Happy Birthday Church

Yesterday was the Feast of Pentecost. The birthday of the Church, when the Holy Spirit came, filled the apostles and remained with them, and us to this very day! It is one of my favorite days of the liturgical year!

Acts 2:1-11

When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem. At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were astounded, and in amazement they asked, “Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans? Then how does each of us hear them in his native language? We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travelers from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God.”

COME HOLY SPIRIT!! 🕊🔥

I have a little clip I tried to attach of the procession at Mass but I can't get it to work. Sorry. But I had three little visitors sit with me for part of the Mass. The mom had her hands full, in a beautiful way. One was sitting on my lap, touching the tattoo on my forearm and then she began pulling the hairs on my arms. It was hysterical and slightly painful 😆 Another was trying to share his soggy cracker by shoving it in my mouth 🤢 I was grateful but declined. It made my heart happy because I had been going to Mass by myself for so many years at home, I forgot how it was to wrangle little ones during Mass. It was a beautiful day sharing all of this with our newest LMH missionary, Nancy.

I'm going to be me and this blog will be jumping all over the place. I'm apologizing now.

As my previous blogs have said how much I LOVE the weather here - NOT!! Prior to Sally going home to seek medical attention we had a conversation with an Expat who was in the middle of purchasing a small gas generator for their house because of the constant electrical outage and upcoming 2 weeks of NO electricity at all. After Sally left, I had another conversation with the Expat for more details. I am learning how much of a wimp I really am and the pressure of the constant electrical outages & the thought of having to figure out how to manage without any electricity for two weeks made me crazy. I decided that I would use some of my own savings to have a small solar generator installed since I'll be here for three years. I spoke with my sister and she talked about maybe doing a private fundraiser to be able to purchase one without using my savings. I also talked with my brother. They are both my sounding board and have always given me great counsel many times during my life. After other conversations with my siblings, they gifted us with the solar generator. Praise God!! It has not only changed my life, but also those who live nearby now that we're in the middle of the long period of complete outage. They bring their electronics, their rechargeable fans & their frozen food to the house and I feel so blessed to be able to help them. They have all helped me since I arrived. The solar generator is a gift to the house and will remain long after I have left. I've always been so blessed by my family with love, support and generosity. And this time they showed up so big!! Thanks to you all!

Between the many months of extreme heat (which is normal here) along with the electricity outage, there are many wells that are empty so water is beginning to be a problem in places. Praise God, it has not been an issue for us but right outside our compound, there is a well that is not working. Sally being the genius she is, before she left she filled a large trash barrel full of water as well as two smaller containers just in case. Unfortunately, she found out first-hand about how sometimes the water doesn’t flow last year. The amazing woman who does our wash and cooks for us, told me about the well they use. Because I knew we had some extra water saved up and our water was still flowing, I offered her some of our water. She and her sons brought over buckets and we filled them up for her and her family/neighbors for cooking and such. Once again, God has blessed us so it is so important to me to share what I have with others. My parents were such great models of this to our family growing up. As I write this part of my blog, it has rained everyday for the last week, some days more than others, so the water shortage is not a problem any longer - again, PRAISE GOD!! He is so good!!

Sierra Leone has SOO MANY holidays!! It’s awesome. Being in healthcare here, just as it is in the US, holidays don’t really matter unless your administration or in the business office - then you get the day off. The hospital grunts like nurses, techs, etc., still get to come to work just like it’s any other day. What I find really cool, is that the holidays that are celebrated are African holidays, Muslim holidays and Christian holidays. And everyone celebrates them together. I think it’s beautiful here, which is a blessing because I know that other places it’s not so beautiful. I have never witnessed, been exposed to, nor felt that because I was a Catholic/Christian that I was some sort of an enemy or could not be trusted. Everyone here lives in such harmony that it makes my heart and soul sing. We have Mass every Wednesday morning and most everyone attends - I don’t think that it’s required but it’s very beautiful to see everyone there, singing, doing the Catholic calisthenics and praying together. Of course, the non-Catholics don’t receive communion but it’s still very beautiful.

I started this blog a week ago so the good news is that the electricity outage is officially over - it still goes out a lot but at least it’s on for part of the day. I still have things in the freezer from the Sisters that live on the compound and I let the guys at the gate (our security team) know that they are always welcome to plug in their electronics if they need to.

Nancy and I are excited that Janice and Sally will be here in about two weeks. We hope that we can do some fun things when Janice is here like Doris and Karlee got to do with Amie in Ghana (hint, hint). I’m very excited for all the things they will be bringing us - Christmas in June!! WooHoo!

I’m going to stop here or it will be another week before I get this sent to Janice to be posted. Thank you for your continued support and prayers!! God bless you all.

XOXO,

Kathy