Friday, June 22, 2007

This could be you!

This could be you!
We've been working this week helping Pastor Youssouf host a 19 member team from Osarks Christian College in Joppa, Missouri. 16 team members, and 3 Ghana Christians. One of the Ghana guys could translate and speak french/english. The rest were English speakers. So I felt compelled to step in and translate, and help them on their taste and see trip. These were missions emphasis students, many who have already been seeking a place to serve
God by visiting the Urbana conference. So I felt like my time was strategically spent.

They saw all the different ministries we have going on here, and frankly it was an encouragement/reminder to me of all the ways God is working to build His kingdom in Kadiolo/Southern Mali.Each time I would be telling the story of how a ministry started or what its goals are, or stories of people who've come to Christ through ministries; I was encouraged. And as I was doing most of the talking, I was encouraged a lot.
So were our African brothers who were able to share their visions for their ministries.

But the point of the blog this week is this: THIS COULD BE YOU!
One afternoon there was a little down time. The students had a lot of extra energy, and began to sing action songs with the kids who were nearby the church yard where we were waiting for supper.Kids began to pour into the gates of the church, some to take part, many more to watch the weird white people sing? (Are you white? Are you willing to be weird? You could have been there with us!!)So they sang many action songs I knew, some I didn't but laughed at. (Have you ever heard "shark attack!" it cracked me up!) The kids did not understand the words of the songs, but followed the actions so closely (as you can see in the photos.), You'd think they were choreographed. They felt the love and acceptance and joy of our visiting team.

That spoke volumes right there. (sorry, but it kind of blows our music debate in the states out of the water. EG: if you cant hear the words, its not valid Christian music... Not!) Like I said, the love and joy brought those kids in, little ones were hugged, and smiled at. The kids had fun at church. If you know kids here, fun is not easy to come by for them. And at church no less! Big stuff going on here. A section of the group were moslem tomato can kids,
they were watchers, because if they took part they could be beat when their teacher heard about their participation. The point is you could do this!











This wouldn't be our blog without a comment on life in Mali. So the team has had a good 3 days here, including an excellent rain last night that gave everyone a good sleep. It also made the ground wet. (Rain does that. :-) When they packed up their bus to leave, we realised that the bus was stuck in mud. Just slightly, so we pushed it out fairly easily and prepared for them to drive out of the camp where they were staying. Oops! Stuck again, this time up to the rear axle. Okay, so we unload the bus, and started to dig the axle out. Found some wood, jacked up
the rear end of the bus, put in the wood. And with our car pulling, and the team pushing, the bus came free!They left to continue on their trip, only about 2 hours behind schedule!




The goal for their trip was taste and see. (I call it a taste and see trip, anyway.) Taste and see if the Lord is good, He's got milk and honey for you.... Petra-Washes whiter than snow. (Mega Oldie cc 1978). (Okay, Petra took it from the psalms, which were written first, but I couldn't stop singing the song during the whole mud thing this morning.)

So how about it? Are you willing to do a taste and see to see if God may be calling you overseas? You don't have to come to Mali, but I will bet that either in your church or a Christian organisation near you is sponsoring a short term mission trip to somewhere. Maybe it is as a youth leader on the youth missions trip, etc.

Are you willing? Could this be you?
Thanks for stopping by,

Tom & Lisa Seward

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Help! Au secours!

Yes, this is the same picture as last week. No, the car is not usually heaped with baggage like this.

Cars are fun, aren't they? We left Kadiolo, 2 days after the evangelism outing. We were driving with two other missionary ladies, giving them a ride to Bamako. Car broke down, past the small town of Loloni where there is some cell phone coverage, but not yet close enough to Sikasso, probably 22 k or so to Sikasso. What do you do? I hopped on the first motorbike that stopped, and rode with him to Sikasso. Or so I thought. He broke down, too. Not a good day. Got on a third motorbike, and made it into Sikasso. By then Lisa had a guy who stopped near the car to help. She sent the two ladies into Sikasso with him, at least they could hop a bus to Bamako.

So she and Ben and Caleb wait for me. I got a mechanic to drive out to tow us into Sikasso, but it took me at least an hour or more to arrive back at our car with the mechanic. I did have cold drinks for everyone when we got there.


Towed the car into the garage. We find out the cam shaft was broken! Have you ever heard of anyone who had a cam shaft break? The mechanic said he could have it fixed by the morning, so we put Lisa and Ben and Caleb on a bus for Bamako. I stayed at a hotel with ac to wait for the car.


Evidently, I got the better deal. The bus Lisa found told her they were leaving in 5 minutes.

Remember what I said in the last blog about being early? Never! So when her 1:30 bus hadn't left yet by 3:15, she got mad at them. (in a very spiritual way of course!) and got her ticket transferred to a bus that was really going to leave. By this time she was concerned about having to ride too much in the dark on the bus. Not so scary in America, but have you seen our roads here? So Lisa did arrive in Bamako, she will be able to meet Hilary at the airport, and they will bus down to Sikasso again on Saturday the 10th.


We've been a bit plagued by car trouble, but hopefully now we can get beyond those issues, and have our car be reliable again.


Thanks for stopping by!

Tom & Lisa Seward

Outreach Weekend

Hi. I just came back from 4 days of evangelism outreach in three villages.
The drama team planned it all, and had a live theatre piece ready to perform.
(they even had a part for me to play. Don't be impressed, it was nearly a non speaking role) Mostly my role was chauffer, tech video advisor, and pastor.

By chauffer, I mean that we loaded up the truck in such a way that the Beverly Hillbillies looked organized. Here is a pic of our Pajero loaded to the gills.

My job as tech video advisor was to make the video equipment work, as well as the generator we had to bring along. Village ministry usually means no electricity.
We were gone four nights, like I said. And although the drama team was prepared, they had planned Thursday night, and Sunday night as drama nights, with the other two nights as video evangelism. Every night of the four, we showed the film the drama team made on Aids Awareness. The two other nights we still showed that film, but then added a double feature. One evangelistic film in Senoufo, and one in Bambara. So those nights I worked harder.

My role as pastor was that as there was no church in Woroni, (where we stayed was in the one Christian's courtyard), I was asked to preach in french, mostly to our group.
So I did, I also felt really close to the team, and thought communion together would be neat way to close out the weekend. My friends were a bit agast as we had communion with simple iced tea and bread. I talked a bit about how communion is done differently all over the world, and explained that our local church requires baptism for communion. I said we would respect that as we were representing that church body in evangelism.
So here is a pic they took of me with my lipton tea and bread for communion.

Saturday nights event was huge! The whole side of that village turned out EARLY.
(Anything done early in Mali is a miracle!) About 500 people came out that night.
Here is a pic of part of the crowd. The man and woman in the chairs in the centre are the village chief and his wife. He was 100% welcoming to the group.



Lastly, I took some crowd pics of students who were chasing me yelling toubabou (White Guy!!) I stopped them, told them to greet me in Bambara, and took their picture.








Fruit in these kind of events is hard to see. Rarely does someone choose to follow Christ the night of a film showing, and if they do, it is because of prayer and witness that has gone on for a good time before that night. Of course the Gospel goes out, and that is never a waste, because God uses it to change lives.


This young man stayed in our courtyard with us all weekend. We included him in our serious times, and our game times. (for Canadians, we played a constant tournament of crokinole or pichnotte during our down times.) I really think allowing this young man to take part like one of us helped him to decide to accept Christ. Because that is what he did. He asks for prayer because all though he is a young man about 24-26 years old, he is afraid of what his parents' reaction will be. Pray that he will continue to grow in Christ. He is the center one in the picture, the man on our right is Isaaca, a part of the drama team, and someone we've known since Bouake days.



Thanks again for stopping by!
Tom & Lisa Seward