Hilary's Hair cut

Hi. We've been working hard on our new house. Also getting another house in town ready for an african family we knew in Bouake. We're bringing them up so the husband can be our night guard. Jonas was a good friend and really a smiley ray of sunshine to have around. His family, as well as many others are having an extremely difficult time in Bouake. So we hope his being here can help his family settle in well.

The camera was stolen, so until we replace it we won't have new pics available. But we do have pics new to you.

This one is Hilary's haircut last week. We took the pic just before leaving for Bamako. By the way, Her blog site is something to see. Write her at
hjsewardstar@myway.com She will write back, and you can see her site.




Who says missionaries dont have funny pictures. This is what happens to certain 5 year olds who have diarrea in the middle of the night. He was dead asleep on the throne. Has this ever happened to you?




The other funny thing that Caleb did recently was at supper the other night. We were dreaming about what restraunts we would like to eat at in America. (Torture, I know)
Caleb wanted to eat at that restraunt with the good fried shrimp.
"RED HAMSTER" Of course we all erupted in laughter, and he said "What! What did I say?" So take your family out to Red Hamster once for us!

Thanks for praying for us, and visiting.

God Bless,
Tom

Containers & Thieves

Hello. We've had a wild week. The highlight was a trip to Bamako on Monday to supervise our container being unloaded into the semi truck that was to bring the crates & barrels down to Kadiolo, then on to Ferke. Our transitaire, (call him a paperwork agent to do customs, and arrange transportation for the container)
was excellent. His name is Ali Baba Traore. So for a guy named Ali Baba, he was 100% honest, and did a great job. (even though our colleagues asked if he had 40 employees and a magic lamp) Usually the experience with the transitaire is less than savory. You feel like you've had to fight with him the whole way along. Mr Baba, as I call him was terrific. Even to the point where the crane operator wanted a bribe to do his job to take our container off the train car it came on. Mr Baba was able to argue his way through, and we were able to unload! So I'm thankful for him.
The truck with the container's contents arrived in Kadiolo thursday morning, and we were able to unload everything safely. It is like Christmas when a shipment arrives, you can imagine. And this one had our Christmas presents in it. So even more so...

But our thief problem came while we were still in Bamako.
I had just met with Mr Baba, and payed him his well-earned check. Lisa and Caleb were outside in the car. I get outside, and the car has a flat tire.
So I begin to get out the jack, and Baba's security guard helps me work on the tire.
We're on the drivers side of the car. Lisa and Caleb get out of the car, and stay on the passenger side, but the sliding door was open, and the window was down on the passenger door up front. We decided to call back to Kadiolo to tell Hilary what was going on, and we'd be late getting home. (Joannie, Hilary, and Ben were'nt on the Bamako trip this time.) So Lisa's on the phone, I'm concentrating on the tire.
Lisa notices a guy hanging around, is suspicious of him. She didn't notice until later that her purse was missing from the car.

Her purse was stolen. Credit cards, about $100 in cash, our camera (thus no pics on this blog entry) and worse of all her drivers license. The credit cards have been cancelled, but the camera will be expensive to replace in Mali. We paid about $90 in the states for it, but it will cost more than $200 to replace it here.
The drivers license is more difficult. I'm going to the police tomorrow to ask our friend the commandant if he can give Lisa a paper giving her permission to drive in Kadiolo. It probably won't help in Sikasso or Bamako, but would enable her to drive here without any issues.

This is our first theft experience in Africa. It never happened during our first term in Cote D'Ivoire. Our friends here said, Mali is bad, crime is here. But that's not true. Big cities like Bamako, New York, Chicago, Ft Wayne, St Paul, Montreal, Winnipeg, Minot all have this problem. It is normal.

Anyways, thanks for praying, and like Lisa says, "At least he took it quietly, and didn't threaten us in any way. It is better like this, if it has to be stolen anyway." And we were in Bamako with phone access, so Dad had the message about the credit cards less than 20 min after the fact.

God Bless,
Tom

New Years' Visits

One way Mali is different from America is the levels of bureaucracy. Another is that official visiits are very very important.
So after New Years, the drama team told me it was important to go to all the local officials' homes and greet them, and wish them the best for the New Year.
So Sunday we did 7 visits. I only have pictures of 5 of them here.
The commisar of the police, and the commandant of the gendarmes aren't in here.
(You never take pics of gendarmes...)
It was an education in how to receive visitors, and interesting to meet the officials. I knew some of them already, having helped them with computer stuff.

Here are the pics...


The Judge of Kadiolo


The Mayor of Kadiolo


The Postmaster of Kadiolo


The Prefet (County Governer?)


The President of the businessman's association in Kadiolo


Whats the point of these visits? These visits were made in order to keep a good relationship with these men who are important, each in their respective responsibilities. They know us, they have a better relationship with the Radio station, and the church and the drama team because of these visits. They understand that we are productive members of society, and that we are a group who are interested in the communities' greater good. These things all count strongly toward pre-evangelism. Next time we need permission to do an open air campaign or to build etc, these men are the ones who have the authority to say yes or no. Now they know us, and a bit of our mission.

This next picture is a visit from the Youth group to Lisa. Sunday morning Lisa got up to give a prayer request for her mom. Lisa's mom has been undergoing treatment for cancer. Treatment seems to be going well, and we thank God for that. But it has been difficult for both Lisa and her mom that Lisa isn't closer during this time in her mom's life. So Lisa gave her request. Sometimes you are doing just fine, then stand up to give a request, and tears flow. That happened to Lisa. The youth were very concerned, and came over after church to pray for Lisa, and encourage her.
It is nice to have the local church minister to your needs as well.



We thank the Lord for how He is guiding this ministry in Kadiolo.
We are so thankful for the team we are working with, the ones you see here in these pictures are key people we are in ministry together with. So many of these we knew in Cote D'Ivoire, and are now able to pick up our relationships like we never left off. We thank God for these dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

I'm in Bamako right now working on getting our container liberated from customs.
Please pray that the process will go smoothly. And that we can return to Kadiolo with the container's contents in tow...

Thanks for your interest, and prayers,
Tom

Today is Tabaski

Today is Tabaski. This is the day that the Moslems celebrate God saving Ishmael from being sacrificed on the altar by Abraham. (Yes, the Koran has a slightly different version from the account we read in Genesis.) As you may remember from Genesis, God provided a ram so that Abraham was not required to sacrifice Isaac, his only son.
So the Moslems have a big feast to celebrate. They traditionally kill a large male goat, a ram. (their favorite meat.) and cook him up with rice or couscous.
This is as big a holiday to them as Christmas is to us.
I was invited to Daoda’s house to celebrate with his family. I got there in time to help them slaughter their sacrificed ram. So here is a pic…
(Daoda is a moslem that I meet with regularly at his business. We sit and talk about 3 times a week.


I went into town, following the horde of motorbikes with people dressed in their “Sunday go to meetin” clothes. Actually, they were all dressed in newly made robes for the holiday. I arrived at the soccer field, where lines had been drawn so people would sit in an orderly fashion. I asked for permission to take a few pictures, it took longer to find the right guy to give permission than it did to take the pics.
The people were all there to see the ceremony where the head imam of the region would kill the sacrificed ram. Then all the people went home to prepare their feast.
Here is a pic of some of the crowd that was there today.




This celebration is somewhat like our thanksgiving. Everyone gets new clothes, and families get together, and everyone feasts on stewed/grilled mutton and rice. Then some parts of the meat are saved to gift to poor people in the neighborhood who maybe can’t afford their own ram.

A Christian lady asked us if she was offered meat that was killed for Tabaski, could she eat it? That question is answered very nicely by Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 8. Can we eat meat sacrificed to false gods/idols? Paul says there is no sin in sharing in the meat, but be aware that you do not cause a weaker brother to stumble…
We always know the scripture is relevant for today, but that response was perfect for this lady!

Here is a pic of some church friends sharing a meal today. They had really good peanut sauce. I know because they offered me some :-)




Readers: we invite you to write our email address: tlseward@worldventure.net
Write us a question of how something works or what it looks like, and we will put a pic in the blog as soon as we are able!

God Bless,
Tom