The Countdown is On!

In just 10 days, Kim Kargbo, Kelsey Martin and Kim's 3 children will move to Sierra Leone for 4 months.  Kim's husband, Tim, will also be accompanying the group, but only staying for 2 weeks.  Since there is no electricity in Makeni, where Women of Hope International is headquartered, Tim will be installing solar energy systems for the guesthouse rented for the administrative team and the WOHInt office.  He will then return home to his job in Memphis, TN.

The guesthouse, at the moment, not only doesn't have electricity, but it also doesn't have running water, screens on the windows, or furniture!  Other than that, it's a really nice house (we think - we actually haven't seen it)!  The WOHInt staff is working on getting things in order for the team's arrival in 10 days, but things don't usually happen as you wish them to in Sierra Leone, so we're not holding our breath.  We're praying that at least the screens get installed to keep the malaria-ridden mosquitoes out of the house at night. The rest we'll deal with as we go.  We can always take showers out of buckets and sleep on mattresses on the floor until furniture is made and a water tank can be installed.  We wouldn't mind if you want to pray about these things with us!  Life is already hard in Sierra Leone, so a few little conveniences can make all the difference.

There is so much to do to prepare to be gone for 4 months, as you can imagine.  Credit card auto-payments must be stopped, pets cared for, mail delivery dealt with, bills dealt with, and many other things.  Keeping it all straight is the hard part!  Then there is packing.  Fortunately, we shipped all the household goods over to Sierra Leone already, which makes packing a bit easier.  We have 5 drums and a couple of boxes of things on a ship which is supposed to arrive 2 days before we do.  We'll see if that happens!  But, packing up the remainder of a school year, clothes and shoes for 3 kids, supplies and resources for the program (like Braille books and sign language videos), and personal items takes some thinking.

We'll keep you posted as we step out on this great adventure.  It's a wild ride - but an exciting one!