[Sonlifeafrica-newsletter] Sierra Leone 2005 Trip Report

["Mark Tittley" <mark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear friend

I have included in this email a brief overview of my recent trip to Sierra 
Leone, as well as a full report.

Regards

Mark Tittley

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Sierra Leone Trip Report - October 2005

Trip Highlights
Civil war broke out in Sierra Leone in 1992 and only ended in 2002. What a 
privilege it was to travel to the capital city, Freetown, and then across 
the breadth of the country to the town of Kailahun where the war started and 
ended. Around 60 pastors from surrounding villages and 30 World Relief child 
development workers gathered for a two-day training seminar. We were able to 
present the Sonlife Strategy seminar as well as other sessions on leadership 
and issues of the heart. Already plans are being finalised to return to 
Sierra Leone in April or May 2006 to move the launch of our disciplemaking 
strategy to the next phase of development. A partnership is developing 
between the following role players:
1. World Relief
2. Christ Community Church from Chicago
3. The Evangelical Fellowship of Sierra Leone (EFSL) a network of 47 
denominations
4. Sonlife Africa

Prayer Needs:
* Please pray for the people of Sierra Leone as they continue to rebuild 
their lives, towns and communities after the decade of civil war.
* Pray that God would help us find the best nationals to begin to train to 
oversee the growing disciplemaking movement that is being launched.
* Pray that God would give World Relief wisdom as they evaluate their 
ongoing involvement in Sierra Leone.

Full Trip Report
I left South Africa and arrived in Ghana at around 11pm and was met by Amos 
Kevin-Annan. He drove me to the mission guesthouse in Tema where I had 
stayed on a previous visit and I had a good nights sleep, awaking to a 
breakfast of bread and tea. Amos and I spent the morning catching up and it 
was a great joy to read of the developments of the ministry of Sonlife under 
his oversight. He has trained the Vision seminar with a group of key leaders 
and has also been working at gaining access to various denominations to 
present the Strategy seminar. The morning passed all to quickly and it was 
soon time to head downtown to secure my ticket to Freetown, Sierra Leone.

It was not good news at the airline ticket sales office when I was told that 
the flight was fully booked and that my ticket had not been confirmed.  We 
drove to the airport and I found myself wondering why God had allowed me to 
travel to Ghana if I would not be making the flight to Sierra Leone. I 
should not have doubted because at the airport I checked in with no 
difficulty!

My plane touched down on the mainland in Freetown and I was met by John 
Connelly, the World Relief Director in the country. We waited at the airport 
for the team of Americans from Christ Community church in Chicago. They 
arrived an hour after I did and we drove to the United Nations headquarters 
where we took a helicopter ride to the peninsula where the city is located. 
The sun was setting as we touched down - an incredible experience!!!

We were accommodate at a guesthouse in the city and shared rooms - I had the 
opportunity to share a room with Eric Hanson, the mission pastor from the 
church and it was great to catch up. The next morning we headed off to the 
American embassy to meet with the ambassador. He shared at length about life 
in Sierra Leone and the many challenges that were been faced by the people 
after the ending of the civil war.

That evening we had supper on the beach at a Chinese restaurant together 
with many of the World Relief staff. It was early to bed that night for a 
long drive the next day to the far eastern district of Kailahun - and the 
city of the same name. We all remarked at the beauty of the country as we 
drove through rice fields, palm tree forests and the lush green terrain - 
the 4x4 vehicles took strain as did our bodies as we bounced along the bad 
roads and we would not have made it through were it not for our powerful 
vehicles.

After meeting the local World Relief workers at the office where we had 
spaghetti for supper, we were dropped off at one of three venues where we 
slept for three nights. I was based at the Oxfam guesthouse, a 
non-governmental organisation that has paid for wells to be sunk all over 
the country.

We shared breakfast together at one of the other guest houses, that of 
Handicap International, and then made our way to one of two churches. I had 
the privilege of preaching in the New Life Ministries Church and appreciated 
the vibrant worship as well as the pre-service teaching time that the pastor 
led with a time of question and answer where everyone participated in the 
interaction.

On the Monday morning we made our way to a catholic church that we had hired 
for the training of the pastors and World Relief Child and Youth Development 
workers. I was able to present the Sonlife Strategy seminar to a group of 
around 80 pastors and workers. They received the teaching with great 
excitement - clearly in such a remote area, not many training seminars are 
presented to pastors.

It was also a great joy to meet with the training director of the 
Evangelical Fellowship of Sierra Leone (EFSL) - a network of 47 evangelical 
churches across the country and the next day we met with Rev. Titus, the 
evangelism and church development director. They shared their openness to 
the ministry of Sonlife in their country and suggested that when I arrived 
in Bo, I needed to make contact with the new president of EFSL, Rev. 
Johnson, to gain official approval from the organisations leaders.

We spent a lot of time driven around to visit the various programs that 
World Relief has in the area - including the children and teenager clubs 
that are presented twice a week in each village. The workers arrive and 
gather the children in a shady area and begin to play games and teach the 
kids a key lesson for the day - with a specific value as the focus for the 
session (the one we were a part of was faithfulness). They also address 
health issues and do HIV/AIDS awareness and make extensive use of the Word 
of God.

We drove to many of the villages where World Relief has built houses in 
partnership with the communities - they make contact with a village and do a 
survey together with village leaders to determine who are the families most 
at risk and needing a home. They build a model home - teaching the community 
along the way and only provide foreign material, like zink sheeting for the 
roofs, while the rest of the material, like mud for the bricks is sourced in 
the surrounding area. They people are then given material for about 500 
houses to be built and the process is overseen by World Relief staff who 
stay in the area.

We travelled to Kenema on Tuesday afternoon - a five-hour drive west towards 
Freetown where we stayed at a catholic pastoral centre. We met up with a new 
team of World Relief workers who have gathered together to start working in 
villages and left the next morning for the city of Bo.

Pastor Eric Hanson and I were unloaded while the rest of the group made 
their way to Pujehun where they intended to hand out relief supplies to 
victims of a recent flood in the area. Eric and I met with Pastor Rev. 
Johnson who spent the day showing us around the various ministries that his 
church has developed, including a clinic, primary and secondary schools, 
skills development programs and a Bible school. The church is called New 
Harvest Ministries and it was simply incredible to discover that it was the 
one church in Sierra Leone that my church back in Johannesburg, His People 
Christian Church, is in partnership with. The Bible School is an Every 
Nation Leadership Academy named after our international church ministry.

We spent the afternoon sharing about the desire of Christ Community Church 
to partner with New Harvest Ministries and also my desire to launch Sonlife 
Ministries in the country under the umbrella of EFSL. Pastor Johnson has 
agreed to work through our material and will communicate with me as to how 
we can proceed in the coming months.

Pastor Johnson has been greatly impacted by Church Planting Movement that 
started in India under the leadership of David Watson some years back. It is 
an aggressive approach to doing church - including church planting and 
discipleship as a major focus of ministry. The whole goal of ministry is 
that each person in the church is a potential church planter and churches 
are being planted at an amazing rate - already across Sierra Leone, New 
Harvest Ministries has planted more than 100 churches. In some areas the 
entire village has converted from the Muslim faith and a church even built 
on the sport where the Mosque was situated.

Church planting teams, usually two people, are sent to a village to tell 
people about Jesus and see whether the community is responsive to the 
Gospel. If they are a church is started and New Harvest Ministries provides 
benches for people to use as they meet at local gathering places, like the 
Baray - the community centre where the village chief presides for village 
meetings. If the team is not well received, they return to the main church 
and send another team of people who come as development workers. They 
consult with the community and enquire about any needs that the village 
has - like a clinic, a school, etc. They make no promises but say that they 
will pray that God will help them raise what is needed to meet the need. 
They return to the church and work on a plan of action to bring something 
that is needed to the village - and whoever is part of the response team is 
trained in church planting and before long a church has started in the 
village.

We had supper together and by that time were joined by the rest of the team 
who had returned from their trip to Pujehun. After the meal, Pastor Johnson 
spoke at length at his experiences during the civil war in this country and 
how that God had saved his life on at least two occasions from both the 
rebels and from the ECOMOG soldiers who were supposed to be the peace 
keepers, yet they participated in looting and other crimes that he had 
spoken out against. His reaction was viewed as being pro-rebel and thus he 
had become a target. He also shared how that the country had developed a 
system of secret societies during the days of the British hut tax that was 
introduced where the local people had mobilised. These societies have 
continued to this day and they involve blood rituals including body 
mutilation of men and female genital circumcision. He stressed that 
Christians can have no part in such societies and that he is a strong 
preacher against such practises - something that has gotten him into trouble 
with community leaders on numerous occasions.

We left the next morning for our drive back to Freetown. Back in Freetown we 
were blessed on Saturday with a trip to an Island off the coast, Banana 
Island. We were on a hunt for the dwelling of the converted slave captain, 
John Newton, but as it turned out we should have been looking on Bunts 
Island and not Banana Island. Oh well, it was a great outing nonetheless.

Sunday was spent at church in the morning and then lunch and a dip in the 
ocean. The helicopter was waiting for me on Monday morning for my flight 
back to the airport and then on to my stop in Ghana - the 6 hour delay 
proved to be a God-opportunity as I made contact with a missionary with 
Gospel Recordings Network Australia who shared valuable input and resources 
with me concerning the making of disciples in oral cultures. As we spread 
across the continent of Africa and begin to train outside of major cities we 
are increasingly coming into contact with leaders who work in small towns 
and villages where the literacy rate is incredible low. These new insights 
will help to ensure that our training is relevant to the context we are 
working in.