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This was the highlight of the trip for all
of us. Cynthia was approached to see if we would be interested in carrying on a
work with 3 remote villages, Lawana, Bandawa and Njorpowahun that was started
by an amputee pastor who since has passed away. The work has been left in a
state of limbo since then. He was also a teacher and had started a primary
school in the furthermost village. We felt that it was the heart of Jesus would
not want the good work built up so far to be lost and that God was asking us to
take up the baton.
The 3 villages are home to the poorest
community we have seen yet in Sierra Leone. Health is of a very low standard. The school is a traditional mud
and stick building with a palm leaf roof.
The late pastor’s helper, an untrained teacher
and pastor, has been carrying on the work. 30 kids attend up to Class 2 only
and are housed in one open room; however they currently pay school fees. We
took names of 30 other children of school age whose parents could not afford
the fees and 5 orphans. After discussion with our staff and the village elders
we decided to:
- Employ a qualified teacher and pastor £35/($67)month
- Employ a Pastor who act as a classroom assistant £35/($67)month
- This allows us to provide free schooling for all the kids of
the 3 villages
- Provide a corrugated zinc roof for the school at around £500
($950).
- Basic schooling materials
- Health assessment of the children (de-worming etc)
The villages have been asked to extend the
current stick and mud structure to cater for the doubling of the number of
pupils and for the provision of seating and desks.
Cynthia will be working with these villages
in the area of healthcare education and treatment where necessary. She will
also be gathering referrals to the Mercy Ships women’s hospital based in Freetown who repair
injuries caused in difficult child birth. She will also be referring any
amputee’s to the Mercy Ships New Steps prosthetic limb facility near Freetown.
We will also be looking at extending the
vocational training to those in need in these villages.
We are currently looking for a
pastor/trainee pastor who can speak Mende to develop the church plant
established by the late pastor using the school building as a church.
In working with these villages we also aim
to develop a model plan with which we can apply to other village outreach
projects and is in line with our vision statement where the Village Hub is seen
to be the future central resource for the overall regional programme.
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