It’s been a very quick 4 months since completing our Virginia Tech team travel to the Ebert-Kakua School for the Deaf in Bo, Sierra Leone.
In that time, the waterless, solar composting “Eloo” latrines were completed and Deeper Missions launched “Hope For Kakua“, our sponsor-a-student program to benefit the deaf school by providing needed supplies, shoes, school uniforms and a cooked meal every day.
Now, Linda and I are embarking on a quick survey trip back to Sierra Leone with three objectives: follow-up on the completion of the Eloo project at the deaf school, meet with the contractor and other stakeholders who will execute the Eloo project for Mercy Hospital, and to meet with doctors at the city hospital to discuss a solar power project for the pediatric wing.
Derek and Linda Reinhard on Day 1 of Deeper Missions survey trip
As you know, a trip doesn’t happen without a lot of assistance. From donors who purchase supplies that bring healthy and empowering aid; to our home community at St Stephen’s United Methodist Church, who help underwrite our travel expenses and assistance with project costs; to our Deeper Missions family and friends who have also caught the vision and passion for making a difference here–Thank you!
And on this trip, I’m also thankful for our new friends, Deb and Moses Kamara, who opened their home to Linda and I after our flight into Freetown-Lungi airport, enabling us to rest for the journey south to Bo (little did we realize how much we would need that rest until we took the road to Port Loko!)
Linda won’t let me forget how I “oversold that road”–even though much of it was or was being graded when I traveled it with the team in December last year, 5 months and the start of the rainy season turned the road to a weaving, bone-jarring pot-holed ribbon of mud–needless to say, it was a long 2 hours. Gratefully, all the paved roads from just beyond Port Loko, to ‘beri junction, to Masiaka and on to Bo were smooth and wide open.
