God's promises fulfilled in our lives? Because we overlook the process. It is in the process of reaching the promise that we become discouraged and quit. Success in any venture lies in holding on, even when others let go. We demand instant gratification and if we don't get it we leave our jobs, our churches, and even our families. But there's a process we must go through, regardless of our level of faith. There are no shortcuts. We've got to pay full price; it never goes on sale. Endurance is the price tag of achievement: '...in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart' (Galatians 6:9 NKJV). For years, William Wilberforce pushed Parliament to abolish the slave trade. Discouraged, he was about to give up when his elderly friend John Wesley heard of his campaign, and from his deathbed called for pen and paper. With trembling hand Wesley wrote, 'Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and of devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them stronger than God? O be not weary in well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of His might, till even American slavery shall vanish away before it.' Wesley died six days later. Wilberforce fought for 42 more years. Three days before his death, slavery was abolished in Britain. Eventually, it was abolished in America too. Hang in there - what God has in store for you is worth any price you have to pay.