Moskita, me no like!

Moskita… me no like!
I HATE mosquitoes!
I thought I hated mosquitoes before I came to Africa but after being here for two years I despise, loathe, and abhor them (I love my thesaurus). Last year, while working with the Burkitt’s program, I discovered even more about why mosquitoes are EVIL (maybe that’s a little harsh).
Here are some reasons why to hate mosquitoes:
1. They cause malaria, which kills up to 3 million people each year, mainly in Africa.
2. Malaria is a major factor in causing Burkitt’s Lymphoma (BL). This cancer mainly affects children in equatorial Africa. The reasons kids get BL are from chronic malaria, malnutrition, plus a dose of the Epstein Barr virus. This cancer, if left untreated, has a100% death rate. ‘Mosquitoes are EVIL’ statement still stands.
Then last November, during my visit to Liberia, this hatred grew even DEEPER when one of these little-parasite-infected-bugs infected ME with malaria (yes I was taking anti-malaria pills). Now they made it PERSONAL! It took me about 2 weeks to fully recover. The positive side of having malaria was that I could truly empathize with my patients but I wish I could have found out another way.
So this year as I took on the new role of being Off Ships Health Educator I was asked to head up the malaria education and bed net distribution program to all the patients at the Hope Center. I quickly accepted.
I wrote up a funny/interactive role-play and started going once a week to teach all the patients staying at the Hope Center. It started off kind of rough, but as the weeks went on it got better and better. The program has been going for about four months and over the past month the patients have become the teachers/actors. I now let them act out the play independently while one of the day volunteers head up the Q & A time.


Another blessing during these teachings has been the cultural sensitivity that I have received from the patients. For example many Africans are taught that malaria comes from:
Eating to much mangos, oranges, and/or oil
Working in the sun/Overworking
Drinking a bad batch of cow milk
Garbage
When children are naughty (if this one was true I would have had malaria everyday!)
Upon hearing these things my initial reaction was “YOU IDIOT!” But I figured that I should be a bit more gentle. instead I dug deeper to explain to them why these ‘fables’ were not true.
Becca: Yes these are some of the things that we are taught from our families that cause malaria. Now according to the story, how many days after we get a mosquito bite do we feel the symptoms of malaria?
Patients: 12 days
Becca: Okay so let’s say that 12 days after I get bit by a mosquito, I work in the sun all day long and then I come home and eat 10 mangos and 10 oranges plus do something naughty. What am I going to blame malaria on?
Patients: Aaaaaaa!
*definition of ‘Aaaaa’: a common Sierra Leone reaction which is used upon hearing or seeing something surprising; sound of comprehension)
Becca: Yes! “The ‘Aaaa’ of Understanding. I then went on to explain, “So you see we assume the most recent thing we have done gave us the malaria but don’t think back to the small mosquito bite that happened 12 days before.”
Teaching can be a struggle but is so POWERFUL when the students really understand. Sometimes when I am teaching I feel like I am a small burning candle desperately trying to light everyones candlesticks. I plan out all different methods on how best to try and light others candles and will research for hours and only light a few candles. BUT then there are other times I teach and all of the sudden its like ‘BOOM’ and I feel like I am standing center stage with bright lights shining all around. ‘Aaaaaa!’ These center stage moments fill me with excitement, hope, and passion to keep teaching preventative health.
After doing these teachings at the Hope Center, Mercy Ships decided to let me go and do this same lesson at a small village church about one hour outside of Freetown. Over the past 4 weeks I have been going out weekly to teach malaria and to hand out mosquito nets. We were graciously given 100 nets to be given out at one small tarp-constructed church. During my first two visits I led the role-play and Q & A and then the last two visits I became the student and students became the teacher. The first time the new teachers needed a little help during the Q and A time but this last week they did it 100% by themselves. I was so proud of them!



Today was my last day teaching in the village. It was sad leaving knowing that there were still so many that were in need BUT as I thought about the 200+ people from 16 different villages that had received the malaria education joy filled my heart. God is doing more than I could ever ask or imagine and his ways are SOO much higher than my own.
My hope is that each one of these that heard the malaria lesson would become a teacher. That they would be teachers in their home, school, workplace, and community. I pray that many candlesticks will be lit until each village shines bright.
Teaching at these two places has been an amazing experience. I have continued to be refined and challenged but also overcome with joy and love. This hatred towards mosquitoes has given me a deep passion and love for teaching others how to stop these little-parasite-infected-bugs.




In two weeks, Greg and I will be traveling to the US to do some fundraising and to visit churches, families, and friends. We are SOO excited for this time. We are also excited about not having to think about malaria during this time .. hehe..
May God continue to provide wisdom and discretion for stopping diseases like malaria that kill so many each year.

Once upon a time...

...there was a girl named Becca who decided to leave her family and friends in America and follow her heart to a place called Africa. God had called her to go and live and work on a big hospital ship called Mercy Ships.

Around this same time there was a boy named Gregory who had been working on Mercy Ships as a Day Volunteer in Liberia for 3 years. He loved Mercy Ships and decided to move on to the ship and leave his family and friends in Liberia to go and serve all around West Africa.

While working on the ship Becca and Gregory started becoming friends while playing football. Over time their friendship grew.


Becca and Gregory would go on trips together with friends to the beach, to the pool, to climb a mountain, to watch a game, to play cards, to grab a bite to eat, or just to hang out.


Their friendship grew more and more as time went on. But due to them being from two very different places Becca and Gregory were very scared to take their friendship any further.


Some time passed and then Becca and Gregory started getting close again. But this time they both were praying for God to direct their steps according to His will. Finally after Becca and Gregory had done a lot of praying and talking they decided to take that next step.

Becca and Gregory’s relationship continued to grow and God continued to guide them each step of the way. Soon after they started going out, Becca left the ship to go and live in West Africa, while Gregory stayed with Mercy Ships in South Africa. They both knew they would miss each other but they were comforted knowing that if they were in Gods will He would continue to bless them.


During this time Becca and Gregory’s relationship continued to grow with each other and with God. God used this time to help Becca and Gregory learn about the others culture. Six months later Becca and Gregory were reunited. They were both very happy.

Becca and Gregory really loved each other and even though they came from two different places they saw how God continued to bless them and guide them each day.


So almost one-year after Becca and Gregory started going out, Gregory decided to ask Becca to be his wife. Becca said ‘Of course!” (which means yes)

As Becca and Gregory prepare for marriage they know they have a long road ahead of them and a lot of obstacles to overcome. They know that marriage is hard but they know theirs will be harder in different ways because they come from two different cultures.


Becca and Gregory’s prayer is that through their unity God will use them mightily for His kingdom bringing many to know Christ.

Becca and Gregory also ask that you would pray for them. Pray that God would guide and protect them wherever He sends them and that God would USE them in unimaginable ways!!

Church Leaders Conferences

(Bo Conference)

It was all worth it. Every phone call, every minute (hours) sitting in traffic, every paper cut received, every frustrating moment, every miscommunication, every miscalculation… it was all worth it.

(Bo Conference team with speakers)

Sometimes you go through really crappy things and don’t see the result until months or years later and maybe even sometimes you don’t see it at all. But in regards to these Church Leaders Conferences, God showed me the fruit right away. If you have been following my Sierra Leone adventure so far, you will know that the road leading up to these conferences was not a smooth one. This has honestly been one of the most frustrating, annoying, time consuming, stressful, uncomfortable, tasks that God has given me but it has also been one of the biggest blessings and joy producing experiences as well.

There were many miscommunications along the road and many oversights as well. For example I miscalculated the total money needed for the first conference by a mere 11 million Leone (~$2700 USD). Or the unexpected bloopers like a nation wide petrol shortage that led to us not being able to run the generators the whole conference, which meant no fans, microphones, projectors, or cell phone chargers. I wont fill you in on allllll the mistakes I made so as to keep some dignity but lets just say there were more than a few.. hehe..

(Freetown Conference)

Logistically the conferences went as followed:
Bo and Freetown~ 425 participants
Denominations represented~ 7
Pages printed~ 21,940
Paper cuts~ 16 + 1 on my elbow (most likely from Dulce!)
Miles driven~ 541 kilometers in 8 days
Plates of rice eaten~19 plates of rice in 10 days
Phone calls received~ by the last few weeks they all became a big blur… but lets just say A LOT!!

(Pastor Moses, Lawrence (ship friend), Chris Ampadu)

So besides the prep stuff I bet you are wondering what the conference was about. The conference was called “Partnership in whole-person ministry”. The purpose of these conferences was to create unity among all of God’s children and to empower and equip the local church leaders by teaching them how to carry out holistic ministry not just in their churches but in their family and communities as well. The response was more than I could have EVER imagined! To Him who does TONS more than what we could EVER imagine or think up because of the power of Him who is within us. (Eph 3: 20)

(Myself with Chris Ampadu, the main speaker)

Over these past few days I have been reading over the participants evaluation forms and I have been so blessed and encouraged. It’s amazing to hear all that God has done and will continue to do. Here are some of the things I read:

I sincerely appreciate this Mercy Ships leaders conference. I saw it as a means of uniting and empowering the body of Christ for productivity in life and ministry.

The Mercy Ship training has pushed me to reach the unreached through not just spiritual means but by ministering to the whole person.

In Matthew 7 it says that ‘not all that say Lord Lord will inherit Gods kingdom but only those who do the will of God’ and I don’t want to loose Gods kingdom and therefore I am going to do all that I can to completely and totally obey and walk according to His will.

The thing I liked most was the participation of Christians regardless of their denomination.

This conference has been an eye opener to me about how we should be doing ministry and especially with the presentation coming from our African brothers was especially enlightening.

This conference is very good and timely in the sense that it is opening out eyes not to focus on just the spiritual aspect but on the physical, social, and moral aspect of man. This has been lacking in our churches. After going through this conference I am going to try and focus more on development not only in my church but also in the communities that I am a part of.

I want to be a catalyst of change and begin by implementing this knowledge within myself and to my family. I also want to take these truths to the NGOs and church leaders that I work with.

The conference is fine and I enjoyed it, but as for me I am a Muslim but having learned something from this conference about Christ I now decide to be a Christian… Mariama (HOW COOL IS THIS)

(celebrity couple)


See what I mean… How amazing is our God?! My ship sister Dulce and I (now renamed Bulce and Decca) were talking after the conferences and honestly not only did we see and hear amazing things from the participants but we ourselves got a lot out of these conferences.

My prayer is that this wouldn’t just be another conference that these church leaders attended but that it would be the beginning of a transformation in their own lives, which would lead into their families, communities, and ministries as well. I pray that through each and every person that heard about the way Jesus did ministry that they would emulate him in their own lives as well. I pray that above all things that God would receive all the praise and glory!!

A good friend told me this quote that I think is so true..
“Never think that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

To hear more about the different groups that we invited to speak check out their websites:
www.samaritan-strategy-africa.org/
www.chenetwork.org