Wednesday, February 8, 2012

africa

i talk about my mom fairly regularly on here because she's such an interesting person. she and i have a lot of fun together and since i moved to her town 8 months ago, we get to spend a lot of time together. she helps me figure out how to do the projects i dream up and she's encouraging when i need uplifting.

a few years ago, my mom started going on short term mission trips to different countries. she's been to south america a few times and two years ago she went to china. a few weeks ago, she went to africa. she went to a tiny little country on the western side of the continent called guinea bissau.

this place was rated as the worst place on earth to be a woman. the living conditions are awful and poor and dirty. the women do all the work and have piles of babies to tend to while trying to keep their homes maintained and food in the bellies of their families. they live in mud houses with dirt floors and thatched roofs.

the purpose of my mom's trip there was to spend time with the ladies in the villages surrounding the missionaries' house giving them some pampering and showing them that they have value in God's sight. she bought and packed piles, bags and boxes full of all kinds of fun beauty, spa treatment things. nail polish, exfoliating scrubbers, foot soak, massage oil, nail clippers, moisturizers, the works. 

these ladies didn't even know what most of that stuff was and had certainly never had any kind of pampering before. there isn't even a word in their language for "spa" so they settled on calling it a "salon" because they at least knew what that was even if they'd never been to one.

my mom started a blog after she got back to tell the stories of how she got to guinea bissau and what happened happened while she was there. she includes lots of pictures and tales of how different life is in that amazing place.

you should definitely check it out. i've read all of it so far and keep going back to look at the pictures again. 

here's the link to the first post, but don't stop there. keep clicking. Where He Leads

10 comments:

  1. That's so decent of your mum to go off to these places and it sounds like a great experience to me too! I'm going to go check her blog out now to see what's up on it, great post as always Sherilin!

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  2. Wow that is amazing I would love to be able to do that once in my life... one day!

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  3. You get your humor and your giving nature from her, dontcha?

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  4. Thanks for the publicity and the link, my dear. I'm having almost as much fun writing about it all as I had being there! Definitely a life changer.

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  5. maybe you'd like to do that one day, Sherilin!

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    1. maybe, karen. maybe. i wonder where she'll go next & if i'll be on the plane with her when she goes.

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  6. I'll have to go over there. What a wonderful selfless act of charity by your MOM!!!

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  7. I have to go over and check that out! Thank goodness for lovely people like your mom xo

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  8. I'm sure she has some great stories. I'll have to check her out!

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  9. I am off to check it out. I am always so interested in learning about the lives of men and women in different parts of Africa. It really amazes me!

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don't let me be the only one doing the talking around here. spill your guts!