Safely arrived in Dakar

 We're celebrating being together again.

As you see from the title, we're safe in Dakar. All our luggage arrived safely too. Don't be confused, though, we really are going to Mali. We just have a small pit stop here to see our son Ben who flew out to Africa ahead of us to start his 10th grade school year here in Dakar.
We'll be here a couple more days, then we fly on to Bamako, Mali.
We really look forward to getting back to Mali. Did you know Mali is the bambara word for Hippo? And Bama, as in Bamako... is the bambara word for crocodile.... Anyone need a new pair of boots...?
We are dusting off our french as we're here in Dakar, and looking ahead to using bambara again in Mali.
I greeted a wolof boy today in bambara. He looked at me like I had two heads, not understanding a word of what I said. Oh well, I'll have to save it (speaking bambara) for Mali.

If you've wondered what Ben's dorm might look like... this is thursday night supper.

Fall festival was today. It was a western theme penny carnival. 

These guys paid to have Ben put in jail for 5 min. But they had to catch him to put him in there.

Here is Ben, dutifully serving out his sentence.

Caleb made friends very quickly. (surprised?) 

They quickly paid and wrestled him into the jail cell too.

The difference with Caleb is that no bars can hold him...

 He escaped 3 or 4 times from Jail. I guess that is one benefit of abstaining from Pizza...:-)

Keep praying for us. We think we're going to have to negotiate luggage allowance fees for our Dakar-Bamako flight. We really need the suitcases we have. We were fine to get here, using our allowed weight to get to Dakar. But this Dakar-Bamako leg is considered local because of the way we bought our tickets...
Please pray that we can come to an agreement that does not eat up all our cash.

Thanks for stopping by today,
Tom & Lisa


Tom and Lisa work with Worldventure in Mali, West Africa. If you would like to donate online to help this ministry, click this link: http://worldventure.com/Give/Give-Now.html?id=4569 If you would like to email comments, our email is: tlseward@gmail.com

Video of loading crate

You may not think this video is funny, but I do. We had made this crate, (that was frankly too big, about 500 pounds...) So today we rented a trailer so we could deliver it to the shipper who will send it to Mali. We rented a landscaping style trailer so that the ramp would help us. We already had the crate on 2 moving dollies...
(One of which broke in the process of moving it today.)
We really laughed a lot at this "impossible" task as Lisa, Caleb and I tried to manoever this silly thing.
So finally, we used a jack to jack up the crate to get over a 2" lip to get on the start of the ramp. And we tied the crate to the car, and while I pushed, the car pulled the crate up into the trailer... It took about an hour to set up... and only a few seconds to actually roll it up with the car.... Then we drove about 10 miles to the shipper, and he took it off the trailer quite easily with a forklift....
Here is the live video!

So here we are, tired and happy after getting this crate loaded...

The crate was the last major obstacle, other than getting on the plane, in our return to Mali. So we are so pleased! Celebrate and thank Jesus with us! He is good!

Thanks for stopping by,

Tom & Lisa

Tom and Lisa work with Worldventure in Mali, West Africa. If you would like to donate online to help this ministry, click this link: http://worldventure.com/Give/Give-Now.html?id=4569 If you would like to email comments, our email is: tlseward@gmail.com

Ready to leave!

We are ready to leave for Mali! God has done a miraculous work in bringing our support together...

It is only His work that can accomplish that. We believe He has called us to serve, and He provides, and He has. We are thankful to so many of you who also felt the desire to partner with us, (and God) in this mission to build the church in West Africa. As I write to you right now we are short $96 a month. What a long way we've come from a need of $1300 a month when we first came back from Mali a bit more than a year ago.

I'm writing these specific figures so you can rejoice with us! God is great.

So what is the plan? We will be overseas 3 years until 2014 when Ben graduates from high school. (does that make you feel old.. :D) In 2014 we are slated to be in Lansing, Michigan at a mission house provided by South Church. We look forward to sharing and serving with them at that time. We plan to return to Mali after a year furlough, having accompanied Ben through his freshman year of college. 

In the meantime, our hearts turn to Mali, where a lot of work lies ahead. We have colleagues to work with, and consulting on a policies & procedures statement for our church association. We have more language to learn, more evangelism to do. Please continue to pray with us as we embark on this next phase of ministry.

We are sad to leave Lisa's mom, and our nephew Andrew.We are also leaving our daughter
Hilary behind in college.  But we know they are in Gods' hands. We really feel like each one of these
has improved and come a long way this year.

We are sad that we go back to a Mali empty of Eadelmans... These friends have been our encouragers, advisors, mentors, and close friends... Ernie will be making a visit early in 2012, but we'll miss their day-to-day ness... And now we have to take the role of experienced lead in Kadiolo. I think we're comfortable with that as long as Eadelmans are only a skype or email away...

 We had a nice opportunity this last week to visit the Marshalls. They were appointed as missionaries at the same time we were.... way back in 1994. (That was back when gaga was a word babies crooned, and Iphones and Ipads weren't even conceived of yet.) They've served in higher theological education in the Ukraine, and in several universities in the USA, currently Spring Arbor. We really enjoyed catching up, and feeling like minded in so many ways through common experience, and common desires to see the kingdom of Christ built up. If you ever feel like the world is going to hell in a hand basket, look around... God has many solid people working alongside you. I think of Elijah in that cave, thinking he is the only prophet left, and God reveals to him that there are 3000 others.... It is encouraging to know that many others are serving Christ, isn't it?

Now as we go back to Mali, this blog will be kicking into high gear, and we'll be posting
new stories and new pics every week as we share what God is doing. We get to be up close and watch Him work, and we want to share that with you....

Thanks for stopping by, thanks for praying
Tom & Lisa






Tom and Lisa work with Worldventure in Mali, West Africa. If you would like to donate online to help this ministry, click this link: http://worldventure.com/Give/Give-Now.html?id=4569 If you would like to email comments, our email is: tlseward@gmail.com