Hello from Kadiolo

Our friends Lavine & Rebekkah.



This week we had a difficult time with life in Africa.
Power was out for the last two nights. Thankfully, it came back today.
It is difficult to sleep in 85+ weather, without fans. We were pretty tired today.

Our housing project is coming along. Everyone gets their chance to pitch in.
Joannie, and Ben each had furniture projects. Hilary painted shelving in her room and the hallway. Lisa was in charge of painting rooms.
I had a plumber come last night, and today he worked hard. Plumbing is coming along.
We can't wait to move into a place of our own...





We've written about people who come to us for financial help. This old guy came, and wanted a gift. I gave him a small gift, and he was happy.
A few days later he came back, I gave him a couple of days work. Each day he worked alongside Jonas. (Jonas is the guard we brought up from Bouake.
He is a strong christian, and has the heart of an evangelist.) So Jonas was able to witness to this guy verbally when I could only be a friend to someone
in need. Each day I gave them food money for lunch. They ate together. Rice, sauce, and meat. Each day this man wrapped up the meat and put it in his
pocket for his family. He's now worked for us a few days each week for the past month. He and Jonas are really getting a good relationship together.
His name is Sekongo. Pray for him that Jonas's words and the Holy Spirit would show him the truth of Christ, and that truth would become real in his life...




Also this week is a multi mission strategy meeting between all the missions that work in Mali & Cote D'Ivoire amongst the Senoufo peoples.
This meeting is mostly focused on translation work, but will touch on other ministries as well. Pray for these meetings as they will be important for the
next 5-10 years in how the missions focus on the work amongst these people who are lost without Christ.
Our colleagues Glenn & Lynn Boese will be at the meetings representing World Venture, others will be represtenting CMA, SIL, and Southern Baptist.
There may be other missions involved that I'm not aware of.

Thanks for stopping by this week,
Tom & Lisa Seward

Visitors from Home

Last week was a busy one. We had come home after meetings in Bamako. We got back to working on our house, and being involved with all the ministries again. The plumber did come this week and started work. He is only available weekends, but did a great job already. I'll need him the next two weekends to finish the work. I'm thankful for his help. The plumbing would be a whole lot more daunting task if I had to do it myself..
Here is a pic, (Not staged...) of all three kids painting in Hilary's new room.


Jan Eadelman came down with Glenn & Kathy Kendall. We enjoyed a couple of days together. It was fun for Jan to see how we've adapted to Kadiolo,
and to see how we've installed ourselves in the ministries and relationships here.
Glenn & Kathy got to see all of our ministry areas, and our dreams for the house. They were able to talk at length, encouraging us, and to get a feel
firsthand for how we're doing. Glenn's comment was "you really are at ease here in Africa." He didn't mean that it was all easy, but that we are relaxed
and comfortable in the settings here. :-)

We took Glenn & Kathy & Jan to the waterfall for Lisa's Birthday. Tom & Laura Requadt were here, too, and came.
Tom's car had a flat as we were driving what was once the international highway. (You have to see the road to be amazed at the bad state it is in today.) Here is a pic of Tom & Glenn changing the tire. Be warned if you visit, you won't be immune from tire changing duties.. :-)


Here is a pic of all of us at the falls together. We enjoyed a nice day, picnic, and encouraging time together.
Tom R. is on crutches because he was working on a ladder that collapsed under him. His ankle is still tender.
Pray for him that he can get his mobility back...


One story is outstanding. (You've read a bit about this man before...) He's a marabou from Louluni has been listening to Radio Yeelen for some time. He
teaches at the Koranic school there. He had a sore on this hand for a long time and tried to get the Muslims to help him get treatment but they would not
help. One day he decided to come to Kadiolo to see those radio people.
There he talked with Pastor who led him to the Lord. Pastor also found him help for his sore hand. That made a big impression on him--the Christians

helped him but the Muslims wouldn't. He continues to teach at the school, that is his job, but he cannot teach there next year.
His wife is not a Christian, but she is getting shunned and persecuted as though she was. As the result she is not impressed with her Muslim friends.

Pastor is encouraging the man to move his family to Kadiolo after the school year finishes so he can have Christian fellowship and teaching. Pastor
would like to groom him for the work of an evangelist or some other position like that to help him in the work. He is very intelligent and reads and write
only in Arabic. What a sense of humor our God has!

The new news is that this man has a friend, a marabou (Koranic teacher), who lives right by the church in Kadiolo. This man, named Alasane, has been
an extra voice for the radio drama team. He is now reading the Bible in Arabic and, according to the drama team, is almost ready to accept the Lord.
He is getting a lot of hassle in his courtyard because he is a "Christian".
(this info from the drama team)
Please pray for the Koranic teacher and his wife in Louluni. Pray that as he teaches each day that his faith will be built up. Pray that His wife will accept the Lord as her personal savior.
Please pray for Alasane as he reads the Arabic Bible that the Holy Spirit will work in His heart and bring him to the Lord.

God Bless,
Tom

Easter 2006

Remember This?



If you know our family well, you may know the different ways we sometimes do things.
Easter is no exception. Since I was about 10 years old, my family has always made a resurrection scene out of rice krispy cake and other edibles. Now our kids love to take part in what has now become a firm family tradition. The tradition is not only to retell the story together as we build the project, but to do the project with new friends every year. With the rate we move finding new friends has always been easy.
We're thinking back to 2005, when we built in Ft Wayne with the Maugel family, and 2004 in Quebec with the Turcottes, and 2003 in St Paul, Minnesota with the Langes, and 2002 in Wheaton with the Blunts (or at least some of them :-)
This year is 2006, and we are in Bamako, Mali with the Caswell family.
What a blessing it has been for us to remember these stops the Lord has brought us through, and to thank him for so many good friends who he has given to us.

Tomorrow we leave Bamako for home, Kadiolo. It does feel like home. When we get home, our church will celebrate Easter, Christ's resurrection in their own special way. They will stay up all night, singing, and sharing songs, and eating together, there will be a late night sermon, and they will probably ask me last minute to show the Jesus film. (Showing the Jesus film is a tradition in many churches out here either at Easter or Christmas.)
It will be fun to celebrate with our church family, although I can't say for sure that I'll be ready to stay up all night after driving 7 hrs in Mali. Driving here is like an intense video game of dodging other cars, motorbikes, huge potholes, and sheep. I really think if someone released a game "Need for Speed" West Africa edition, it would keep gamers going for a long time... :-)

Thanks for stopping by,
Tom & Lisa

Womens Conferece Part 2

Women's Conference report, part 2
The women's conference was held at the Camp Biblique de Femmes (Women's Bible Camp), which is really just a church courtyard and mission compound in Sikasso. The ladies report that they were very warmly welcomed by their sisters in Christ, and that 165 women attended. There were 32 from Kadiolo; 25 from our Pain de Vie (Bread of Life) church.

The ladies gave personal gifts that contributed to the purchase of sleeping mats, lanterns, and glasses, which can be re-used for future events at the Camp.

There were three pastors who preached during the conference on themes like: tithes and offerings, sin, prayer, giving yourself in service to God, the youth, perseverance in the Christian life, etc... The theme fabric printed had a design of a tree and borrowed from the verse in Matthew about how a good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree bears bad fruit. The messages mentioned above no doubt encouraged the women to pursue being a good "tree" and bearing good "fruit".
To quote the President of our Pain de Vie group, "The different preachers edified us during the Bible Camp about a good walk in a Christian family. I hope that we all learned a good lesson. What very much interests me is that a similar camp is/would be planned for our husbands with the same preacher(s)".

Another interesting thing happened this week in Mali. M'omar Khadaffi arrived here in Mali with a huge enterage of followers. He is taking them to Timbuctu. He wants to have Timbuctu declared as a holy Moslem city. (Timbuctu is the site of some of the earliest Moslem structures in West Africa.)
Our mission does not work up in Timbuctu. But the Evangelical Baptist Mission is there.

Our concern is that if Timbuctu is declared a holy city, that could really restrict religious freedom up in this needy area for the gospel.
We need to remember that we are ambassadors for Christ in Mali, a country where 90% of the people are Moslems, and against the gospel we preach.
Continue to pray for us as we seek to serve here.

Womens Conference (Part 1)

Here's Part One of the report on the Women's Conference in Sikasso that two of our churches helped to support.
There were 24 women from the Pain de Vie (Bread of Life) Kadiolo and village churches that were totally sponsored by our gifts. They travelled to Sikasso with another five women from the CMA church in town, along with 2 women who went beforehand to help set-up. So, there was a total of 31 Kadiolo women represented at this year's conference, out of around 160 attendees. This was one of the larger conferences they've had, and the most women in the last several years. I'm sure our surge from Kadiolo helped to boost the numbers and also the enthusiasm of the women and organizers.



They gathered last Monday afternoon at the church and boarded their chartered bus, with many of their husbands and children cheering them on (there were a few tears, too). The men laughed about who would loose the most weight during the coming week. Something similar was said during the prayer request time at church on Sunday morning, so we invited all the husbands and kids left behind to come to our house for Friday supper (more on that later).




Because we had out-of-town guests until Tuesday, and a 2-week trip to Bamako starting the following Sunday, I couldn't go for all of the conference. But Wednesday, Tom and I and Pastor Youssouf went over for the day and got in on two of the sessions. We also ended up taking out houselady, Aminata, to the Dentist to get two teeth pulled out so she could stay at the conference. She was swollen and miserable when we arrived, and feeling worse from the extractions when we left, but there was no way she was leaving her first conference! I gave her our telephone numbers and some change in case she needed us to come and get her in the next day or two if she was too miserable to enjoy the event.

All the women wore their Kadiolo tee-shirts we had printed on Wednesday, including me, and they wore them for their evening session when they were scheduled to lead the singing part of the service.




We got a call from Aminata on Thursday and again on Friday saying she was doing much, much better and would come home with the rest of the women next Monday. She said they were having a wonderful time.

Meanwhile, Friday evening we fed 60 men and kids a supper of Riz Gras (sort of like Spanish Rice with meat), salad, bread, and cake. We borrowed plates and cups and a huge pot from the camp, and with the help of Lazarre (who wants to open a restaurant) and a couple of the single working women who didn't go to the conference, we pulled it off beautifully.



During the week, we noticed more of the church kids coming to our house to play, while their mamas were gone. Also, those single women left behind said that it was a difficult week dealing with the kids in the evenings after they'd already had a full day's work. Poor Freddy laughed about how the his watchband was loose around his wrist now (maybe he'll win the award for the most lost weight!). But overall, everyone was pleased that the women got to go.

We are now in Bamako awaiting Pastor Youssouf's report from the women's return today (Monday), so when we receive that and translate it, along with his photos, we'll post Part Two of this report.
The women's version of how it all went... :-)