Water, water everywhere!

On Friday I headed back towards Freetown because we have a medical team coming in March and in preparation for them coming I get to do a lot of visiting different government buildings, etc. Since it usually takes multiple visits to one office to get a document I need and since I need a bunch of different documents, the 7 hour trip from Freetown to where I live makes it a little tricky. That being said, for the few weeks leading up to a medical team I come hang out with my friends near Freetown.

This year, two of my friends, John and Kaysie, were finishing up a 2 week "camping trip" in the middle of nowhere, so I decided to join them for a couple of days at the tail end of their trip. Part of what WMT has begun to do is drill wells. They drill a bore hole using a completely manual method. John has about 7 or 8 guys that he's training in this method. They spent 2 weeks in the middle of nowhere drilling two wells in two different villages. Since I live so far away I don't get to be a part of this very much so I was excited to see it going on in person.

When I arrived I felt like I was camping back in the States! These guys know how to camp!! I almost expected there to be a little fire pit with the bars to put over it and a camp ranger to swing by and make sure we had the right permit.

Our excellent campsite!
When I arrived they were finishing one of the wells but were having trouble with the second one. Since all the drilling is done manually it's not 100% guaranteed that they'll be able to complete a well. The agreement is that they'll try 3 times and if they're unable to get it then they stop but the people who hired them only lose a deposit. They were on their 4th attempt when I got there (John really didn't want to give up). Apparently they kept hitting rock and just couldn't get through it. On their first attempt they hit this rock at about 25 feet and worked for 3 days with zero progress. That's a little disheartening. So they moved to a different spot but kept hitting rock at about the same depth. Finally, they moved a little farther away from the community. They still hit the rock at the same depth but hit water a lot earlier (about 8 feet) so there will be plenty to last all through the dry season. Yippee!!! The thing that is so cool about this well drilling is that they do both profit and not for profit wells so that the for profit wells can fund the not for profit ones. So sustainable!

In addition to drilling the wells, they were also there to share about *esus. They had some teaching every night and shared the *esus film in their native language. There was no church in that village so the people had a lot of questions. Some of my favorites were "can a man be a *hristian if he has more than on wife?" and "why do *uslims take their shoes off to enter their house of worship but *hristians don't?" There were quite a few people who got really really excited about it and are excited about starting a church in that village. Awesome blossom...extra awesome (name that TV show).

Getting ready to show the *esus film
John and Kaysie brought their 6 month old son Aden along on this adventure. One of my favorite parts was seeing all the villagers, both men and women, fawning all over him and yelling his name all the time (well, kind of his name....they couldn't really say it so they shouted "Idi, Idi, Idi." He ate it up. :)
"Idi" with one of the older ladies in the village
I got to experience some new things like a new kind of meat called Fritombo. It was actually pretty delicious. Kaysie convinced me to try some of the liver of the Fritombo which was NOT delicious.
Fritombo roasting on an open fire...
When I was little and we would go on road trips and one of us had to go to the bathroom, my dad would always give us the option to "go like the campers" which meant pull off on the side of the freeway and have at it. After the unfortunate event in which my dad thought it would be hilarious to move the car and turn the headlights on my brother while he was doing this (turns out it WAS hilarious!) I never voted for that option. However here, there was no other option so....go like the campers I did. I was a little nervous about how my shy bladder and I would do (is that an overshare?) but we did A-Ok. Of course I was glad to be back to my flushing toilet after a couple days. Kaysie is a rock star for doing it for 2 weeks! With a baby!!

On Sunday we had a church service and then packed up and headed out. It was a great time and I was so glad to get to see the awesome things that God's doing through this well drilling!