Tuesday, November 8, 2016

November 4th, 2016 - Praise be to God, and a little to the Carley's

Getting out of Freetown was a chore. Don went next door to see Sahr and he had a violent muscle spasm that caused him to fly out of his wheelchair and the wheelchair tipped over. Sahr was scared. Don helped him and someone is going to sit next to him all the time. Don has become the voice of reason to a lot of people. The last 3 nights he has been sought out for counsel by a young man called to be the branch mission leader of the Grafton Branch and has no idea what to do. Don got out his handbook 2 and they went over his responsibilities item by item. Then an 18 year old missionary came because he needs help adjusting to being a missionary and is miserable. Then another young man came with a business plan he wanted to run by Don and asked for some money to start the business. Then a young man sent Don a text and said he was in pain and things were not good and asked to speak to him. Don tried to get him in to visit with him, but Don's time was totally stretched and he could not do it. On our way out of the compound this morning, the young man showed up and Don asked if they could talk next Tuesday when we get back to Grafton or if he needed to talk right then. The young man said it could wait. I know this young man has been working for several months and has not been paid. He may need financial help, too.

 We have to go right by 5 5 school in Waterloo to go to Makeni so we stopped to see the finished product (a hand-dug borehole). This was our first attempt at this. The borehole is 65 feet deep and has 32' of pure clean water. When we got there the children and the headmistress and principal all came running to us. The Headmistress threw her arms around me and thanked me profusely. We went to the well and they asked me to pump water. I did. It was wonderful to have such precious water available right in the middle of the school yard. The headmistress and the principal asked us if they could talk to us and took us to the head mistresses' office. They thanked us profusely and reiterate all the wonderful benefits. Then they started talking about houses and clothes and the Carley house , and parliament and the local chiefs and a "turn-over" ceremony on December 4th and everyone has been invited and has accept and asked me what my favorite color is. I looked at Don and asked him "what are they going to do to our house and what are the clothes they are talking about?" He shrugged his shoulders and made a face that said "I don't know". Neither Don nor I could follow what they were talking about. We were both confused. Luckily, Brother Thomas our site manager was there and he explained to us that the school is broken down into 4 houses. Each house has a color. In honor of us they are going to create a fifth house which will be called "The Carley House" and this house will be forever called "The Carley House" for as long as the school is in existence. They wanted to know what color is my favorite so the house will have its own color. In my mind I am going "yikes! We are getting too much credit. We are serving a mission for the Lord. We can't do this. How can we slow this down without offending them?" I did not know what to do so I asked what colors the 4 other houses are and they said "red, yellow, blue and green". I looked at Don and asked orange or purple? Mrs. Scott, the headmistress, said very enthusiastically, "Orange". Then a man walked in from an adjoining room and told Don to stand. Don stood up and the man whipped out a tape measure and started taking measurements of Don and then me to make us something they are going to put on us at the ceremony. Whatever it is, it is going to be orange. Somewhere in the ceremony Don is going to become an honorary member of parliament or an honorary chief in the local tribe. We are confused on that. But the one thing we can both remember is he will be the honorary (?) and I am "the woman who supports him". REALLY!

No comments:

Post a Comment