How Does Your Garden Grow In Africa

Sister Sherwood cannot get away from growing things, even in Africa.

She had one of our guards, Bro. Morigboi, plant corn for us.  

He planted the corn over the week of May 25th.  Look at it now.  The old saying "knee high by the 4th of July" does not apply here.  We took this picture on the 5th of July and some of the corn is taller than he is.  Can not wait for corn on the cob.  We are hoping it will be good.

Remember the yam from last month?

It had some buds starting to come on the end of it so she cut off an inch of the yam and planted it.  Three weeks later, here it is.  It will be fun to watch it grow.  It was planted in the middle of the corn.

Can you guess what this is?

It looks like somebody spray painted red into the middle of the plant.  That is the way it grows.  This is a pineapple starting to form.  We will probably get to harvest it before we come home in January.  It is the same one we harvested from last year, right outside our bedroom window.  

A really big butterfly!

This was on the wall of a compound here in Bo.  It is about 8 inches across the wingspan.  The white spots on the wings were actually kind of yellow, but the flash washed them out.  It was really pretty against the moss growing on the concrete wall.

Road Trip to Moyamba and Sierra Rutile 

Two weeks ago we spend two different days visiting the Sierra Rutile area then the town of Moyamba.  These  are potential new branches 2-1/2 hours to the West of Bo.  3 home groups in villiages in the Sierra Rutile area, and 1 at Moyamba.  They are preparing to make all 4 of them branches in the next few months and then will assign missionaries.  These are smaller villages not part of a big city like Bo.

Bamboo Forest

On the way we went through this heavily forested area.  Bamboo.  This is the first Bamboo trees we have seen in the country.  We knew they had them.  It was a potholed muddy road like this the whole way.

Now this is a narrow bridge

On the way to Sierra Rutile area we had to cross the Tia river.  This used to be a railroad bridge.  Now there are no railroads in Sierra Leone.  They made it a road bridge.  We had about 10 inches clearance on both sides of the truck.  There wasn't room for a person or okada(Motorbike) to pass.

Farmer on tractor/trailer in downtown Moyamba

Here we are driving in "downtown" Moyamba.  Sister Sherwood loved the farmer's straw hat.  This was the only paved road in the entire two days of travel.

Home Group Members at Moyamba 

Here we are at the building the group meets in at Moyamba.  It is part of a radio station that lets the church use their building for meetings.  We have not yet been to these 4 new areas on Sunday yet. We went to meet a few members and check out the roads. We are going to go to each one on Sunday over the next 4 weeks.  In all of them there are 15 to 20 members and more non-members coming then members.  They want to become branches so they can teach and baptize the investigators.  They need missionaries and branch leadership first.  The mission has approval from the area to make them branches but it takes time.

The church is growing in Sierra Leone and we are excited to help them get started.

We bear testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  It is going forth throughout the world and West Africa is the fastest growing area in the church.  These people are so humble and eager to embrace the truth in their lives.  We are so grateful to be here and love them.