Tyrone & Stephanie

For about two weeks I have had an uneasy feeling in my core. In the depth of who I am I have felt unsure. I truly hate this because it can rob my joy, the joy that the Lord has given me. The joy that has come as the result of Jesus’ blood on the cross.

I have prayed, I have prayed so much that I have prayed my way to a deeper relationship with Jesus.  While I hate this unrest that I feel in the marrow of my bones, I will rest in the hands of my friend, Jesus.

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A continuation of Red Palm Oil, Sea Monkey & Fufu and Banku & Kenkey…

This one will be a little hard to explain, well ok, not really. Its just it may be a little hard for you to replicate if you are the kind of person who needs a recipe of exact measurements.

Elements of this sauce are mostly the basics of a lot of stews, palava sauce (although it can be argued like most everything food can be nowadays as to origin or authenticity), meat sauces, and other soups & sauces of the West African people.

First I will explain that you can’t really Google (search) for this recipe the name is unique and created by a few West Africans and a North American white boy from southern part of the United States, Alabama & Georgia. Why? Because they didn’t know what to call it besides red sauce, which means many different things to many different cultures. And because it was finally nice to make it definitive in our minds.

First the basics then the story:

Start with oil (red palm oil if you got it) don’t be shy, throw in chopped onions, diced/chopped/pressed garlic, saute till translucent. Add chopped bell/sweet pepper (green, red, etc…), fresh ginger, saute about 3-5 minutes longer (med high heat). Add in cayenne or local equivalent hot pepper ( use for amount of heat YOU can stand) tomato paste and some fresh chopped tomatoes. Tomato paste should be a good wooden spoon size dollop to start, more as necessary…fresh tomatoes should be about 5 or 6 Roma tomatoes worth (so we are going for a medium size HOME pot worth of sauce). Let simmer, if sauce gets too thick water it down some more and let simmer. They usually let this sauce cook for at least a half hour and up to a full hour or more (depending what meats, fish, chicken feet, egg or other things they may cook in there with it.

And by the way, Chicken feet put out good taste for soups and sauces and if your not shy you can suck off whatever substance (meat & sauce) is left on them when your done cooking, its tasty.

The consistency has been between soup and a sauce most times when I have had it. Spinach and a few other ingredients can been added to make a palava sauce, goat meat for certain stews…it becomes endless the possibilities.

Check your seasonings, salt & pepper as needed, more cayenne or hot pepper? Need more sauce? Add more paste, tomatoes, and/or water (sauce should not take on a sweet taste from the paste, that would be entirely too much).

We (Reuben, Alex, Alex, Joe, Charles, Kafue, Frank…countries represented: Ghana, Togo, Sierra Leone, etc..), loved the movie Cool Running’s and since it was one of the favorites on our small ship (Caribbean Mercy, now retired) we watched it over and over again when we got bored on a sail. In the story of the Jamaican bobsled team that went to the Olympics was a team member name Sanka, and Sanka had a lucky egg. See where I am going with this yet?

Reuben made this sauce most of the time and everyone else stood around telling him how they thought he should be making it. But I think it was safe to say Reuben made it the best and he usually ALWAYS added egg in the sauce, like you would an egg drop soup. Mix egg or at least crack yolk. Drop egg into Sanka Sauce while it was simmering and then just stir around once or twice, then let it cook.

Meat or additional things could be added almost anytime taking into account you simmered the sauce long enough to cook what was in it, or if it was a bean or pea of sorts then it would go in when the fresh tomatoes and paste went in.

Sanka Sauce. Nothing more than the traditional West African red sauce with an egg thrown in, or not! [now maybe after I post this you can Google search for Sanka Sauce and it may start coming up. SMILE]

* I am not an authority by any means on West African food or cooking, these are my personal views and experiences as they have happened to me and many of my friends who are from these regions of the world*

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Since April i have been going to Mama Victoria’s orphanage every Wednesday since March. I help lead a group of 16-23 year old women’s bible study. Mama Victoria is the lady that runs the orphanage in town and the one in Kingsville. Today, Jenn, Becky, Jeanne, Sarah and I along with some others were able to go out and see the country orphange in Kingsville. It was about a 1.5 hour drive and was so nice to get out of the city. Once we left the city, Liberia’s lushness becomes obvious and the noise fades away.

When we arrived we were very surprised to see Mama Victoria. She lives at the one in the city. Her son Pastor Willie and his wife Emily run the orphanage and the school.

We have really gotten to know Victoria. She is such a Godly woman. I love to talk to her and today we had some time to ask her some questions. We didn’t really know the story behind her orphanages. She told us that before the war broke out she was living in Matati with her husband, daughter, and four sons. When the war broke out her husband was killed in the war and then she left the country with her children. Her husband’s brother is a doctor in South Africa, they went to stay with them.

When Liberia became a little more stable Victoria and her now grown children came back to Liberia to find that the orphaned and abandoned children from her neighborhood were living in her house. Mama said ” I accepted them as my own and more and more kept coming as the war continued.” The Red Cross and the ministry of Health began bringing children to her house and the numbers began to climb. She said “The children would come after being shot or stabbed after they have been separated from their parents or have been orphaned.

Victoria went to the government to ask for some financial assistance. It was so hard to buy rice durring the war and the number of kids was almost 100 and she said they were in bad shape.

When the war was finally over, Mama Vic went out to Kingsville to ask the people for some land to build a place for some of the kids. She then moved about half of the kids out into the country. Mercy Ships built them a building that is now the main structure.

Today was a very eye opening day. I got to see the other orphanage and we got to her Mama Victoria’s story.

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