Bridging Culture. Working Together.

Lagos is known as the city that never sleeps.  The day to day hustle and bustle of Lagos reflects strongly in the driving.  You are the only one whose time matters on the road.  No one else's time has any value to you.  I have been told that if you can master driving in Lagos, you can drive anywhere in the world. Yellow buses and kekes.  The first piece of advice I received when I arrived in Lagos is not to pick a fight with the infamous yellow buses and the three-wheeled kekes.  They believe they are immortal.  No fear.  Let them have their way because they think they own the road.  They pull off to the side of the road without warning, drop off passangers, and continue to merge with oncoming traffic as if no one else could possibly be driving on the road.  But, rumor has it that the current governor of Lagos State has a masterplan to get rid of the yellow buses. Lanes.  Lanes mean nothing in Lagos.  Wherever your car is,...

A rural school in Sierra Leone I know sustainability is a buzzword right now and you are probably sick of hearing it but despite the word's overuse, it feels like nothing is changing.  Over the past few years, I have learned that in missions there is still a lot of progress that needs to be made.  North American Churches are still going on short term missions trips with suitcases packed full of North American resources, we continue to fund church buildings and school buildings in countries that we claim have few resources and in many cases we build the buildings ourselves.  We pay school fees for students and send a one-way stream of outdated, used books, we donate pencils and toothbrushes that probably cost three times as much to buy here, we ship hundreds of containers of used clothes to Sierra Leone, all with good intentions.  Our White savior complex is still on point.  Many of these good intentions continue to create a perpetual attitude of dependency....

Disclaimer: I am making large generalizations in the following blog-post, so take it with a grain of salt.   I just finished reading several thought provoking and critical books on the rise of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) called The Crisis Caravan  by Linda Polman and  Chasing Chaos  by Jessica Alexander.  I am also in the middle of reading  Dead Aid  by Dambisa Moyo, A Zambian economist.  While I must admit I have been feeling extremely cynical about humanitarian aid after reading these books, in many ways they reinforced my experiences observing humanitarian aid from the outside and inside in Sierra Leone.  We often only hear part of the story so let me tell you a different story that we often don’t hear.   The number of International NGOs has now exceeded 37,000 and a capitalist industry has grown up around humanitarian aid as they compete for the flow of billions of dollars within humanitarian territory.  ...

Below are several quotes by prominent African leaders, both past and present, that have shaped the way in which I think about missions: “You cannot develop people. You must allow people to develop themselves.” ~ Julius Nyerere, former President of Tanzania “In Africa today, we recognize that trade and investment, and not aid, are pillars of development.” ~ Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda    “The notion that aid can alleviate systemic poverty, and has done so, is a myth.  Millions in Africa are poorer today because of aid; misery and poverty have not ended but increased.  Aid has been, and continues to be, an unmitigated political, economic, and humanitarian disaster for most parts of the developing world.” ~ Dambisa Moyo, Zambian Economist “Many Africans succumb to the idea that they can’t do things because of what society says.  Images of Africa often promote a single story and are negative – war, corruption, poverty.  There is a gro...

We enter into these beautiful churches, tourists in an unfamiliar land, gazing at the beauty of the church.  Learning how the church was built hundreds of years ago, relying solely on manpower.    Tourists standing in line for hours to see the wonder of the church building.  While embracing the awkward role of a tourist, gazing up at the Notre Dame, I realized that I didn’t actually think about God.  I thought about the building, the painter, the laborers, the architect who designed it.  I never stopped to think about the purpose behind the building.  I never once stopped to wonder at the beauty that ultimately God created.  It was almost as if I was worshipping man who drew, designed, and built these historic churches.  I wasn't actually worshipping God in this holy place.  I forgot who created man, who gave man the creativity and knowledge to be able to design such a feat. Maybe these historic churches have become an idol....

You call me out upon the waters The great unknown where feet may fail And there I find You in the mystery In oceans deep My faith will stand And I will call upon Your name and keep my eyes above the waves When oceans rice My soul will rest in Your embrace For I am Yours and You are mine Your grace abounds in deepest waters Your sovereign hand Will be my guide Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me You've never failed and you won't start now Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders Let me walk upon the waters Wherever You would call me Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander And my faith will be made stronger In the presence of my Savior I have been thinking about oceans lately.  I have a fear of swimming in the ocean alone.  I like swimming in it with someone else.  If a shark comes along, at least I am not alone in the fight.   If I go in by myself, I do not like to go where I cannot see the bottom.  There is...

I visited a friend who told me about how her older brother drowned in a river.  His friends tried and tried to pull him out of the water but nothing seemed to work.  I asked her if he knew how to swim and she told me he could swim well but a devil was inside the water that killed him.   Since then, anytime she needs to pass that river, she will never walk because she is afraid of the devil.  This devil is often called “mami wata”  (Mama water).  Some people are afraid to swim simply because of mami wata.   Just recently, a security guard from the school was rumored to have been shot with a witch gun.  They immediately took him to the village to get healed “traditionally.”  Around that time, a dead frog was found on the window of the secretary’s office.  Several people took pictures, claiming it was witchcraft.  Most people here know Koinadugu District as the center of witchcraft in Sierra Leone.   I have been ...