Time is Flying By...

Wow, hard to believe two weeks have already passed since my last entry! It is crazy how fast time is flying by, and very bittersweet...I never want to leave my friends and family here, but I am excited to be reunited with everyone back home in Canada. It's difficult having two homes on opposite ends of the world!

Last week was so inspiring, challenging, and amazing! We held the mentoring interviews on Wednesday for the youth, which were basically a question panel made up of me, Rev. John Phiri, Rev. Ezekiel, and Pastor Maxwell, asking the youth why they wanted to be in the program, what their goals were in life, and what they wanted to acheive, to see if they were ready to be mentors. What an encouraging time to take a whole day to sit down with over 20 youth and learn from them, and hear about their experiences and challenges! So many of them inspired me and challenged me with their words, and it made my confident that no matter how hard it is to keep this program going, I must make every sacrifice to make it possible...because truly, it is something that could change lives here. How amazing God is...I didn't even know the needs of Kabala, but he simply placed a call on my heart for this town, and then he placed a ministry on the heart of me and my friend Katie...a ministry we could never be fit or prepared to do, but He has called us anyways. Our God is so good!

One of the youth said something very inspiring during the interviews. I always began by asking each youth why they wanted to be a mentor (or why they wanted to have a mentor, if they were too young to start mentoring). One of the girls being interviewed responded like this:

"I want to be a mentor because I want to see the lives of youth in this town change for the better, and I want them to learn from my experiences. What is the point of going through trials in life if you cannot get back up and help others to carry on through the same things? I want to be a mentor so that we as youth can learn from each other, grow from each other, and work together to develop our country."

What inspiring words, and what a challenge to hear from someone who is in the program...it gives me great encouragement and never fails to amaze me how much the youth truly believe in this program. I am in awe of how good God is, how big his call is, and how unfit I am to carry it out. Thank God for His grace! What an amazing thing to be a part of. This week, I will be trying to finish the manual for the program, so that the sessions and mentoring training can carry on after I leave Sierra Leone (which is in only 3 and a half weeks! Time is FLYING!). After that, I will be making up the scholarship applications, so that once WASSCE results come out in August, mentors can begin applying for scholarships. I can't believe that this dream is really becoming a reality!

Thank you all so much for your loving thoughts and prayers! They are really needed and really felt.
Much love,
Krissi