photos

heavy heavy rains, special assembly day, brothers built rain shelter for speaker in the rain

sorry this turned, boots for the rain water, this sister was interviewed for special assembly day, needed the boots to walk through the water to the stage

Hunter learning to ride bike, gets lots of help from neigborhood kids :)

special assembly day, Freetown, Sierra Leone

new bible study, with her 4 week old baby, first meeting.

Had her first study saturday, came to meeting sunday and raised her hand three times to answer. We contacted her a Saturday before and she said she used to study the Live Forever Book and attend meetings in the city years ago, but had not been in contact with witnesses since she moved to this remote village. She was so happy to start again. Her husband and three friends joined the study and want to continue also.

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

photos

Here are some photos to go with the new "summer time" post below, enjoy!

We think of you often, sorry can't get on line as much as we would like, internet is slow and sparatic, but we are so thankfull for the contact,
Take Care, Lorie

Yes, someone taller than Dad!

The four little ones, not so little anymore!

Dexter enjoying being out of his cage, he is doing really good.

Pioneer School, what a priveledge for Dennis and I to go a second time and with Shelby!

Pioneer School Class

check out the boots for the reader for meeting, yes rainy season is here

happy, happy service group CO week, Lyam in background in green raincoat, Dennis up on hill in center, hard to see....

DJ......... helping dad build dog pen, this month has had a lot of woodworking, Dad and the kids made screen doors too

village water was shut off for four days, but with rainy season, no shortage of water for washing, boys enjoying a shower outside

Hunter riding bike with Daniel

summer time

Amazing Color

Beautiful Creation

Lyam and Denys

Trying out a village swing, out in service.

Kids Family Photo

Hello Friends and Family,

We are doing well, settled in and having a wonderful summer full of activity.

The CO visit just ended, the congregation was very entusiastic eventhough it is rainy season.

We have 21 publishers, 2 of which are away right now, yet we had 31 in field service on Wednesday! Lots of young soon to be publishers in the congregation. It is fun for the kids to have so many children to be with.

The rains have gotten heavy now, we planted a garden and did some yard work, the place is really looking nice. There are so many little birds, butterflies and other insects. Some are so beautiful! There are two little tiny red birds that come around, they are leary though so I haven't gotten a picture yet......

We invited two young brothers from Kissy Congregation to spend a couple weeks of their summer vacation with us. They had a wonderful time, it was especially fun for Lyam and Hunter to have two "big brothers" to give them bike rides. Even in the pouring summer rains! Lots of mud, they had lots and lots of fun.


Preaching last week, Hunter and I approached a porch with a student studying, a fisherman mending a net and another older gentleman standing. When we approached Hunter said he wanted to talk................... as we aproached the man standing asked what we were there for, Hunter said "Preaching" the man said "What can a small boy teach me?" , I thought Hunter might back down as the man was a bit overbearing, but Hunter didn't back down. He introduced himself, greeted the man and proceeded to say "let me show you John 17:3, he than proceeded to read it to the man and explain what Knowledge was, learning, and that two things were needed to get to the everlasting life, Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Jesus. He was able to continue to share points from scriptures with him and during the conversation another man came from inside the house, he listened too and said he had attended meetings in the past in the city congregation and enjoyed reading the Watchtower and Awake magazines.

May Jah be with you and guide you,

Lorie

Getting Settled

New home front 1/2 view. The place is big and spacious, with lots of windows for breeze. It is so quiet that we can sometimes here the waves crashing at the sea.

Our new home side view from backyard garden.

Street where the kids play soccer right outside our gate.

Poda poda, minibus, loaded with friends from Sussex congregation heading back to Sussex after assembly. Experience in last post.

Little girl in the middle comes to meetings on her own, her experience is in the last post. How she walked to friends home for assembly, etc. Little girl with the hat is her neighbor that she brought to meeting with her.

Hello Friends and Family,

We are now in our new home! And we have electricity from 7 pm to 7 am. Hopefully it will continue. Water is available all the time! The Guma Water Reservoir is just over the mountain from us, therefore we are one of the first villages supplied with water, before even the city of Freetown. The water is good and clean too. We still boil it for cooking and continue to brush our teeth with bottled water and drink bottled water. But bathing and washing laundry etc is so much easier now. We even have an outdoor flush toilet and high pressure shower, great for when we come back from the beach and have sand. No more tracking sand into the house. The house has running water and plumbing to 3 full baths and 1 half bath. We also have a full size kitchen with double sinks, something rare here in Sierra Leone.

We still do our cooking outside on a coal pot. Electricity is not there during the day and our little generator cannot run the cook stove. The coal pot is more economical anyways. We also continue to do laundry by hand, we do it outside now instead of in the tub in the house. It is much easier and actually refreshing. You don't mind getting wet doing laundry when it is over 95 degrees outside. The little ones like helping, they push the laundry up and down in the sudsy water in giant bowls, like a gently cycle washing machine. Rainy season is here now so it isn't very easy to get the clothes dry, we often have clothes partially dry laying around the house to finish drying at night with the fans on. So far so good.

The kids are all excited to be in our new home. It has a great big flat yard and plenty of space to run and play. We are kitty corner to a school for kids grades 1 to 4. At recess time the kids go outside to play soccer with some of the school kids that knock on our gate and ask them to join in playing right in the dirt road in front of our house. Yes, the kids play in the street, it is a very rural African village dirt road, a few motorcycles pass in the daytime, but thats about it other than foot traffic. It is so nice and peaceful. The kids are really enjoying country living. They also like the new house, the set up is better than our last one. Lyam has his own room, DJ and Hunter share. Shelby has her own room, Lorelle and Kadence share.

Kadi and Jessica did not move with us. We miss them lots. Kadi was too used to city life and didn't want to go back to village life.

The village we live in has approximately 600 people, it has three schools so lots of the population here are children, some are sent from more rural villages to live with relatives here so they can attend school. We are the only Jehovah's Witnesses in the village. Saturday preaching was wonderful. We will probably be needing to do group studies soon.

Last week Shelby had a wonderful call on a woman and her family. She wanted to attend Sunday meeting, but there was a death in the family and she had to go to the funeral on Sunday. However she asked if her 10 year old son could come with us to the meeting. He met us Sunday morning and came to meeting. She plans to come next Sunday.

Our new little congregation has 21 publishers now, of that 21, 7 are pioneers and 2 are missionaries. It is a great little congregation. We have been averaging 54 on Sunday.

One of the new publishers is a young man about 18 years old, he was thrown out of his home, by his father, when he started to study the bible. He has found a place to live in the neighboring village and has been studying for about 10 months now. He conducts 3 bible studies, 2 of which attend Sunday meetings.

Pioneer school was amazing, it was such a refreshing and upbuilding two weeks of intensive study! One of the sisters that attended was a missionary single sister who started pioneering in 1968. This was her 3rd time attending pioneer school, plus she has gone to Gilead. What a spiritual gem! This was the second time for Dennis and I, what a true priveledge, it was so amazing. I know I already said amazing, .....but it just was! The encouragement to not be anxious and to rely on Jehovah was so wonderful.

h

moving, puppies, assembly...

Star Fruit and Cashew Fruit, we eat the fruit and nuts of the cashew.

Rider (brown boy) Razor (black girl)

Assembly May 2009,

New Sussex Congregation, nope it is not Dennis in the back of the group, it is a missionary brother. Dennis was in the US at this time.

Hello Friends and Family,

Yes, we are on the move again.... Sussex here we come. Sussex is a new little congregation here in Sierra Leone. They have 16 publishers and had 229 at memorial. If you scroll down to previous posts you can find pictures of our visits to Sussex and preaching with the friends there.

We will be moving first week of June. But first Dennis, Shelby and Lorie have pioneer school starting tomorrow. Our visitor Dan from NY travels back to NY today. It has been a very eventful and fun three weeks since Dennis arrived with Dan.

Dan got to see lots of Sierra Leone, he went upline, to bush country for a four day trip giving talks in tiny congregations, including my beloved Lunsar village and getting as far as Kabala and Sefadu. Inspecting kingdom halls, or non existent delapidated kingdom halls. The friends are so welcoming and happy to have visitors. So many Kingdom Halls are old and weathered beaten or destroyed from the wars in the past. It is amazing how many groups and congregations meet outside under trees. Rainy season can be difficult but they persevere.

Assembly was wonderful, there was a record attendance of 1,271. The little congregation of Sussex is out where there is no public transport, they rented a poda poda, minivan taxi, mini van seats removed and replaced with narrow metal benches. They packed over 30 inside including many small children who walk to meetings everyweek, some as young as 5 years.

One little girl arrived at a witness families home the night before assembly with her assembly clothes, she is 5 years old, the next morning she rose at 4 am to wake the family so they "wouldn't be late", she attends all meetings on her own. Walking over 40 minutes to and from meetings. Last month at a meeting her little friend came and started crying softly after the meeting. When I asked why she said she didn't have a bag for her bible. She is so cute! Rainy season is coming and having a bag for books is extremely important.

Our new home in Sussex Congregation Territory is actually in the Village of Lakka. It is right on the ocean, 5 minute walk to gorgeous beach and swimming pool. Lakka is about a 30 minute drive from Lumley which is our old territory. The Bethel Branch is about a 40 minute drive so we can still visit and volunteer without difficulty. Lakka is the last stop for Poda Poda transport from Lumley, so if we want we can take public transport. The Sussex territory extends from Lakka to past River No. 2. Some of our visitors may recognize the territory. It is just after Godrich congregation territory, heading out of Lumley. Ok now that we are all lost....

Oh new puppies, yes we have two additions, Rider and Razor. Brother and Sister puppies. They are doing very well. Our new home we are transferring to in June has a large flat yard and lots of garden space, great for kids and the dogs.

Dexter the Monkey, or is it? Dexter You Monkey! is doing great, he really likes his new monkey family member :) picture attached of him grooming his stuffed monkey from America! Thankyou!

Our internet may not work the next couple weeks, but we will try to email or check in from the internet cafe.

Think of you all lots!

Swift Family

no internet

hi friends and family,

our internet is down, so i am at an internet cafe, just quick thoough

we have 6 people visiting/staying with us, this week, District Overseer, Dan from NY, Pioneer from Nigeria and special pioneers from port loko Full house!

we have 2 day assembly this weekend!

Dennis arrived safely and all luggage and visitor in tact :)

thankyou for the gifts, pictures and letters!

will send personal emails when internet is more accessable.

Take care, love to all,
swift family