Cider Makin'

We had a fun weekend making apple cider back home with my family. Apple cider has been a long-standing family tradition from my grandparents, which has been revived over the past couple of years, since the discovery and purchase of a used cider press. My brother and his wife had their 3 kids with him for the weekend, so that made it extra fun.

I've included some pictures below to show the guys hard at work. I even took a couple turns at the apple grinding part--that gym membership sure paid off!


Grandma Snider's job was filling the jugs. I think we had close to 30 gallons by the end of it.

Grace wanted a turn at the crank, too: Here's Keith taking his turn:
And finally, a short video of the process:

Beautiful Salone

Lighthouse Youth

Lighthouse is the program we worked with when we lived in Freetown. The program worked to get youth off the streets and into educational programs (whether traditional schools or training in a trade such as tailoring or carpentry). We loved getting a chance to interact with them for a couple of weeks. We miss these kids!

Here's me with Fatmata:

Keith wrestling with a couple of the boys:
Me & David:

David & Santigie playing mancala:
Cooking cassava leaf and rice:

This is Joseph, showing us the ceiling he was helping build (Joseph is a carpentry apprentice). I love this boy so much!

A Day in Konde Farm

Pastor Menyongar lives outside Freetown in an area called Konde Farm. He has started a church and a school in this community. We had the privilege of visiting his home and church one Sunday.

Here is their current church building, that is also being used for classrooms for school children during the week:




Pastor Menyongar, Manasseh (Pastor's son), and Keith at the site for the new church building. They are working slowly to raise funds to build a more structurally sound building to use for their church as well as the school. Change One is funding the latrine project here, since there is currently no toilet facility in this area.

These next 2 photos are of the "bridge" we had to cross to get to Konde Farm. To be honest, I was scared I was going to fall in the river. Thankfully, I had Rugi (pastor's small niece) holding my hand to keep me steady!

This one is me with Pastor's kids: Rugi (she's actually a niece), Manasseh, Becky, and pastor's nephew (who's name I don't remember...):

This is just an example of the types of fine roads we got to drive down... Ah, Salone...

Percival Street

One of my favorite things about our trip was visiting our old house on Percival Street. Zara, the little girl who lived downstairs, was my saving grace so many days when we lived in Freetown. When I would come home from a long, tiring, stressful day, I could just go sit and play with Zara and feel it all melt away.

When we first walked into the house this time, Zara ran out to greet me and gave me a huge huge. That one moment made the whole trip worthwhile.

This is Zara and another little girl that was at the house:

This is Ishmael--we didn't even recognize him, he's grown so much!

Kroo Bay Kids

The Kroo Bay Good News Club didn't meet while we were in Freetown. They had taken a break for the month of August, due to the excessive amount of rain they were having. The Bay floods terribly during the rains, especially since it acts as a drainage ditch for most of the run-off from the city.

Keith and I walked down toward the Bay one day to visit some friends, and were swarmed with children. It was so good to see Remie, Saidu, Kuami and some of the other kiddos we used to see every week.



Kids love Play Station games everywhere, I guess! It seemed like Freetown had more electricity in the 2 weeks we were visiting than in the entire time we lived there! The kids were sure taking advantage of all the power for things like video games. Keith even showed Kuami & Saidu a few new moves on Mortal Kombat.

my boy, the preacher

Keith preached at Pastor Menyongar's church one Sunday while we were in Sierra Leone. I was so proud of him! He spoke all in Krio and seemed to really be connecting with the people. (He even got some cheers!)

I also took a video of some of the women singing in the Loko language during the church service. Loko is unlike any language I've ever heard!

Keith on SL radio!

Pastor Menyongar does a radio show every Saturday. This week the show included guest contributor, Keith Padgett. They talked a little bit about empowering church members to serve in the church and the community and even took a few phone calls.

Here they are in the studio:

Pastor Felix, Keith, & Pastor Menyongar, outside the station: