Welcome

Hello Family and Friends,

Shelby and I just returned from her Senior trip to London, Yes Shelby's graduating! my how time flies.

We had a wonderful trip. A major highlight was the convention at Twickenham Stadium, with an attendance of 26, 109 on Sunday! It brought tears to our eyes when they announced the "love and greetings from the 19 publishers in Sussex, Sierra Leone, West Africa Congregation" It brought more tears when the love from the 26,109 was announced and received back here in Sierra Leone last Tuesday. It is so hard for the friends in our little african bush congregation to imagine such a large crowd sending their love, it touched their hearts deeply.

More special news, Shelby and I came home to Sierra Leone just in time to head upline, into bush country, for an assembly program. It was a marvelous program with 186 in attendance. A smaller crowd, but the same love and appreciation. This day was extremely special because it has been 13 years since they have held an assembly in Makeni. Dennis had two parts and if I may say so was wonderful! his Krio is amazing and his talks were so encouraging.

Tuesday was also a big day, Kadence gave her first talk!

And today, Sunday, Hunter became an unbaptized publisher!

What a busy week!

While in London we met many friends from London and other parts of the world :)

I would like to take the time to welcome you to our blog and the following will be an introductry post. I'll will try to make it short, but I really don't think that is too likely :)

We are the Swift Family,

Dennis and Lorie

We have 3 daughters, Shelby, Lorelle and Kadence (adopted, Sierra Leone),

and 3 sons Lyam (adopted, Vietnam), Hunter (adopted, Guatemala) and DJ (adopted, Sierra Leone)

We are currently serving where the need is great in Sierra Leone, West Africa.

Our family moved here in 2007. This blog keeps all previous posts, so if you want to take the time to read more history you are welcome to. Happy time travels :)

We started this blog because internet connection is not always good and well it can also be lonely here at times. I try to post at least once a month. We don't have electricity, hope to get it again.... but for now there isn't any, the transformer that serves the 16 homes that get electricity in our village has burnt out...... there are thousands of people here in our village who never have had electricity, and don't use generator either. We use a generator at night from about 7 to midnight. Most of the country of Sierra Leone is out of electricity, including the capital of Freetown. Sierra Leone is a 3rd world country with infrastructure that is trying to come up. If an area does get electricity it is not 24 hour, it is usually rotated on a 3, 6, or 12 hour rotation with other areas of the city or outlying villages. Some rotate every third night or so....

We thoroughly enjoy the field ministry here and have too many bible studies. When we first came to Sierra Leone we were living in a subburb part of the city, but still city..... we recently moved to a small newly formed congregation on the penninsula, with beautiful beaches in our territory. It is much quieter here out of the city, we have two dogs, one cat and a monkey.

We didn't plan to have a monkey, but he was caught and going to be eaten, but then got sick, the people who had him misstreated him and some friends in our congregation rescued him and brought him to us to see if we could save him. He is doing very well. (there are previous posts on Dexter the monkey).

I don't want to write a whole book of boring facts.... if you have any questions you are welcome to ask in the "comments" section of the blog and I will gladly answer them. If I don't answer right away don't worry, internet here can be sketchy at times. We are even amazed we get it at all. Sometimes we can read emails, but can't send, not sure why..... but we do keep trying and cherish the contacts we receive!

Take care, Lorie