Sierra Leone Update

Sierra Leone Update

Greetings from Sierra Leone! As you are reading this, it is Monday afternoon in Freetown. We will have just completed the very first Youth Retreat Thursday through Saturday morning, and the annual Missionary Retreat Saturday and Sunday at the Tokeh Beach Resort. 

Our team consists of Matt and Ashley Burger, Gonie Cha-Lee, Morgan Cochrane, Jeff, Amy, Jacob, and Nichole Heeschen. This is Matt and Ashley’s third mission trip to Sierra Leone, Jeff and Amy’s second, and a first for the remainder of the team.

Please pray for the missionaries as they return to their fields today. They work in a broad spectrum of vocations, including Bible training, discipleship, physicians, orphanages, Embassy security, local business development, teachers, physical therapists, and many more. We have an enemy who doesn’t want them to be effective in their work for the Kingdom, and they’ve just left a retreat feeling refreshed and ready to carry on. They need prayer for strength against the spiritual attacks that will come and to remember the call that brought them to this beautiful country. 

Today we have the opportunity to spend time with Anna Vines and the Enable the Children team as they do home visits with disabled children on their caseload. It is an incredible experience to participate with them to show love and dignity to the families who have been ostracized by their communities.

This afternoon, we will drive three hours up-country to Makeni, where Geoff and Carrie Jo Caine serve as missionaries. Carrie Jo is a nurse who does work in public health, including infant mortality rates and recently began surveillance work on cervical cancer. Our team will be helping to train her team of Sierra Leone locals on computer programs to report the data that is collected efficiently. We may even have the opportunity to do some surveillance (date collection) in the area with their team.

Please pray that we can show the love of Jesus and be open to Holy Spirit’s voice as we are with both of these groups. 

We fly back February 11-12th and would appreciate prayers for safe travel. 

We are so grateful for the support that each of you has shown for this mission trip in many different ways. We look forward to sharing the stories and life-change that you made possible when we return.