Comings and goings

Hi. This last week has been full of comings and goings. It seems like we were welcoming people all week. First, Rod & Angelika came up from Ivory Coast. They have been working there throughout the war. They came up so Rod's brother could meet with the drama team, and talk with them about their work.

Then, a SB church group came out. Their church has adopted a group of small villages near us, and they come out 3-4 times a year. They've rented a house in town, and I went over to welcome them. We are thankful for all kinds of missionary partnerships, so it is nice to have them come.

Then, Karin, our german Wycliffe worker, came back from furlough. She now has an irish partner who will help her for the next two years here in Kadiolo. We're praying that this relationship will be an encouragement to Karin, and help her in doing all the necessary things to begin translation. Karin has had almost 2 years here learning the Senoufo language Shenara. So Godspeed to them as they work to bring God's written word into this language for the first time.

Zoom out of the first picture, and you see the beautiful environment it was taken in.
Rod & Angelika had never seen the waterfall, so we were kind enough to show them. If you come out to see us, we'll show you too... :D


Hilary on Dakar Academy outreach last weekend.

Meanwhile back in Dakar, Hilary and Ben are hard at work in school. Ben has been serving a lot with the sound crew, setting up microphones, and plugging in wires. Hilary had the opportunity last weekend to take part of a village outreach that the school arranged. There are more pics on her facebook page, if you'd like to see them. But I liked this one.

Thanks for continuing to pray for us. We are safe. Since the riots against the police about 3 weeks ago, all has been calm. Business as usual. We thank God for a productive environment to work in. We thank God for our church members we work with. they are such a joy. We did get invited for dinner the other night. We had foutou and beef sauce, followed up by riz gras and duck. How do I know it was a duck? The head was on top of the meat, winking at me... Very tasty anyways... :D

Thanks for stopping by,
Tom & Lisa

Sunday's trip to Missiogo

Yesterday was Sunday, Oct 18th. I went with Pastor Youssouf to Missiogo. I know the name Missiogo means nothing to you, probably. But think of the miner 49ers, and the Klondike gold rushes, and you get the idea. It is like 1849 in California out there. People mining, panning for gold. Way too many people in one little area scratching the earth for gold. Like the Gold rushes in the old west, lawlessness, corruption, prostitution, drugs and alcohol reign. People go off to the gold rush, get so entangled in sin that they are ashamed to return to their families. Sickness, including cholera, meningitis and typhoid are common. At one point over 200,000 people converged out there, camping in ramshackle grass huts. It is in this setting that a church has come to be.

This church is serving believers who have come. It encourages them not to leave their faith, and encourages them to continue to be a witness, even in this dark place. It also serves as a beacon of light to those who are desperate, and may be ready to turn to Christ.

Long dusty road.

Swimming motorbikes through flooded creek.

It was a long 140 km round trip ride on my motorbike. The longest trip I've taken on it so far. The road was good for awhile, then we left the road, and went into trails in the backbrush. Muddy, slippery. At one point we had to "swim" our motorbikes through a flooded creek. (we had to swim them on the way back too...)


Shiny New Church building.


Some of the local believers in front of their grass hut home.

But the trip was worth it. The believers welcomed us and were so pleased to show us their new church building. It is made with metal roofing panels over a strong wooden frame. It looks flimsy to you and I, but to people who live in woven grass huts, it is a shining thing. A beautifully built building. They could not build a brick building because all of the gold rush area there is illegal. Nobody is allowed to build there. (although I could not count the hundreds of grass huts that have been thrown together.) So the church has been built right alongside the people. One day it will be torn down like all the other buildings. Then the church will relocate to a property they own legally. In the meantime they serve where the people are.

Youssouf preaching in Missiogo

We took part in the church service. Me to say hello from you all. :D Pastor Youssouf bringing a message with grace and excellence. The people really appreciated his message. He does his job so well.


Yummy liver & spaghetti

After the service, the people had such meal prepared for us. They had Spaghetti & Liver, bread, Rice & Beef sauce, Oranges, and Pops.... Such a generous spread. (All food items cost twice what they cost in Kadiolo because they have to be trucked in so far...) It was very touching. We were hungry after the trip, too.

Pray with us that the church in Missiogo would continue to grow and be a beacon of light in a very dark place. Pray with us that the leaders would grow in faith, and win others for Christ. Pray for safety for the church and for the people in Missiogo. Pray for Gods grace to fall in Missiogo.

Thanks for stopping by,
Tom & Lisa

October- Back to School

Hi... Back to school?? "Isn't it a bit late?", you ask? School normally starts first week of October in Mali. University hasn't started yet. We've been scrambling to help families be able to get school supplies, and to get their kids in school. Every year there are more needs than we can supply. We do have some people who sponsor kids. Elementary 2500 cfa ($5) a month. Jr High 5000 cfa ($10) a month. Sr High 7500 cfa ($15) a month. Very cheap, unless you only make 40,000 cfa per month, and you have 2 or more kids... How do you eat? The nice thing is that many of our high schoolers have made good grades, and the government pays those fees now... But school is very far away, so they need a bicycle to get there, and a backpack. But monthly costs are easier to manage.
We're hoping that by helping these kids through school they may be able to get jobs that pay better than 40,000 cfa ($80) a month, so they will be able to put their kids through, etc...

It has been a month of mini-crisis too. Angeline works mornings for us. She does kitchen stuff and cooks our noon meal so that Lisa is free to homeschool Caleb. She got word that her mother in Bouake is very sick. She broke up in tears, unable to pay to go take care of her mother. So we and our colleagues pulled together some money for her to travel as well as have some money to pay for meds/doctors. She left 2 days ago on a night bus for Bouake. Godspeed Angeline!!

Angeline

Some of Angelines' mouth watering donuts.

On the more fun side of life, we ordered some banana ice cream from our good friend Lazare. How do you make ice cream in Africa? Some of you who are older remember the old crank machines. They work so well. But how do you get crushed ice? Ha ha, you get Claudia to pound it.... She does a good job. Ice cream should be ready for today, yum yum... :D

Claudia pounding ice.

Lazare turning some banana ice cream.

The nice thing about ice cream is that you can make it anywhere. You don't need a fancy ice cream parlour, you can churn right on the side of the road. Lazare is under a mango tree right in front of his resaurant.

Thanks for following along with us, and taking the time to stop by.
Keep praying!
Tom & Lisa

Last Sunda y

Road to Kanbo

Hi. Last saturday night Pastor Youssouf invited me to go out to a nearby village, Kambo, where one of our small village churches is. So I said "Sure, I'll come...". So we arranged to drive our motorbikes out there, and to meet in the morning at 8:30 am. In the morning, about 8:15, Youssouf called, and said, "Ok, are you coming?" I was ready, so I got on my motorbike and went to his house.
But when I got there he was gone. Just after calling me, he received a call that a family member was being brought in from another village and had died. So he went off to the hospital/morgue to deal with the family crisis. I called him, and said "Should I go, and preach in your place?" He said, "Wow that is a good idea, take my nephew to translate." So Gauchou and I got on my motorbike, and drove out to Kanbo.

Kanbo is outside Kadiolo, but not too far. Maybe 6-7 km out. So we got there in about 20 minutes, driving on one of our "good" roads. Church was already started. So we joined in. This congregation has 4000 members and 5 services.... NOT... :D... at least not yet...
There were 6 adults including me and Gauchou, and 4 kids. If you remember the story a few months ago of the woman and her husband who said they would turn to Christ if she was healed from her sickness? She is from Kambo, too. But she was not at church this week. Pastor said she is faithful, but is really receiving opposition from her family. They do not want her to be a Christian. So she is struggling. Pray for her. Her name is Asita.


Here is a pic of our group, (Gauchou took the picture...)

I preached on Hebrews 7, how Christ is our sacrifice on time for all. I contrasted how the witchdoctors and priests have to do many sacrifices, and how they have to sacrifice for their own sin first. But how Christ, according to Hebrews 7, does not need a sacrifice for His sin, so is free to be the sacrifice for ours.
Gauchou did a good job translating for me.

So when church was over, it is the village tradition to feed the visiting speaker. So Pastor Moussa invited us to lunch. His wife quickly ran over to the house, and lit her fire to cook rice & sauce. We had time to talk, and rest a bit, and about 1 hr later, lunch was ready. She nicely provided me with a spoon so I could eat like a white guy. I appreciated that. (Africans eat with their hands, which may sound interesting and romantic to you... but after burning your hand with sloppy hot rice & sauce, you may prefer to eat with a spoon or fork like I do.) :D

Another bit of news/prayer request.
Our neighbors 1st wife is very sick. She has an ulcer that hurts when she eats, so she has eaten very little in the past 2 weeks. She is really wasting away. She can't walk now, on her own. She is really looking bad. We went over there yesterday to pray for her. But she really looks like she will die without intervention. Pray for her, and the whole family.

Thanks for stopping by!
Tom & Lisa

Celebrating God's provision

Celebrating Water!!

Have you had a crisis recently? We did. Our water pump died. So our water was in our well, but not able to get to our sinks, showers, toilets. We quickly installed buckets of water all over the house to use for water. (Bucket baths arent' so fun...)


Marikot & Jonas- Thanks guys

We were able to get colleagues in Bamako to buy a pump for us. We sent one of our believers up on the 5pm bus on Thursday night. He arrived Friday morning, got the pump, got back on the bus in time to get a 10 am bus to come back. He arrived late at night Friday. Saturday morning he arrived bright and early at our house, smiling with pump in hand. Jonas, Marikot (Eadelman's guard) and our neighbor Bamba all helped me install the pump. In about an hour or so, we turned it on, and celebrated the sound of water running into our water tower!!

I told the guys we were going to celebrate God's provision of the pump. I went to the bus station. (That is where you can buy ready-cooked food in Kadiolo) I bought about $4 of roasted sheep meat. Yum yum... We celebrated God's goodness together, a good finish to a job well done.

Do we celebrate God enough in our lives? Not the big big stuff, but even little things like this? I've been reminded about celebrating this kind of thing a lot recently, and is partly why I even thought to do it this time. I think we need to celebrate Him more... don't you? So we celebrated with a prayer, and sheep meat to enjoy!

Caleb & Stephan

Caleb was pleased yesterday, too. His close friend came back to Kadiolo. He'd been away visiting family for the summer. So they enjoyed a night in a tent, watching an intellectual movie in french. Those two boys laughed and giggled, and pinched and poked... like boys do. They had a great time. We are so thankful to God for friendships like this for Caleb.

Thanks for celebrating with us. Thanks for praying, and stopping by!
Tom & Lisa

A couple of before & after pics

This may not look overly exciting as missionary work to you. But it is part of living out here. You always have to repair/keep up your house. That is one reason landlords like us because we do keep up. Anyway, now we're not in the mud, our cement is better and the house has kept its value again. We thank Moussa & his team for being cheerful to work with, and keeping his word. (That means a lot out here.)

We started this job because of scorpions, etc. It was an intense 2 weeks of workers carrying sand, pounding it down, making bricks, having the welder in town make doors, coming in to hang them, etc. almost all done... Just a little electric work left for our generator to be installed and ready to go...


Before... Old cement pounded out, sand brought in


Moussa laying bricks. (Great job Moussa!!)


New porch area! Nice.

In the midst of all this, it seems that ministry opportunities are booming too. I've been teaching ESL 4 days a week. Starting at 4pm ending at 6pm... I come home tired from that, but encouraged because the students are really making progress. They can talk to me in English now. Short termers coming out, (Like Dusty in December) will appreciate being able to speak to some people in English.

Also, night/evening conversations with pastors keep going on. We've been talking alot recently about cults, and denominational differences and how to know who is a sister or brother in Christ and who is a downright stranger to the Gospel.
Its been fun to talk through this with guys here. The idea has been brought up for me to teach a section on this at church for whoever is interested, but focusing on village pastors. We'll see how that turns out.

Thanks for praying for us,
God is really blessing, and we're doing great.
(Caleb was sick, and it turned out to be a case of Malaria. The meds did fine, and he's fine now. PTL!!!!)

Tom & Lisa

September house work

Hi. This week we've been doing some remodeling on our house. We've brought out some money to improve our house a little bit. We're trying to re-cement our porch area, which is also our dining room & veranda. We've also bought a generator so that even if the electricity is out (Like it was all of last night) we can still charge Lisa's batteries so she can hear. It would be nice to run fans and a few lights as well...

So there has been a lot of pounding and thrashing as the builders are ripping out the old cement, then pouring the new...

Hopefully, we'll have no more holes where scorpions and other six legged friends will come from. When you get one like this walking boldly through your living room, it makes you think its time to fill some holes in the walls & cement.

Yesterday we got tired of listening to pounding, as you can imagine, and we took a motorbike ride out of Kadiolo into the countryside. We had a little picnic. That was fun. Caleb is enjoying being an only child right now, having all of mom & dad's attention. This is a pic of Caleb & Lisa on her new "old" motorbike. It is running really well now, thanks to a repair job on the carborator.

Lisa likes this bike better than mine because it is like the ones we had back in the Ivory Coast. It is also a lighter bike, and has no gear box. So she doesn't have to change gears. Some african friends in town asked my why I have a nice bike, and she has the old ugly one, though... :D

I've been working a lot teaching english to some of our students so they can start the school year stronger in english. So that has been interesting too.

But it is all for the kingdom. Pray for us as we continue to build and sustain redemptive relationships....

Thanks for stopping by,

Tom & Lisa Seward