thoughts from the deep recesses

In 2011 when we went as a family to Sierra Leone, they had just gotten this amazing machine... which takes the beautiful, plentiful red dirt and creates bricks. At that time, they were building some new classrooms for the Mallory Jansen Memorial School - the onsite school where not only the 93 Children's Home kids attend, but roughly 600 children from surrounding villages. Since we went last time, they've built two guest houses, a senior staff housing building, a staff home for long term international staff, a store for the kids to buy things and more classrooms. All from those beautiful red bricks... Currently, work is progressing on a remote school in the village of Mokpangumba, a warehouse, and a brand new secondary school. You can read more about that school in this incredible article: Mokpangumba School We had the privilege of seeing the kids pitch in on one of their last days of school to carry bricks to the new secondary school site. Our son, Spengy, told us he ...

Oh Sierra Leone... I never quite know how to share after a trip. I could talk your ears off for hours. Or, I could give you the elevator pitch version. Either way, I'm not sure I can effectively communicate how blessed I am to have this second home. Asia and Phillip, the newest member of our family How can I begin to tell you the deep sense of family I feel there... how each time we go back, the relationships go a little bit deeper... the love becomes stronger... the affection is freer... the sense of home fiercer... Alhassan, the first boy we ever sponsored The kids we work with and sponsor there are growing, as children do. This trip it was very evident that what used to be a home for lots of little kids is now home to big teenagers and young adolescents... it's similar to the change I feel in my own home. Which is maybe while things feel so familiar there... We now sponsor four boys at the Children of the Nations children's home. We went with three...