Doors Are Opening and 'Our Thirsty People' are Hearing the Truth!

Last week we were blessed to have a medical team from Gainesville, FL with us to open doors for our work here. Words cannot express the joy in having Jenice, Tom, Daylene, Dr. Tom and Dr. Miguel with us for a very busy and exhausting week seeing the prison inmates in North Star, our family in Yosemite, 3 other villages and then the handful of believers at the church in North Star. It was such an encouragement to us to be around other believers and worship together as well as the excitement and energy they gave us for our new work here. In 5 days they assisted well over 1200 people. We all had jobs to do from running the pharmacy, to taking temps, weights and blood pressures or crowd control (that was a biggy!)

Monday we began at our village and saw 250 people but had to turn many away. Almost everyone got vitamins, worm pills the team had brought with them along with the mainly other medications for malaria, etc. We even had a baby born at the clinic while we were there by the village midwife. That evening, with tears I thanked them 'for loving my family, our people in Yosemite". ... though we've only been with them a few short weeks, they are family. They have welcomed us, given us a place to live, cooked for us, clean for us, hug us, teach us. This team helped us show Christ's love to them and open doors for more people to hopefully listen to our message (when we have enough language to share it).

Tuesday was the highlight of the week and probably one of the best days in Mali thus far for me... perhaps because my thoughts were with a special person, my U. Don who went home to be with our Lord last year this day. I know he would have loved hearing the stories from here.

Our morning started very early - 5am! We had 70km to drive (30 on pavement and 30 off road sand) to get to the village. But there was a gorgeous sunrise over the desert we got to enjoy on the way out and on the way home, I finally got to see my first real African wild animal -- a pack of camels alongside the road. They were so peaceful eating the branches of the taller trees. They had a black stripe of hair down their back and a black tail which was different. We also got to see the rare flower of the bayabob tree. It is a very pretty pink and only blooms this time of the year for a short time. So we got some gorgeous pictures by that as well.

The government built a clinic in the village in 2007 and it has never been staffed or used because the location is so remote so medical person has come to live there and work there. So we were the first. The village was so thankful they made a snack of chicken and french fries for us at 10:30am, a never-ending flow of tea all day and lunch at 2pm of butter / onion rice and goat meat (it was really good) however, we did not know it was coming and had already eaten our chicken salad sandwiches we had brought with us.... so we ate for Jesus (as we call it) and managed to squeeze in some more.

Upon leaving, the chief, elders and mayor presented us with a live Ram - yes a real, live, walking Ram! Nafi said, we are the only team to ever be presented with an animal, that is how big of deal it was. Our translators said it probably would have brought $100 US at market which would be about 3 months' salary. They just give beyond their means - not calculating what it might cost them. This is a good lesson for us all when it comes to serving our Lord financially or with our time. God does not want us to calculate how much to give, he wants us to give unselfishly. I read once "the measured, calculated gift is not an action of love to our Lord but rather a duty."

We could not refuse the Ram, it would have been rude, so we loaded it into the back of our pick up and brought him to our yard for a few hours before we took him to be butchered and roasted to eat for dinner the next night. We got the whole thing back but shared some with the butcher, the doctor at the hospital here that helped us organize the clinics, and our guards. The Malians love all the insides parts so our 4 translators took care of a good part of that for us. It was extremely tender and tasty actually.

I was thrilled to be able to go with Momadou, our translator and 2 others into the village to prayer walk and talk to people in the afternoon. Our Father provided the opportunity for me to share His Word that I had been praying for. We almost walked past this compound when a little girl come running out with a plastic circle of something on her head like a crown. So we walked back and then saw the group of about 15 women and lots of teens and children inside that we greeted. They only spoke the language of our Sonshine people and our translator did not, but in His infinite wisdom, a women of peace came forward and translated for the translator. She was even more pleased to do so when she found out we had the same last name. I shared the Demon Possessed Man story and at the end tried to explain some of why Esa the Savior is not the Esa the prophet that they know. I asked if they had heard the story - 'no' they had not. I asked what the story said to them 'that God can do everything and we cannot'. I told them just as the man went sharing about Esa, that is what we do today. They sang and danced for us and thanked us at the end. Nafi, told the village chiefs our team would return to share more stories... I will pray we can before I have to leave.

These people in these villages don't even know what they don't know - NO ONE has shared with them the stories of our Savior.

Another village, "Flossy" that we visited, I had another first, God blessed this world with another healthy strong baby while we were there in the room next to us. I got to go in and see the baby and congratulate the mother while the umbilical cord was still attached. Our fellow worker was the helper actually and they asked her to name the baby. She did - Esa! We prayed over that little one that one day having entered this world in the presence of our Father and believers that he would know the truth of salvation and grace.

I went out again with Tom and our translated, Mohammed, for the morning. We shared stories with the village chief and his family. I was praying the whole time Tom spoke that the women of the compound would continue to sit and listen though at the required distance and they did. A couple other times we tried to sit, the men scared off the women and took over conversations. As we were running out of time to get back for lunch, I prayed that God would give us a group of women and children again. God sent, an extremely friendly woman across our path carrying a bucket on her head. Our translator quickly asked, if we could visit with her at her home, which she readily took us to, where there were about 6-7 other women and a handful of teens and kids.

After greetings and small talk, they presented me with a set of 10 colored beaded bracelets (this Desert Triangle people group, different from ours, are very decorated with beads and earrings). I shared the Creation to Salvation story and my testimony with them with the help of our translator and another women again translating to some of the others. At the end, I asked if they had heard the story - 'they had not'. I asked what they liked about the story - 'that because Esa loves us we love others'. We again, attempted to explain the difference between our Esa and theirs. They continued to sit and listen and thanked me for sharing with them. I asked if we could pray for them, yes, and they without hesitating, said that 3 of them had just lost their husbands (could have been the same man we don't know) and to pray for them. Tom did. So God had provided a place would there would be no chance for men to chase off the women this time and take over the conversation. Another open door, another seed planted hopefully.

Our last day, we did a small clinic at the church and helped only about 30 people but one of them, was medically worth the entire trip. It was gut-wrenching, but 12 year old "Sue" showed up with her grandmother (who is a believer) with her hand in a bandage which was quite dirty. As Dr. Tom removed it, they discovered an open wound and that her skin hand started deteriorating. I'd never seen anything like it and worse it had been that way for 2 months. We don't really know how it began. They created as sterile of an environment as you can on a pew bench with the sterile kits they had brought. Dr. Tom performed 'field surgery' to drain the infection. They gave her something to numb it but she was frightened to death and in great pain. I, along with several others held her other arm and legs trying to keep her still for Dr. Tom to work and kept her head turned away for almost an hour.

We prayed over her continually and Dr. Tom. We sang hymns to her to try and calm her. Our Father was truly at work, because as it turns out she only spoke a language called Bobo (one of the 50 heart languages in Mali) and one of our translators, that just happened to be her heart language as well. Otherwise it would have been very difficult to communicate with the young girl. We provided bandages, gauze, gloves and money to the Pastor for her to go and get the dressing changed every day at the hospital as she would have no way to pay for such things. Turns out she moved her from Burkina Faso because her parents had no interest in her, so she know lives with a sister (who speaks some English) and grandparents (who speak only Bambara). After it was done, we bought her some cookies and told her we would continue to visit her. We did so the next morning. We were thrilled to see her run to us with a big smile on her face and her arm in a sling of material now that her family had made up for her. The bandage looked good and she had had it changed that morning with the Pastor taking her to the hospital. I would ask for you to pray for "Sue" for our Father's wonderful miracle of healing and for this door that is now open to be a start of something with her and her family and that He will provide for the language barriers lacking French in the household.

As I write this, I'm battling another stomach bug and actually 'got rid of some of my dinner' right outside the church yesterday as we visited for the first time for Sunday service. I did manage to make it through part of the service and pray over the offering before exiting. Please continue to pray for health for all of us. The days are starting to get much warmer as we near the most likely 120+ temps we will experience in later March and April.

I also attempted today to dry tomatoes in a solar box 'oven' of sorts. It seems to have worked we will see. As it does get warmer we may try some cooking in that on the roof of the house, so as to reduce the tremendous heat cooking in the kitchen with the stove.

We leave for Yosemite in the morning again. Peace to you all. Thank you for the prayers and prayers of my people.