House Search & Lisa's Ladies Retreat

I, (Lisa) just returned from a weekend retreat for missionary ladies in Bamako. It was great fun to renew friendships from Cote d’Ivoire, and to meet new colleagues in this country. We didn’t get much sleep, as sometimes we gabbed until 2:00 a.m., but the breakout sessions were very relevant to my life and spiritual issues, as was the theme of “Boundless Worship”. It was also fun to swim in a pool and sleep in air-conditioning.

The team from Houston, Texas, was praying fervently for their loved ones back home being hit by Hurricane Rita. They chose not to worry about what might be happening, leaving the fate of their families in God’s hands and moving ahead with the ministry He had called them to in West Africa. One of the women was a licensed hairdresser, so she gave free haircuts and highlighting. Another was a finger- and toe-nail artist, so she gave nail art designs. I had my toes done in watermelon slices; bright pink and green with black “seeds”. The food and snacks were great, too. All in all a very enjoyable weekend!

While I was away, Tom had a meeting with the landlord of a newly-constructed house we were interested in buying, but the owner had not reduced his asking price, so we feel that that house is out of the question. In the meantime, 2 pieces of land came to Tom’s attention, that are close to the church and radio station, and also close to the electrical and phone lines. We could build a house on them and still be at half the price of the other house. The other possibility is an older house that would need a fair bit of work, but already has the walls and buildings up, even though they’d need some renovation. It’s a distance from the electrical lines, but it appears that the neighbor already had lines buried to his house that we could branch off of. We’re going to talk to the landlord this week to see if he’ll sell, and for how much.

This photo is the back building of the house we're talking about...


Today, the complete radio drama team came to our house for a formal welcome to Kadiolo. We went around and shared our names and jobs and talked a little about our dreams for the youth work here. Over the last few days, Tom has met with Freddie to discuss programs and ideas for this next year. Freddie is very open to Tom’s desire to start small group “families” or cell groups. In the next few weeks, the church ministries will be starting up for the year, so that will be exciting and busy.

The politics in Cote d’Ivoire seem to be heating up as the five-year term of the current president will expire the end of October. People here are concerned and watchful; please pray for our friends and colleagues there as they live day by day with the tension, and the people are tired of this conflict. I am prompted to consider ways we might prepare for ministry among refugees if that should happen here.

Last Thursday was the Mali Independence day. Each year, there is a big parade with representative “marching” groups from all over the country. This year it was in Sikasso, a city bigger than Kadiolo, about an hour away. Tom and the kids, along with a couple of guys from our church, went and watched some of the parade. Meanwhile, I was in Bamako, which was unbelievably calm, because everyone was in their house or the neighbors’ watching the parade in Sikasso on television.

Here are some crowd pictures Tom took while there. If you cant see the parade from where you are standing, maybe you should stand on a bus, or a wall or a house!

Lisa's update Sept 17, 2005

No big events happened this week in the life of the Kadiolo Sewards.
Just a few news notes and prayer updates.

We started home-schooling with the three children. Mostly book work for now until we find more resources in town like artisans and musicians who can help with those areas. They did have a couple of extra-curricular type subjects. Our yardman, Marikot, took Ben out into the bush one morning to find rabbit food. He explained what vines and branches they eat and how to find them. Hilary had some Home Economics on Thursday when another missionary couple from about an hour away came to shop at our market and can tomatoes with Lisa and Hilary.


Here are Lisa and Hilary with Hilary's two new kittens.

We've had ladies and girls selling a variety of fruits and vegetables coming to our gate to offer their produce, which we often buy. We had two unusual items come this week, however. One was a home-made toy boat that a young man had carved and painted. Ben thought it was interesting enough (or inspiring, perhaps) to spend his own money on it.

Someone else came by wondering if we were interested in buying a small, red monkey.
After Lisa's bite experience in Cote d'Ivoire, we weren't interested, but we did laugh at the opportunity.

We met with the landlord of a newly-built house we are interested in buying here. He had planned to rent it, but we asked him to consider selling to us. Friday morning, we met with him and his mediator and our mediator, Pastor Youssouf, and another friend, and discovered that he was willing to sell, but his price was more than double what we thought we could afford. We will still have plumbing, electrical, and expansion to put in, so we need to plan some finances for that, so his price was way over our budget. He wasn't really willing to come down much either, which our friends thought was unreasonable. We told him we'd keep looking, and would consider a slightly higher offer if we could find the finances, and we'd meet next week to see if he'd reconsidered his asking price. We'll update you on that next week.

Lisa is going to Bamako again next week, Wednesday through Sunday, for a missionary
ladies' retreat. It should be a good time of worship and fellowship, and getting
acquainted with the missionary community here in Mali. There are a few names she knows from our ICA days, and a precious few others who were Cote d'Ivoire missionaries before the crisis there, but there are many new people to know. She's looking forward to days of air conditioning and some pool time at the nice hotel where the meetings will be held. For now, she's trying to put some food in the freezer for Tom and the kids to fall back on, although we've discovered that Aminata, our house helper makes a delicious spaghetti and great french fries!

Tom says it would be a little bit easier to cook if we were closer to McDonalds, Dominoes, and Bandido's in Ft Wayne. We do have a lady who sits under a tree, and she makes sweet potato fries that are pretty good. Sometimes fried bananas, too.

Drama Team, Friday, Sept 9th, 2005

Friday, Sept 9th, 2005

Last Sunday in church during prayer request time, it was announced that the radio drama team had passed the regional level of competition for their theater piece and would be moving on to the national competition. It is a bi-annual Mali arts and culture competition, featuring eight categories including: traditional dance, choir, solo, orchestra, and an original theater piece. They would be performing in a town called Segou on Tuesday, representing the Sikasso area of which Kadiolo is a part.

Since most of the Youth leaders who we'll be working with have been gone at this competition since the day after we arrived, we haven't had the chance to greet them and get to know them at all. We decided that we should travel to Segou and see their performance and encourage them since they'd been gone away from their homes so long and were missing friendly faces. Siriki Sekongo, who is one of their script-writers, wanted to go as well, so we left Monday morning and spent two days in Segou, discovering a wonderful town along the Niger River, and seeing
the arts and crafts exhibition at the same time.

The evening performances were very interesting, and the team was indeed encouraged by our efforts to cheer them on. Their theater piece was not overtly Christian, but was an indictment of corruption on a personal level and a call to remember that no-one is above the law. They ran a little over their time and may lose some points for that, but the crowd was laughing and clapping at appropriate times as they related to the scenarios being portrayed. One funny scene showed this rich, difficult woman who mistreated her servants and was interested mostly in
beautiful clothes and a spotless house. Her corrupt husband was having a nap, when a visitor came to see him. The visitor asked her to wake him, and she refused, saying that her husband definitely didn't like to be awakened from his rest. After asking again and refusing again, the visitor pulled out some money to get a change of action, and she decided that she could indeed go wake her husband.

We also saw how the team's lifestyle and prayer times were a witness to other performers dorming in the same venue. It's a bit like a cultural olympics, with "villages" where participants reside. Many of the girls had been sick lately, so they were discouraged knowing the amount of energy they'd need to dance and sing, since some of them were in more than one event. They did have to call the doctor the last few days, and two of the girls collapsed on the stage at the right time when during their traditional dance number, the "story" being told was
about a fetisher expelling evil spirits from people. The buzz after the show was whether the girls were really possessed by a spirit, or were just exhausted from being sick and not eating and sleeping properly. Anyway, our "corrupt husband" in the theater piece is Pastor Ibrahim, who went to pray with the sickies when they went to see the doctor, so they've had God's intervention as well.

The team now waits for all the other regions to perform, two each evening, until the closing ceremony on the 11th, when the winning region is announced. Our team has been asked to perform their piece for the president after the competition along with selected other performances from each area, so they're really making a name for themselves. The prize for drama is 2,200,000 francs, about $4500. If they were to win, this money goes to the cultural centre in Sikasso, as the team was representing Sikasso. But there would probably be a gift of some of it to the team as well.

After our trip to Segou, we travelled on to Bamako for a couple of days to get the car and maybe computer repaired, buy some Bambara songbooks for the churches around Kadiolo, do a little shopping, run some other errands, and let Hilary and Ben attend the Bamako Christian Academy for a day as visitors. The Academy encourages home-schoolers who are in town to come as they wish, so we thought they'd enjoy that.
We did get the car repaired. The mechanical problem with the passenger's window wiper. It was fixed for $12. The computer store was in between stores as it is moving to a better facility. They said "we can't help you today! Come back in 10 days." I said we'd come back next trip. That may be end of Sept. So in West Africa, you win some, you lose some. :-)

Sorry about the last posts error where I posted twice somehow. I tried to fix it, but it didn't work.

Tom & Lisa

We're sorry we weren't allowed to take any pictures or video during the competition performance. So we don't have one to add here. But We do have a pic of Pirogue (Canoe) tours you can take on the Niger river in Segou.

Pastor Youssouff & Friends

Just a quick picture update. This pic was not available last time I wrote. This is Pastor Youssouf,(back left) who I mentioned last time has already been invaluable to us. He is as excited about us being in Kadiolo as we are about working with him. He is "coaching" some younger pastors, two are in this picture. They shepherd smaller groups in nearby villages. One group has a rented building, and they are growing. The other group is newly started, and meets in a home right now. It is exciting to watch God build his church through guys like these.
-Tom

New Believer

Pastor came over yesterday with a big grin on his face. (as he often does...)
He said that a few weeks ago a man showed up at the church/radio station compound. He said he wanted to speak to the pastor. He introduced himself, and explained that he was an Imam (a moslem teacher.) He had been an Imam for 11 years. He had hurt his hand so that he was unable to work teaching the students at the mosque for 2 months. During this time that he was laid up, (The hand was very bad, almost lost a finger.) He listened to the programs from Radio Yeelin. (Our station.) He was really interested in the gospel. Meanwhile, he went to the mosque where he taught to ask for financial help while he was hurt because he wasn't able to work. He knows they have an amount set aside to help those in need. They wouldn't give him anything.
He became discouraged with Islam, saying that on the Christian radio they talk about grace, and love, and Islam has none of that. Just a strict code of legalism. So he listened more, until this day when he came to visit. He asked Pastor Youssouf to explain the gospel that he had heard via radio. (He rode his bicycle 45 Km to visit.) Pastor Youssouf spent a couple of hours talking about the gospel and the love of Christ with this man. He accepted Christ, and prayed with Pastor Youssouf. Pastor then gave him money so he could take the bus back to his village, instead of having to ride all the way home. That small gesture spoke so much to the man, he was amazed at that small bit of consideration. Anyway, today he is back in his village, a new believer. There is an alliance church near him, but not in his village. Pastor Youssouf referred him to that body of believers. So pray for him as he is in the early stages of faith. Pray that he integrates into that church, and grows in knowledge of the Lord. Pray that he uses the aptitude for study that he showed for Islam for Christ.

Pray for us. Our newish Dell Laptop computer does not want to boot into windows. The problem may be viral. Fun. I'll go to Bamako, and try to have it dealt with in two weeks when Lisa goes there for a womens conference. At least there is an actual Dell dealer there. They may even honor my 100% failsafe warranty. I hope.... So for now I am very thankful for the cybercafe in town. Even though today it is at turtle speed, not cheetah speed.

The pic of the week is funny. (It makes me smile, anyway). This is the floor of our electrician's shop in Kadiolo. Does this look like the workshop of a guy you would trust your laptop to? Actually, he is a believer, and goes to our church, and is working on several less complicated projects for me. One of these batteries is charging for us, so that we can get Ernies' three wheeler motorbike running.




Thanks for reading this, and praying,
God Bless
Tom

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Write email to: Tlseward@worldventure.net
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