Nazareth House Apostolate Blog: Their Sorrows are REAL, show them your LOVE is too.

Written by James Mansaray: Freetown, Sierra Leone

With the sun shining so bright the past few days, the heavy rain waters have resided and a whole lot more people, especially those living down the river banks like Kroo Bay, Kissy Brook, Bomeh etc. are now breathing a sigh of relief. Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow, but as it is at this moment, we all say thanks to the Almighty for giving us the rain and now the sun, nothing to complain about......

But it is the truth that in the event of any disaster here in Sierra Leone, it is the aged, the women and children who suffer the most. Tell me this is a lie and I will be there quick to give you the facts.

Pictures of our recent blog posts shows nothing but women and Children caught in middle of these sorrowful natural disasters (scroll back through past posts to review these stories). Had it been all well and beautiful for them , I guess they would rather choose a better place than living in these areas where hunger, flood, disease and death is a common language. But the world is not all beautiful, it is not all well, and not all of us get a chance to live free from the effects of severe poverty.

Looking around us here in Mama Salone, there is not a day that you wake up without seeing more and more kids lacking the basic needs a child requires as he or she grows up. Take it this way, early in the morning here; it is the child that does all the running around to see that all the family needs are met with or without the resources to make this happen.

My questions are, why is it that it is the kids that suffer the most? It is the kids that are still naked; it is them that are still homeless and hungry.

This brings me back to our biggest request for Nazareth House Apostolate, here in Sierra Leone. The need of a compound of our own where we can operate directly. A distribution Center to store and spread out the supplies, a lodging for your Nazareth House Staff - namely me and my family who are your arms and legs, enabling you to reach out first hand to the poor; a home where a whole lot can be feed and taken care of. A place where the homeless can seek refuge. The compound is so desperately needed, so vitally important to the ongoing ministry to the poor.

Soon it will be another year and fresh money will be needed to be paid for another year. Any time thought of this strikes my mind, fear looms in for I know how hard it is to raise all that money.

I must confess to you, all our precious blog readers and NHA sponsors that for the past few weeks, little has been said here about our continuous plea and desperate begging for our Mission Compound here in Freetown. Our own compound puts a stop to the continuous increase in our yearly rent in the present house we occupy. Nazareth House is small but growing. Yet in this smallness, a lot has been done. Hundreds and hundreds have benefited by your love and support. But we could do better, free of exaggerated rental fees and in our own place where more can be given to the poor and not landlords.

I know Nazareth House is asking for serious money these days. We must, the needs are great.

Sharing the opportunity to do the work that makes God smile is a gift you can give to your friends, people at your work, your church, your family members. We should not be greedy with the blessings from doing this work, it is something we should share with those we love so that they too can enjoy a blessing. Remember it is said "it is better to give than to receive".

I have documented for you with my pictures and Mama Vicki always tells you with many words, of the desperate conditions here in Salone. You are well informed. Please do not look away and hope that it will be taken care of somehow. Take care of it and invite others to help you.

We don't need millions and millions of monies as some organization do. We have no desire to be huge and overwhelmed with administrative thoughts and burdens. We just want to find those fallen into the cracks of life and be there for them.

The more people we have giving $25 per month, the more opportunity we have to provide. Mama Vicki says that this, too, will give us a budget so that emergency beggings won't happen, we have it ready and waiting from the budget. I like that idea so much. I cringe when I must call Mama Vicki and say "So and so needs surgery, can we raise the money?" And then she has to put the word out to you guys. I worry whether it will come or the patient die. It would be so fine to know that the money was already available. And we didn't have to wait the surgery for the money to come through.