Today we got out of Freetown. We were headed to New Steps, which was a Mercy Ships center to help handicapped children. Sadly, it is not currently the trendy thing to give money towards, so the center had to close down.
Since it is closing down, the Mercy Ships clinic is facilitating the entire New Steps facility to be handed over to another organization… for FREE… which is great because otherwise it would be turned over to the government and would no longer serve people. But… the clinic here could use a few things from First Steps, since they still own it, and will be expanding some of their work in Freetown. So today we drove the hour and a half out to Waterloo, started packing some tables, chairs and bookshelves up, and then the people who are acquiring the land (for FREE, mind you), called and said we were trespassing, stealing and that everything belongs to them. Turns out that one of the guys with us was now working for them and must have called them. Anyways, no papers have even been signed (for the FREE center, mind you), but we ended up having to unload everything and head back into town.
Since we had just wasted all that time, we decided to take a detour on our way back and check out an old Mercy Ship project. There was a clinic that was off the beaten path, and it was actually really interesting to see. They had all the numbers from the past years pasted to the walls… each month, how many they treated for AIDS, Malaria, STDs and all kinds of things. There were lots of posters to educate anyone stopping by. They do deliveries for the local women. Basically, it seemed to be working quite well. It’s completely run by Sierra Leonians, and it’s so great to see them being successful.
Anyways, here are some pics from our adventures… enjoy!
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