Our Father's Plans vs. Ours

With Sarah recovering from Malaria we changed our usual schedule a bit..... little did we know Malaria is part of God's plan too.  

 Monday, Abby and I went to visit one of the villages we had been to with the medical team. It was an adventure getting there though.......  our first official stuck in the sand!  We were using the GPS but still had difficulty getting on the right 'road' out of town.  We wound up in about 2-3 feet of loose sand.  Thankfully, our Father had His plan worked out so that it was in the middle of a dry river bottom where there was about 20 boys and several men crossing with animals.  They helped us 'dig' out and push and after several tries - Abby drove backwards pedal to the medal for several hundred feet.  The kids got a big kick out of me pushing with them and helping to move the sand and pile the rocks under the tires.    

 It was a village mainly of another people group with a language we do not  speak.  But our Father blessed us with a good English speaker who helped us visit the chief.  And then her and I just went around the village and 'sat' with people, finding a few other English and definitely some French speakers I could talk with along the way.   

Tuesday Abby and I spent the day in our village but came home at night to be with Sarah, who is doing well.   Wednesday morning all three of us headed to "Yosemite" and we needed to get there in time for language lessons BUT God had His own plan. 

A couple weeks ago we met a tailor that walked right up to us outside his shop and spoke perfect English to us.  "Joshua" has become our friend and tailor here in "North Star".  He lived for 6 years in Lagos, Nigeria and he has another man he works with that is Nigerian and also speaks English.  We have had quite a few long conversations paving the way for the one God had prepared on Wednesday morning.  Abby & Sarah dropped me at the street to I could run in quick and answer a question.  

I mentioned about going to the capital and then to Dakar and needing the other outfit done.  He asked why I was going to Dakar and I said to meet my church.   He smiled and said, 'you really like to talk about church and God don't you!".  You are always mentioning God and following God and listening to God (in one conversation he had said it is really great that we came here because it's not easy living here, it's really hard with the weather, culture, heat, language especially for us 'white people'.  He said, you must have thought long and hard before coming'.  I simply said, well I did but when God is telling you to do something you do it and I'm not here alone, He is guiding and helping me).   I explained that I'm not about 'church' but that I love having a relationship with God through Esa my Savior.    That I talk with God in prayer and He talks with me.    He told me, ' I know Christians are very loving and do a lot of good to help other people.  I have some Christian friends so I know some of Christianity'.    I told him, just like he loves his wife and wants to tell people about her, that is how I feel about God and that is why I talk about Him so often.  I explained,  we don't do good things because we are good people necessarily but because  Esa died for us and did for us, we want to live a life like His doing for others.  I said, imagine if your father or son, died for you, would you not love him so much, you would want to tell others too?

He threw me for a loop when he asked me if I know about church called "Scientology"!  I thought, oh, you have to be kidding me, he's a scientologist???  Turns out he had watched a two  hour show on Planet Chanel which is in French on this 'church'.  Luckily it was shedding light on the things that were not on the 'up and up' with the belief.   He asked me what I thought of it.  I answered - 'honestly?"  He said yes, please.   So I told him,  from what I know, it's not a church or religion more of a following.  They believe in a 'higher power' but not our Father.  They believe if you do certain things, say certain things, go certain places, pay money, basically doing works  to achieve a higher level of 'oneness' with this higher power.  I told him, the Bible very clearly says this is not the truth.  (I was hoping he would correlate the point to his 'I" beliefs as well, I pray perhaps he did).     He agreed with me that the belief system was wrong - thank goodness!

He asked me do I know about "I" beliefs.  I told him, yes, what I have read but by no means everything.   We talked a little bit about Esa and praying.  Keeping in friendship I said, the good thing is that we both love our Father.  He agreed.  The whole time we were talking I was praying  for the words to speak and our Father continued to remind me that His plan and this conversation was more important at that moment then being on time to language studies.  I PRAISE GOD FOR HIS TIMING AND NOT MINE!  I PRAISE HIM FOR THIS HUGE OPEN DOOR. Please join me in praying for the timing of when to share a story from our Father's Word with him now.  

Turns out, when we got to "Yosemite" late for language lessons - Michael was not even ready for us so we had to wait a bit anyway - GOD KNOWS ALL!

Wednesday, as we were preparing to leave for the evening to come back to North Star,  our family started explaining something to us, that we concluded was "Lydia" our mom, coming with us to North Star.  We panicked a little at first because that could be very difficult.    Eventually, they called Annette over to explain to me in French.  Lydia had found out that day that her father had died in Bamako and the funeral was going to be in North Star tomorrow and she wanted us to take her.   Still not sure, exactly how it was going to work out of if she was going to stay with us or what, we trusted in our Father and loaded the 4 of us up. 

She was cute getting in the truck, which has sand tires on it, so it's high to begin with.  Getting her buckled in reminded me of how I used to do with Grandpa, and the funny part - they are not used to windows so she is smiling, waving and yelling at people thinking they can hear her as we drive out of the village.   Again, God's plan for Sarah to still be recovering, otherwise we would not normally have been going back to the city in the middle of the week. 

As we got into town, Lydia, gave us directions to what we eventually discovered was her family compound.  There were tents in the street, with lots of mats laid out with men sitting on them.  There were metal rental looking chairs that had been delivered and sand was being spread.  We had no idea what to expect as we 'dropped her off'.  We went inside, greeted and sat for a while and were of course fed.  When she got there, she went into a room, where we assumed  the body must be because she was wailing and mourning loudly when she went it.  It was so sad and hard not to ball with her.  About an hour passed and it was getting dark, so we decided to make our leave.   We understood from Lydia that she wanted us to return in the morning.  No problem, we thought we'd come by and visit for a bit again before heading back to the village.

Thursday morning we loaded our things to spend the night in the village and then back to the family compound.  This time is was a lot more packed.  Having to walk past all the men sitting in the street was a bit uncomfortable and we weren't quite sure if we should greet them or move on to the women's area inside.   We again sat for what we thought was a good amount of time and prepared to leave to get to the village in time for language.

As we started to say good-bye Lydia was obviously trying to tell us something  (as is normal here, there are very few one on one conversations and as it was obvious we were having difficulty communicating many people had  gathered around to listen in which only makes it even more stressful).   Luckily, the mayor Jay's wife was close by (it was his father as well) and she speaks some French.  I asked if she would help us.  We discovered, that the body was to arrive by airplane (turns out we think he was pretty well off, well known and respected in the community) at 1pm and a 'cremation' at 4pm.  An English speaking man passed by about the same time.  We began to feel like Lydia might want us to stay and we were stuck, not knowing what to do.  We really needed to catch up on some language and spend time in the village because we hadn't much this week.  We asked the English speaker to ask Lydia if it was ok that we leave.  She never gave an answer but he said of course if we were busy no problem otherwise it would be good to stay.    Recalling what another of our workers had said about a family members funeral he attended recently,  the man told Madi afterwards that his presence meant more that he could know, we felt we were being led to re-arrange our plans.  

We left for a bit to go home, use the bathroom, change clothes, unload our stuff, call Nafi for advice on what we needed to know about funeral etiquette.  We needed to have scarves that covered our heads and arms, bring some food to help the family with meals (peanuts) and 5000 to 10000 CFA for the family as well.  Give it to Lydia privately and she would know what to do with it.   We returned prepared to sit all day. 

About 2pm the body was carried in on a mat covered with a sheet and much crying and loud mourning pursued.  We were fed, unfortunately still treated like 'dignitaries' being given the best chairs and our own bowl of food that Lydia carried inside the house for us to eat - we are not sure why.   Then we sat some more.  Praying silently to ourselves while we sat, my heart was so sad, knowing this man was most likely going to hell and many of the people here.  We were sad, we could not share hope with anyone because of language barriers.  Eventually, I ran out of words to pray and just told our Father, 'you know what is needed here Lord, my words are not sufficient'.  It was a long, hot, difficult day.

Some men, all in white appeared and were speaking to the women, not all were even listening, but as they spoke loudly and with force, people were coming up giving them money.  We had no idea why but speculated they may have been from the mosque because it had been mentioned to us before that the family donates money so as to 'assure' the deceased persons entrance to heaven.  Nafi had told us prayers would be offered up, asking for peace for the person, that he would spend eternity with many virgins, etc.  Can you imagine praying for that for a person?  

About 4pm, some men came in and there was singing from the room where the body was and then he was carried out, again with loud sorrow.   The women sat in relative quite after that for about an hour, except for several women who we think may have been given a eulogy of sorts.  Then one young man, carried the white burial cloth in and hung it on a line in the compound and a few minutes later everyone raised hands in prayer.  We prayed  with our heads bowed and hands folded praying our own prayers silently.  We were aware after that several women had at least noticed our different response and were discussing it after.  At least one way again, we could show we were different, even if we couldn't speak it.   A little time after, the women got up to leave so we did as well.  We would return after lunch to get Lydia and take her home the next day.

The next day, we arrived, thinking it would be much more quiet now - it was only slightly so with most of the men still sitting, we don't know if they slept there or what.  Even as we were arriving, we could tell a few people were asking us for rides, but we acted like we did not understand.  We had not been prepared for this so we discussed what we were going to do.  Eventually we decided Lydia was family and we could only take 4 safely with seatbelts (which of course does not matter in this country or to the people who will pile 10 people in a car and the back of the pickup 20!) 

One of the most difficult and upsetting experiences we've had here then occurred.  Stopping at a stop sign, one of the men from Yosemite jumped into the back of the pick-up.    I got out to try and explain he could not ride there (he did not speak French so in my little bit of our language).  We happened to be outside the military base and seeing the confusing one of the officers came over.  At first I thought, this is bad.  You never want to draw attention to yourself around police or military, it only gives them a reason to 'question' us white people.   As it turns out it was a blessing.  Within what seemed like seconds we were surrounded by 20 people all piling stuff into the back of the truck, some we knew some we did not.  It was about 3pm, the hottest part of the day and it would take them a 3-4 hour walk probably to get home.  We wanted so badly to help but knew we could not! 

We infactically told them our 'our boss says no, that only people in seatbelts can ride with us',  that is what we are told to say, so that we can stay in good graces hopefully with our people.  After about 10+ minutes (but what seemed like forever) we managed to sort it out with the officers help and were able to get everyone and everything out and leave.   During the ordeal though I had one old women, grabbing my hand and just begging, we had Lydia's sister just saying over and over her feet hurt.   

I was close to tears and emotionally spent  (it's hard to imagine the scene unless you are here and know the culture - we were telling them something that could not comprehend).  We sang a few praise songs in the car on the way there to try and uplift our spirits.   We discovered later, that what I was saying in our language "Yahm pea mah kah" which we thought was I'm sorry might have actually been 'excuse me' so I wasn't even being as sympathetic as I had hoped!      

On a happier note, I haven't yet written about my little sweetheart in Yosemite.... "Ruth",  is not quite 3 years old and she lives in the compound next to our good friend Joanni's that we sit with quite often in the late afternoons.   From the first time I met her she was so giggly and laughing and not shy at all, like many young kids here when they first see us --  some in fact still run when they see us coming!  She has these big, deep eyes that just make you want to hug her.  I enjoy seeing her and she will come almost every time we visit and want to sit on my lap or stand by my chair.  And if she doesn't, some of the other kids will go and get her and tell her I'm there.  She will call my name and giggle and look away or I'll tickle her or give her piggy back rides.    She brings joy to by heart and is a blessing from our Father.     

As I write this I have had to stay home from the village today but the girls will be home tonight and we will go tomorrow to stay.  Saturday night I had awful, unappeasable stomach pains, cramping and more like I had a couple weeks ago.  I was awake all night.   Long story short, through the help of our Doctor book and our friend Allyson, I'm pretty sure I have Girardia.  It's common in places around the world with poor water, sanitation, etc.  Because the medicine most likely did not get rid of all of it several weeks ago I'm taking the stronger kind of medicine this time in hopes that will kill everything off.  Please pray for the medicine to work and healing to be thorough this time.  

We will be losing our language helper in the village after this week.  Michael is going to Bamako to look for work.  Please pray that we can find a new person.  He will be difficult to replace as he was such a natural teacher.  Please pray for success for him in finding work or if it be our Father's plan for him to return to Yosemite and be able to continue to help us.