All posts in let them LOL

*these are my “africa” pants

Its been three weeks since I returned from my forth trip to Sierra Leone. It may seem counter-intuitive but going on the trips is the easy part. Let me explain: yes there’s the 24+ hours of travel just to get there, yes its really hot, yes you give up the many comforts of home, yes your are faced with heart wrenching poverty, yes you work all day, and sometimes stay up until 3am organizing the work for the next day. But the resolve of the people, the hope that is growing in your heart and theirs is invigorating. Knowing that you are able to be a part of change, and see the results in front of you is very exciting!

The real work is when you are home. Its the long to-do list, its the many phone calls (sometimes from Africa at 5am), its the meetings with potential donors, its the stuffing envelopes late at night, etc. etc. None of whats happening there happens without the hard day in and day out non glamorous work.

This week I have faced challenges associated with the work we are doing, and it can be emotionally draining. Someone recently said to me, that many people would give up when faced with some of the challenges you face with our work.

This morning I woke up and decided I would wear my Africa clothes. What are my Africa clothes? I have what I call my “uniform” for when I travel to Sierra Leone. Its safari type pants, and a LOL tee. My Africa pants sit in my closet all year waiting for the next trip. Today I thought, if I wear my Africa clothes, I will be reminded and invigorated here to press on and work hard for LOL which is my heart’s passion. When I pulled the pants out of my closet they had that old familiar Africa smell (yes they are clean). It is a smell of Mokanji, a war-torn place that holds so much potential, a place where some of my truest friends live, a place that holds so much of my heart.

Looking at these pants I’m wearing, I remember these are the pants I wore as I sat next to a baby dying from water-related disease. The same pants that later saw clean water for the first time coming out of a LOL well. The same pants that held an orphaned child who now calls Hope’s Rising their home. And the same pants that traveled the dusty roads seeing village after village still needing clean water.

My heart is full when I think of the changes that have come to Mokanji, Sierra Leone already because so many people have given to those on the other side of the world so that they could have a chance, so they could dare to hope that tomorrow can be better than today.

Its amazing how doing something so simple as putting on my Africa clothes refreshes the fire of the passion to do that thing I believe I am called to do, and to press on with an even greater resolve.

Sometimes in the tasks to accomplish our passions, we can lose the heart of why we do what we do. Sometimes we can just get discouraged.  Maybe if we found ways to remind ourselves why we started in the first place we can be renewed to see it through to completion. Last year on a trip, the nationals gave me the name “Tiowa”-tie-Oh-wah (not sure on the spelling), it means to see it to completion. Today, I wear my Africa pants to encourage my heart to live up to that name.

What is your passion? What is that thing that you must do? I challenge all of us today to find ways to wear it on our sleeve.

Kate
let them LOL

The last few months have challenged my heart. Working to help those in extreme poverty sounds romantic.
It will get you a pat on the back. People will think you are something special.

But those things can not be the motive because they will not sustain you.
They wont sustain the countless hours that so many volunteer behind the scenes.
They wont sustain you when you have to make the hard decisions.
They wont sustain you when in order to do the greatest good and the right thing, you have to let your heart break once again.

What does sustain is LOVE.
A love to go on even when its hard.
A love that holds on to the hope that you are making a real difference, even if its not always obvious.
A love that continues to give even when it hurts.

It is a pure divine love, one that transcends time and is greater than anything we may face.

The amazing thing is that through our trials, that love is perfected, and our resolve remains. We continue to empower those experiencing unjust suffering by providing them with the basic resources.

Why? Because that’s what love asks of us.

Kate
Let them LOL

“If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.” Mother Teresea

These sweet faces are the children of let them LOL’s Hope’s Rising Children’s Home. Children who were once orphaned or extremly impoverished are now a part of a family and have a new hope for a better future. Yesterday as I was at the park enjoying watching my children practice baseball and softball and play on a playground, I couldn’t help but think of the children of Hope’s Rising, and wonder what they were up to. So I called Aisha, one of our house moms. We talked about how they were doing in school, their health, etc. In the background I heard the sounds of children playing. I couldn’t help but see in my mind their infectious smiles, and my heart longed to be there. Then, I looked at the joy on my children’s faces and I didn’t want to leave.

This is the constant dichotomy i find myself living in. The joy of the home I have here, and the pull of my home there. It is an uncomfortable, unsettled feeling that I live with each day. But I think that is ok. I believe we aren’t called to a life of comfort, but a life of stretching, of heart break, of giving, of growth. As my heart longs to hold the children of Hope’s Rising, it grows bigger and bigger in love. I hold and kiss, and love and appreciate my children here even more.

I may feel divided, like I have two homes, but I have one heart that grows bigger everyday!

Kate
let them LOL

Below is a Blessing a friend recently sent me:

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.
May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.
May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.
May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really CAN make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God’s grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.

by Sr. Ruth Fox, OSB (1985)

It takes only minutes on the ground in Sierra Leone to have your world view and life changed, but it’s the people that make sure that the change is forever.

During my two trips to Sierra Leone I have been given many gifts by the Africans, none of which I feel like I deserve and every gift is a struggle to accept. I’ve been given an African shirt by a man that is now a friend for life, I have received 1 chicken, 1 rooster (that was really annoying the next 2 mornings but turned out to be delicious), bananas, coconuts, tons of yams, a necklace, pictures of a women’s son that had died (who I then grieved with) and many other things. This is a post though about one man and his gifts specifically.

His name is Emanuel, and if you aren’t aware of him by now, he is the director of Let Them LOL’s new Hope’s Rising Children’s Home. He is the pastor of a small mud walled church in a village named Mofindo, he is married and has sons, he farms, and also travels from village to village pastoring to people with no church of their own to attend. Once arriving on the trip this year we found that he has been very ill for some time, he had lost weight to the point where it was hard to recognize him. In short his body was a shell of what it once was but he continued on, helping with construction of the new home, meeting with me to learn what his new duties would be, traveling in the car for hours while hardly mentioning at all how severely he was suffering. It wasn’t until our volunteer doctors were able to reach him in March that he has finally been able to win his fight with dysentery.

Midway through my trip in January as Emanuel and I were spending a day together working he says, “I am working on a gift for you”. I often will repeat what has just been said to me while giving a response to make sure I heard the person correctly without it sounding like I didn’t understand them, so I said, “You’re working on a gift for me, are you making it yourself? You don’t have to do that Emanuel.” His response to me stopped me in my tracks and his hard to type out now “No, my wife is making it, but we are trying to get enough money to buy what she needs.”…

Post over, ‘nuff said, right?

The frankness and openness of the Africans sometimes confuses people and is hard to explain at times. He didn’t say it to make me feel bad or to get more credit for giving me a gift, it was nothing like that. It is not uncommon at all to give away the very best of what you have, something you NEED, or that you had worked very hard to get, not in Sierra Leone. It was more of an apology, it was him saying ‘sorry I haven’t given you anything yet, but I promise I am working really hard on it’. So what can I say? There is a monument of silence where we are just looking at each other and I smile and say “Emanuel, I can’t wait to see it, thank you so much”, and his smile beamed.

I almost wish that was the end but his giving spirit goes on. Two days later is Friday, Emanuel and the two house moms for the children’s home show up that morning wearing all traditional African clothing, and it is awesome. My trip mate Bryan points to Emanuel’s shoes, they are flip flops handmade from car tires. This is something I had been looking for since the trip began, and had just finished telling Bryan about. A book I had been reading before our trip was set in a time before the war in Sierra Leone, was written by an African-American, and mentioned sandals just like these throughout the book as the official footwear of Sierra Leone. After the war, things like this were pushed out of the market by cheaper and easier dollar store type flip flops and are now in the “traditional” category instead of the norm.

I said, “Emanuel is there a place nearby where we can get those? Do they sell them in Morriba Town? Did you make them yourself? How much do they cost? They look comfortable, are they comfortable?” I had gotten myself a little excited and it was about to cost me. Emanuel smiles and shows them off a little, telling and showing how proud he is that I noticed and appreciate something about his traditional clothing. Then it happens, he kicks them off and tosses them to me, leaving himself barefoot in the red dirt and tells me they are now mine.

Aww man, come on! When will the heartbreakingly amazing giving end?! I stand there in awe, say “no” but it is clear that taking them is the only option he is giving me. I kick off my shoes and give them to him but they are too big and after an hour of trying to wear them he gives them back. I wish I could have those puppies glued permanently to my feet, let me tell you. I wore them the rest of the trip and almost every village I visit admires them and smiles seeing me wear them. I have also continued to wear them at home. If it is above 30 degrees they are usually on my feet. Every step I take is literally in my friend Emanuel’s shoes and it is a great constant reminder of what it truly means to be giving.

The gifts did come. That Sunday after church we ate a meal prepared by his wife as one big family in front of Emanuel’s house. Bryan and I were presented with amazing handmade African shirts made from hand woven fabric with needlework decorating the front. A few days later he added to it with wraps (for carrying children) for our wives. Truly, special gifts from the heart, and a piece of Africa that I will have for the rest of my life.

This is the man that lives in, directs, and protects our children’s home. A strong man, who when needed, protected the not-yet-open home with words and actions that would make any protective mother proud. A man that when it was time to lead the orphans to their new home, announced that the children may not have parents of their own but that he was their father now, with the same pride any new father feels. A man of integrity, and honor, who has built his life on hard work. A man I am proud to call my friend.

Thanks for reading

Andy from Let Them LOL

I was driving with my family to a friend’s house about 90 minutes away a couple of weeks ago. It had been a few weeks since my trip to Sierra Leone and our large group of LOLers were on their trip at the time. I had been reading non-stop since I had been home, this time about African aid in general and why everything that had been done in the last 40 years hasn’t really worked. My wife asked me a question and I began to answer, before I knew it we were there. I had just spent 90 minutes giving my wife a synapsis of my ever changing views on African aid. I’m not sure how long I would have talked for if my wife hadn’t cut me off to say that she was exhausted from listening to me.

It’s a complex issue to say the least, there are no easy answers. There is definitely no one way that is working that everyone can get behind (at least not on a large scale). Based on some estimates 3 Trillion dollars as been poured into Africa in the last 30 years with little change and often the people are worse than when the aid began. Where did it go? Who was responsible to make sure it was spent wisely? There is no shortage of books telling you why everyone else has it wrong but in the last chapter, where you expect the authors to finally tell you what needs to be done; you find very little solid ideas. In a word it’s maddening.

Is there one approach that will work? Maybe, but no one has found it yet, so for now we have to answer no. There ARE programs doing more harm than good though, programs that foster a cycle of dependency, that throw money at a problem until it either gets results or dies (in which case it is usually the Africans who are blamed for its failing). These are things we HAVE to learn from, HAVE to make sure are not repeated. The stakes are too high to continue down a path that is inefficient and does as much harm as good.

That’s why we choose water. Is it the only way? Of course not, is it the best way? Short answer, I don’t know, but what I DO know is what I can see. Villages literally healing before our eyes, the burden of something they themselves had no control over being lifted off and thrown away with just one action. We aren’t paving roads, clothing them, feeding them, handing out cash, building a factory to get them all employed. We are also certainly not changing their culture and way of life, which is something to be embraced. We are empowering, we are righting a wrong that needs to be undone. A wrong caused by pollution, senseless war and killing, sometimes a misunderstanding of health, and countless other things.

Water is a base on which a thriving community can be built and the Africans know how to build it. They have the desire, work ethic and drive to start building and never stop. Laziness is something that will make you an outcast and certainly not an option if you want your family to survive. What water gives them is that chance, that RIGHT, that ability. The Africans don’t view this as a handout; they view this as their one chance to finally, after generations of struggling, create something for their future. Villages are not asking for more (they never asked for the well either), they aren’t expecting anything else. In most cases they can’t believe anyone at all would ever care about their situation, they weren’t dependent on anyone before we got there and they aren’t dependent on anyone when we leave. They ARE farming more, building more, planning for the future more, and sick less. Staggeringly less, far less than most of us could have hoped or dreamed.

So what’s left for us? What’s our community here to do next?

First: Stand back and watch. Watch what hope, when given to a human being can do. Watch what empowering someone can do for their life. Let the Africans do what they do best; build a community based on hard work, respect and most importantly love.

Second: Learn, see what works and what doesn’t. We are not the first or the last to fund the drilling of water wells, far from it, but there is no blueprint. We must be willing to learn and humble enough to change.

Third: Spread that same hope here. We could all use a little hope right? We all want just a little of that joy and love you see when you look at the pictures of Africans rejoicing around a well. Show others that it still exists, that a new video game, filling a shopping cart at Walmart, or clawing up the corporate ladder is not where joy, love and hope hang out. Those things are part of the human spirit and anyone can have them and more importantly everyone SHOULD have them.

Thanks for reading,

-Andy at Let Them LOL

The let them LOL team of 14 just returned less than a week ago from a 2 week trip to Sierra Leone, Africa. Every time a team returns, we are asked the same simple question “How was your trip?”

The question seems simple enough, but for those who have traveled to that place that is one of the poorest countries on earth, an answer doesn’t come easy. Over the past few days I have talked to many of our team members who have all struggled to answer that question.

Here are some thoughts to help shape an answer:

A statement I have said over and over each year is: “It’s beautifully devastating.”

Overwhelming and yet hopeful.

Going from one of the poorest countries in the world back to one of the richest feels like whiplash.

While there you have these moments where you can’t decide whether to laugh or cry, and either one would be appropriate.

You are faced with an incredible dichotomy of extreme extreme poverty among so much beauty.

You are humbled by people who have nothing and yet they will give you everything.

You are forever changed and you know that, but it takes time for you to discover who you now are in light of all you’ve seen.

Now, back to the question:
Let them LOL’s 3rd trip to Sierra Leone Africa was incredibly productive.
Over 50 villages were visited, and assessed.
80 filters were given out and joyfully received as people gained instant access to clean water.
Our medical doctors saw and treated nearly 400 patients.
We were able to give sandals to the workers of the children’s home who had many cuts and foot injuries.
A knitting project was started to provide work for women in the community.
Hope’s Rising Children’s Home was completed and over 20 orphaned and impoverished children now have a home and opportunity for a better future.

We celebrated as we visited site after site of finished wells where the entire village sang songs celebrating the clean water they now had. And we were re-challenged and invigorated as we saw village after village drinking out of nasty, contaminated water sources waiting for clean water wells. We were reminded how important this work is and inspired to continue in that. We held children who were the lowest of the low, the poorest of the poor. We hugged and kissed them, made them laugh, gave them new clothes, and told them they were special and loved. And most importantly, we were encouraged and grateful to the community of people in the US who heard of the needs of the people of Sierra Leone and stood in the gap to give them a hope for a better future.

And with the sound of laughter from villages with clean water, and orphaned children who now have a home and family, we discovered that Hope is Rising!

From the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU all. You are all let them LOL, you are making a HUGE difference in the lives of our friends and neighbors in Sierra Leone.
Kate

PS: Over the next few weeks, we will be posting photos and videos that speak for  themselves on what Sierra Leone is like, but here’s a few to get it started: