from teammate...Lois

Jewelry Making

Just a few weeks prior to leaving for the Sierra Leone trip, I was planning on helping with the construction project for the Hosetta school since that was the purpose of the trip. However, God started nudging my heart to see if it would be possible for me to teach some ladies how to make jewelry. So, I reached out to Becky to see if it would be possible for me to do this and she replied ‘ABSOLUTELY’. So, we started the plan in motion. Becky talked to Margaret who runs the war widow program to find six ladies for me to teach.

As it turned out, I ended up teaching six war widows and four orphans how to make the jewelry. The orphan’s parents were killed when Freetown was invaded in 1999. They are now young ladies in their late teens and early 20s.

While we were making the jewelry, I had my iPhone playing praise and worship music on a portable speaker. The young ladies loved the music and one girl in particular (Fatnata) would ask me what some of the different songs were trying to communicate. However, the one song she understood with no explanation needed is the song ‘Blessings’ by Laura Story. The words are pasted at the bottom of this posting.

I wrote out the words of the song for Fatnata and by the end of the trip, whenever the song would play on my iPhone, she would sing all of the words.

I thought I was going on a mission trip to be a blessing to the people of Sierra Leone but the people there blessed me so much more than words can express. Since I have been home, every time I hear the song ‘Blessings’ by Laura Story, I get a tear in my eye and I think of the special people I met in Sierra Leone – especially the young ladies I taught how to make jewelry.

Blessings by Laura Story

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It's not our home

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise