Video: Lost Freetown

This is an interesting video I found on YouTube recently. It focuses on just some of the environmental problems in Freetown (capital of Sierra Leone) and how they affect the people living in Freetown right now and how they will continue to affect the lives of millions even more in future years. Forestry, climate change, water quality, health, sanitation, poverty....all related. I really appreciate that they interview Sierra Leoneans versus ONLY westerners.

I highly recommend watching it--it is about half hour long. Video: Lost Freetown

The tagline from the JourneyMan Youtube site for the video includes: "Sierra Leone is booming. In capital Freetown the population is rising and new homes spring up daily. But, like the 1950s sewage pipes, the city is creaking under the weight. How long before Freetown cracks?"

Joe singing at Liberty Baptist Church

Joe singing with Ruth & Naomi at one of the churches in Marshalltown, IA.

(Sorry for the shaky camera work and so many heads in the way!)

JH Update, April 2nd (2009)

Please continue to pray for Roger and his team as they spend the next two weeks in Sierra Leone. They arrived safely with all but 2 of the suitcases! (This seems to be a growing trend....)

Praise the Lord for successful and positive meetings that Roger was able to have in Freetown. Pray for wisdom for Roger as he makes decisions and deals with the staff and children.

Pray for Shannon and Kelly as they minister to the kids. They are doing health assessments on all of the children. Pray that God would help them to recognize any problems that the children are having.

Pray for all of our school children! We have many students in class 6 and class 8. All of these children will be taking exams at the end of the school year which determine their future educational plans!

Please pray for Christie! She is preparing for a 15 month tour of duty at the orphanage starting in the middle of May! Praise the Lord for her courage! Please pray that all the details will fall as God would have them fall as she prepares for this mission!

THANK YOU AGAIN TO EVERYONE FOR YOUR PRAYERS FOR THIS MINISTRY! WE HAVE BEEN BLESSED BY EACH PERSON WHO HAS SUPPORTED THE CHILDREN OF SIERRA LEONE!

Water (Part 1)

Today's topic: Water.

"Why?", you ask.

Think about how important water is. Water is essential to life on Earth. Living things can not endure very long at all without water.

I was sitting in on a leadership meeting at the church I work at a few weeks ago. Long story short, the church has just raised enough money for EIGHT wells to be built by Gospel for Asia. I was able to relate my own experiences around the world seeing how valuable clean water is which prompted me to think aferwards about just how valuable the substance is. It's valuable for health and sanitation but as a tool for evangelization among non-Christians. Throughout this fundraising venture with the church, I have looked more into the wells and clean water, in general. An a recent article, GFA said that each well will impact hundreds of people! Praise God!!

I will assert that we, in the western world, underestimate the value of clean water--or water in general! When's the last time you:

• Turned on the faucet
• Flushed a toilet
• Cooked (with water)
• Washed your hands
• Washed your car
• Went swimming
• Enjoyed a nice, refreshing cup of ice water
• Enjoyed coffee, cocoa, or cider
• Took a shower/bath
• Washed your clothes
• Washed your dishes (by hand or dishwasher)
• Watered your lawn (think summer, Midwesterners!)
• Put water in your car to prevent overheating (okay, maybe just me...last summer!)
• Washed off a piece of fruit
• Drank from a water fountain
• Ran the shower to help with congestion

You get the idea....I bet you wouldn't use even a fraction of that amount of water if you had to pump water out of a well or fetch it out of a river...and then CARRY IT! Let me tell you, water buckets are HEAVY! I watered plenty of dust in my six months at JCC. And you probably wouldn't care nearly as much about the temperature after all of that... :-) But here, at home, we like our "creature comforts", don't we. Addicted to our hot showers, nice bubble baths, "just-right" cup of coffee....aren't we? This is as much to me as anyone.

This is essentially the first installment of a series about WATER and how we might better be informed of the issues. Water--clean water especially--is critical in Sierra Leone as it is throughout the world! If you read this blog or follow Jonathan House at all, then please take note of this and pray! Pray for clean water in the villages of the church plants, for the poorest, for the "least of these", for the wells at Jonathan House to work without mechanical issues. The driest, hottest month of the year in Sierra Leone is March. And it gets HOT!!! Then the rainy season will start in late April, May. The World Water Day (UN) also takes place in March coincidentally.

Let me leave you with this YouTube video about water. And as always, if you have any contributions, feel free to let me know. Contact information is at the top of the right margin.

What is Sierra Leone Like?

So, you're a loyal supporter of Jonathan House (thankyou!) and perhaps you've heard stories about Sierra Leone. Maybe you've seen a few pictures taken in Sierra Leone. Or if you're a friend of mine (or of a few others--no names), you've seen several hundred. But....what is Sierra Leone really like?

The beaches (the best in Africa!) sure sound delightful, don't they? The climate sounds great (especially in our winter months). The kids couldn't be cuter (though I'm sure they could try...). The clothes couldn't be more colorful. All the fruit you could possibly want. No speed limits (if you dare drive). Paradise?

Well....not exactly. It is one of the poorest nations on Earth. It has one of the worst life expectancies (about 45 years?). It has one of the worst five infant and child mortality rates. While peaceful for the last several years, the country is still recovering from a (brutal) decade-long civil war (have you seen "Blood Diamond"?). At least three million people are crowded into Freetown--a city built for I think about 200,000 people! I could go on....but you get the picture. There's no need to go on in that direction. The country may be beautiful, but life is pretty grim for most Sierra Leoneans.

How do we as "prosperous" Americans understand this? When people ask me to explain my experiences in developing countries (mainly Sierra Leone), I struggle. People rarely have anything to compare it to. Personally, I'd like everyone to be able to visit and experience this themselves. However, that doesn't seem quite feasible at this point in time, so we're left with multimedia to better paint a picture for us. If pictures are worth a thousand words, how much moreso are moving pictures?! Here are a few video clips from YouTube that show various aspects of Sierra Leone. I'm going to start finding and posting more of these periodically. I want you to understand what Sierra Leone is as much as you can without actually stepping foot in Sierra Leone. If you have questions or are curious about different aspects of life in Sierra Leone, let me know and I will search out an answer for you! If you find anything that fits in with this theme, send it to me (JHM.Salone@gmail.com). If you've been and would like to share your experiences or observations, please send them to the address below.

How can we best help if we don't understand who we're helping? Watch these videos prayerfully. Unless indicated, none are related to Jonathan House. And don't let the ones of bad aspects scare you off from ever taking a trip. As you watch these clips, take notice of the details of what is going on.

You Tube: Driving through the streets/markets of Freetown : This basically someone just pointing the camera through the window of the "Poda Poda" (a crude van, common taxi) and showing what it looks like to drive through the streets of Freetown. If you're a people watcher, have a ball--it's constant activity--selling, buying, commuting, etc. Watch it a few times if you have to. The music playing in the background...very Sierra Leonean.

You Tube: Driving in Sierra Leone -- They were driving to Sulima Beach, but the drive is pretty typical of a majority of roads in Sierra Leone--especially the farther you get away from Freetown--some much worse than others. The country is not known for the good quality of the roads. But don't let this scare you, because in all the trips I've taken over such roads, I've only been car sick once--and I get motion sickness on paved roads in the U.S.! God can provide. But hey, the beach is beautiful, isn't it?

You Tube: A picture tour of Sierra Leone -- This actually has no videos, just several photos. But it is one of my favorites as it shows so many places in Sierra Leone that I and many of you have been to. They show Freetown, Bo (where the orphanage is), Mattru (Mattru-Jong Hospital--most teams have visited here if not based out of here), Bonthe, and Kenema (which really only one person that I know of has been there). You can see Bo (after Freetown & Kenema respectively) starting at about 3:25 (maybe a little before that) until about 4:48, then transitions to Mattru until 5:36, then on to Bonthe which is down the river from Mattru on the coast.

You Tube: Save the Children, Sierra Leone Flooding -- Save the Children, a global charity, has been working in Kroo Bay for a time--one of the poorest sections of Freetown. They do a great job with their videos explaining about life in the community. See their website, too, for more great resources.

You Tube: Children's Living Conditions in Freetown (Hull Freedom Project) -- This is a pretty interesting clip showing how children live on the rubbage (trash) dumps. Yes, they actually live and survive in the dumps. Listen carefully to Reginald (the man showing "us" around) as he has a thick accent.

AFP: Sierra Leone will return property taken by former regime

Just a nice sign of the character of the president and aim to rout corruption.

The Sierra Leone government will return all property seized by the country's former military regime to their owners, Information and Communication Minister Ibrahim Ben Kargbo said Wednesday...
Property belonging to businessmen, opposition politicians and ordinary citizens was seized during Valentine Strasser's 1992-96 military rule. Once Parliament approves the plans, all property would be returned, Kargbo said.
Kargbo said the decision was "natural justice" and would honour a promise made by President Ernest Koroma to return all properties to their original owners. "The president feels that this is one of the processes to foster reconciliation" he said.

Click on the title/link to read the entire article.

Lausanne WP: The Echo of a Saint

By Christopher L. Heuertz

We walked through an open-air market, down a side street in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, West Africa. The vibrant colors and smells of the fruit and vegetables filled our senses. The road was narrow yet full of life. We were surrounded by children laughing and playing all up and down the street. Nearly every vendor greeted us with warm and sincere hospitality.
Before we knew it, the market opened into what appeared to be a valley—more like a crater—on the edge of downtown. Slowly, we walked down a long concrete staircase, into the worst slum I have ever seen. Having traveled in nearly seventy countries throughout Asia, Africa, and South America, I was blown away by the density of poverty and texture of suffering that marked every detail of Kroo Bay.

Kroo Bay is the poorest slum community in the capital city of the world’s poorest country. It’s a former fishing village turned into an informal coastal slum with around six thousand residents—more than four thousand of them children.

Located below sea level, where two of Freetown’s major rivers meet and drain into the Atlantic Ocean, it floods with sewage every time there is major rainfall in the city. This forces residents to spend countless days and nights fighting to save their homes bucket by bucket.
It’s overcrowded, congested, and clogged with trash.

If it weren’t for the laughter of the children and the smiles of the vendors, it would have seemed one of the most hopeless places in the world.

Click on the title to read the entire article

Ethnologue: Sierra Leone Language Map

Check this out! It's a language map of Sierra Leone. (Perhaps just anthro majors are interested in this stuff...) Jonathan House which of course is in Bo...is in the Mende section (#10). Roger will be visiting the Vai people (#16). I misspelled it in a previous post. There is a link above the map to a listing of all the different language groups.

allAfrica: [Sierra Leone] Ranks Last in Child Labor

Concord Times (Freetown)
16 April 2008 Ibrahim Jaffa Condeh and Kevin Hill

Child Labor is a huge problem in Sierra Leone. Many of the JCC kids have been personally involved with it (some were even held as slaves) and to be worst among the countries surveyed--that's a huge deal!! "78% of children ages 7 to 14 in the country are engaged in child labor"--that's huge! Later in the article it cites that UNICEF that one in six children in the entire world are involved in child labor. So it's not only a Sierra Leone or Africa problem, it does affect countries around the world, just Sierra Leone is the worst of those surveyed.

An excerpt:
"According to a recently released report by UNICEF on child labour and school attendance, 78% of children between the ages of 7 and 14 in Sierra Leone are engaged in child labour. The study, which covered one quarter of the world's population, ranked Sierra Leone last among nations surveyed..."

"The achievement of universal primary education is one of the Millennium Development Goals. Child labour, which can exclude primary school aged children from accessing an education, is a major obstacle to reaching this goal The UNICEF report found that "children from poor households and from households without a formally educated household head are more likely to be engaged in child labour and less likely to attend school", a situation that shows that "poverty is the root cause of child labour." The survey considered both economic activity and household chores and tried to distinguish between acceptable work and child labour. Child labour is work done by children that should be eliminated because it violates international labour standards, harms the child, or interferes with school attendance."

Some wonderful old books....

So I was checking out Google Reader which has more than a few digital books (hundreds--if not thousands perhaps). I searched for Sierra Leone for the subjects and it came up with several books written back in the 1800s. The one I'm looking through currently is..."A Residence at Sierra Leone...Letters from Sierra Leone" written by a lady living in Sierra Leone. It is a compilation of letters she wrote to friends and family at home in England. It's pretty interesting...many things have changed a lot while other things haven't changed much at all.

Here's an excerpt:

"Next day it was beautifully clear, and on going upon deck I had my first look of the land I was so truly thankful to see. On one side of our ship, Sierra Leone, like an island, forming one chain of mountains gradually sloping upwards from the Cape to the right, but in front seeming as if they sprang perpendicularly from the sea--was pointed out to me; while, in the opposite direction, the only visible tokens of land were tall trees, appearing as if planted in the water. ...

There was no sea-breeze to carry us in: we were not near enough to discern, without the aid of a spy-glass, the houses on the shore; but I could see Freetown like a white spot at the very foot of the hills, and before it the masts of vessels rose like clustered spires. We had also a view of the Bananas--a few small green islands lying to the southward of the long low cape which stretched far out, on our right....

I looked eagerly out and saw fantastically painted buildings glittering in the glorious light of a tropical sun; and beyond, the lofty mountains of Sierra Leone. Through the faint shadowy haze, their verdure appeared more soft and beautiful than that of the foliage near us, which flashed on the eye with a supernatural tint, and formed a striking contrast to the deep cornelian colour of the earth in the paths and banks of the river--the whole landscape conveying the idea of a perpetual summer. ..."

FT.com: Rice Jumps as Africa Joins Race for Supplies

Rice is THE staple food in Sierra Leone. Especially outside of Freetown, rice is part of or the entire meal for Sierra Leoneans. There are different types of sauces to cover the rice including two that contain cassava and potato leaves, respectively. Another with groundnuts (peanuts). Then there's the yummy Jollof rice. Take rice away from Sierra Leonean and you will hear about it. :-) I jest, but in reality this has the potential to affect the country and JH considerably.

By Javier Blas in Nairobi and Roel Landingin in Manila
Published: April 4 2008 15:23

Rice prices rose more than 10 per cent on Friday to a fresh all-time high as African countries joined south-east Asian importers in the race to head off social unrest by securing supplies from the handful of exporters still selling the grain in the international market.
The rise in prices – 50 per cent in two weeks – threatens upheaval and has resulted in riots and soldiers overseeing supplies in some emerging countries, where the grain is a staple food for about 3bn people.

Click on the title to read the entire article.

Network World: New Services Spur Sierra Leone Mobile Sector

The telecom sector of Sierra Leone is just constantly improving. While I was at JH for 6 months, I had a "mobile" to use which came in handy more than a few times. I sometimes joke that Sierra Leone has better mobile coverage than Iowa...which actually might not be that far off, in my opinion anyway. :-)


Though mobile phone services were once deemed too expensive for ordinary citizens in Sierra Leone, they are on the rise, thanks to creative efforts on the part of service providers.
Attitudes toward mobile services started changing two to three years ago, though mobile operator Celtel first entered the country’s small market in early 2000, followed by Millicom (now tiGo).

Telecom is the most thriving sector, after mining, in Sierra Leone, according to a report by Maxwell Massaquoi, an expert in telecom business support and operation support systems. Mobile phone use in Sierra Leone grew by 18 percent from 2006 to 2007, reaching 110,000 users, the report said.

Click on the title to read the full article.

State of the World's Children Report 2008

UNICEF released their State of the World's Children Report earlier this year. They should have tables for each country available soon and if I remember I will let you know or post it. In the meantime, here are some interesting stats and numbers:

1. Under-five mortality rankings. Note that of the worst 10, all are in sub-Saharan Africa except for one (Afghanistan). Indeed 38 of the 39 worst under-5 countries, are sub-Saharan African countries! All of the best countries, except for one (Singapore) are European.

• Worst (Highest rates) 10: Sierra Leone, Angola, Afghanistan, Niger, Liberia, Mali, Chad Equatorial Guinea, DRCongo, Burkina Faso
• Best Worst (Lowest rates) 10: Sweden, Singapore, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Iceland, Andorra, Spain, Slovenia, Norway, Monaco

2. Nutrition. For Sierra Leone

• Percentage of infants with low birthweight in 2006: 24
• Percentage of under-5's (2000-2006) suffering from: being underweight-30 (8% severe)

3. Health. For Sierra Leone

• Orphans (children aged 0-17) due to all causes, 2005: ~340,000 (31,000 to AIDS)

4. Education. For Sierra Leone.

• Youth (15-24 years) literacy rate 2000-2006: male-60%, female-37%

5. Demographic Info: For Sierra Leone.

• Population (thousands) 2006-- under 18: 2827, under 5: 999
• Life Expectancy: In 1970-35 years, In 2006-42
• Total fertility rate (2006): 6.5
• Percentage of population urbanized (2006): 41

6. Child Protection: For Sierra Leone.

• Percentage of child labor (5-14 years) 1999-2006: Total--48
• Percentage of children living with disability 1999-2006: 23

For a more succinct version and to learn what some of the terminology means, visit the page below--

SoWCR in 20 Questions (and Answers):

http://www.unicef.org/sowc08/youth/informed.php

IRIN Article: Maternity Health in Sierra Leone

The IRIN published an article today about the grim outlook of maternity health in Sierra Leone. As several of the JH kids' mothers have died from childbirth or the effects of childbirth, I thought this was pretty relevant. Sierra Leone has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the world. Please read prayerfully.

"Maternity Hospital is Last Resort"


FREETOWN, 12 March 2008 (IRIN) - Two babies and several gaunt women are the only patients in the gloomy wards of the Princess Christian Maternity Hospital in Freetown.

The hospital is supposed to be the main training and referrals unit for obstetrics in the country but its handful of staff were mostly found in backrooms, drinking tea with their feet resting on the surgical tables as they wile away their days in the eerily slow-moving wards.

“This hospital is a place of last resort for patients and staff,” said Sister Kanu, a nurse, who reckons conditions for mothers and hospital staff have “barely improved” since the end of Sierra Leone’s 11 year long civil war which devastated government and social infrastructure.

“By the time women get here it’s too late and the most we can do is to save the mother,” she said. “That’s why you see so few babies.”

See the link for the rest of the article (click here)