Celebration!

Celebration!

So what do your people in Mali do when they celebrate? What do they celebrate, and how do they do it? Last Sunday, Paul & Eshter were proud to dedicate their baby, Elisabeth Miriam Coulibaly to the Lord. The church service was much like one at home, the pastor holding and praying for the baby, and giving a charge to the parents. Many visitors came to
see the cermony, which was performed during the church service.

Afterwards, everyone was invited to the couple's home where a huge celebration awaited. Ladies from church had cooked rice, and meat sauce. Everyone had good food to eat. Most people ate african style, in little circlesof girls or boys.

Here is a photo of our Sunday School age kids. A girls circle,


and a boys' circle.

Here is a pic of Lisa and Emily.

(They ate sitting on chairs, and were given plates and forks. I was, too, but am not in the picture, of course.)


After eating, we played a few games, (Canadian friends should recognise crokinole, if not- shame on you! :-))

people talked while dishes were being cleaned up. Then it was music time.

In africa, no celebration is complete without dancing. Dancing is different here than in
America. In America, dancing is almost always in couples, and has a lot of suggestive connotations to it.In Africa, dancing is done in huge circles. Usually, there is a ring of girls, a ring of older women, and a ring of young men. (Older men usually don't go in for dancing...)

This celebration was no exception, and dancing went on for 2-3 hours. Check out the photo of the white woman dancing. I would upload the video version if I could. You'll have to see it later. :-)

So this is how we celebrate! Next big one will be Christmas, that one will go late into the night, and dramas and singing and the Christmas story will be added into the celebrating. There's still time for you to buy a ticket and join us for 2007!

Thanks for stopping by!
Tom & Lisa Seward

Thanksgiving 2007

What do you do when you're scheduled for a flight across West Africa and two days before you're supposed to leave for the capital city, you find out that they've closed the airport for repairs for a week? Well, you travel overland, of course! That's what Lisa did the first week of November when she was supposed to leave for Dakar Academy school board meetings and a few days with Hilary. Instead of a 1.5 hour flight, she took three days in busses and bush taxis to get to Dakar, Senegal, on the Atlantic Ocean.

Actually, it was an interesting trip which I, Lisa, thought I would like to do someday to see the scenery along the way. I enjoyed interesting rock formations and baobab tree forests that made the swollen feet and dusty travel over rough roads worth it (only once, hopefully!).
I also enjoyed spending some good gab time with our daughter who is quickly growing into a beautiful, godly woman. They are seeing some evidence of personal revival among some of the students at Dakar Academy, and we pray that the Lord will do whatever work in Hilary's life He chooses and she allows. Thanks for your prayers for all of us, for continued spiritual health and renewal.

When Lisa got back to Bamako, she arrived the same day as our new short term worker, Emily!
She and Emily were able to look at things in Bamako before they came south, (again on the bus, of course...) to Kadiolo. Emily is here to work with women's ministry. We really hope she can hold community health classes/sessions. She will be working on Bambara for the next 3 months, and then hopefully be able to do class in Bambara. This is an aggressive learning schedule for language learning, but Bambara is a trade language because it is easy to learn. So, we'll see how it goes for Emily.




This pic has all our new-ish single women. 1. Karin, she's here with Wycliffe, working on Senoufo Bible translation. 2. Emily. 3. Amy. 4. Susan. Susan and Amy are working with One Story, and sponsored by Southern Baptist to be here working in the same language as Karin. Their project is to put as many Bible stories as they can into Senoufo, so the people can hear the stories on tape. Someone will be reading these stories. We'll be transmitting them on the radio later, when they are ready.

Today is Thanksgiving! Happy Thanksgiving, friends! Today we had turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes, and apple pie. We had pumpkin pie, too!







What a blessing it was to get together with our missionary family and enjoy the meal together! Ernie was not with us at noon, he had a project in Sikasso that needed attention today. We did save him food, though.
His wife Jan is in the States, as one of their grandbabies is being born soon.
Tom & Laura in Fourou were having a meal together with their church family today.

We have so many things to be thankful for today, and you who are reading this are very high on our thankful list. We are so thankful to be able to partner with friends and family like you!

Here are a couple of other pics from our daily life in Mali. Ben is taking guitar lessons with Freddy. (Freddy is one of our drama team members, and could easily stand on stage with any musician at Cornerstone.) Ben is advancing quite well. He can play bar chords along with Freddy's rapid fret fingerings.



Caleb is in the tooth losing mode. He's lost his two upper fronts this week. “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!”



Thanks for stopping by today,
Keep praying for us, and for the ministries we are involved in!
Tom & Lisa Seward