Community (reprint)
I read Dan Ryan's latest blog post and it brought tears to my eys. I wanted to make sure you guys read it. For those of you who might not know, Dan and Megan Ryan are our newly sent missionaries to the nation of Sierra Leone. Read his entry and let the Holy Spirit speak to you about your sense of community:
Community
May 15, 2012 04:17 pm
By Dan
This evening I went to the well to get our daily water. When I arrived, a boy was struggling to get his container lined up with the spigot and was losing a decent amount of water. It was just him, James and I, so I picked up his container and helped guide it while he used the hand pump. Next jug same thing.
When he was done, I expected him to let go of the handle and take his jugs, but he didn't. He motioned for me to put my jug under and I held it while he pumped. It was clearly getting taxing on him (its not the easiest on the arms) by the end but yet he still offered to pump my second jug. Seeing how he slowed down I declined and took his spot.
By that time, a young girl came with her water containers ( I know my audience, one of you was waiting for me to say jugs again so you could snicker...) while I was finishing up my second jug. When I was done, then we worked together on getting her's filled up.
It is such a simple moment, but it was very meaningful for me.
As I took my turn at the pump, all the ways people have come around us here in Sierra Leone began coming to mind.The way that when we arrived, the TECT staff had our placed cleaned and prepared for us. And after helping us get our things in the apartment, they brought water in for us so we didn't have to haul the 50 gallons back and forth to get our barrel filled on the first day.Then the GCPN staff who come for a wide range of backgrounds, some Texan, one Mexican, one Filipino, and several Sierra Leoneans, who have invited us over for dinner, taken us into town, and generally cared for us as we transitioned.
There is a unique, yet very real community that we've joined here. We're looking forward to seeing what this community is capable of, and if we can truly make an impact on such entrenched needs as the ones Sierra Leone is facing.
