We've been in North Star 5 weeks already!

I haven't yet written about the rest of our family compound...... "Rita" is one of three wives of a man that is off working Bamako and she and the other two wives "Jackie" and "Annette" are mothers to the older girls that I've enjoyed sharing with.  These 3 ladies have also played a  hug part in welcoming us, teaching us.  We have gone to the community garden plots with "Rita" on occasion.  We pray for "Jackie" often as she quite often seems so angry & miserable and she tends to slap her children quite a bit.  One night this week she was up rampaging a good part of the night.   "Annette" is very sweet and has been a good language teacher.  "Rita" is the most laid back and speaks a decent amount of French so I can talk with her easily.  Abby and Sarah have had a chance on several occasions to discuss praying and the Esa road with her.   Last week in our team worship on Sunday morning,  we talked about God working in dreams and visions and I mentioned something about who knows  "Rita" might just come to know our Father through a vision of Jesus in a white robe.  Abby then read something from "Voices of the Faithful" that was exactly about 2 people coming to faith thru a vision of Esa in a white robe.  She had selected her passage earlier that morning and had no idea what I was going to talk about.  So we are praying that  our Father would visit "Rita" with a vision. 

My precious heavenly Daddy gave me a truly blessed "vision" this week with a wonderful early birthday present!  My parents are visiting Beth and family in Oklahoma, so I got to Skype and talk to them but best of all.... I got to see my precious, Sage, Naomi and Wade, Beth and Scott for the first time since I left them at Thanksgiving!!!!!!!!!!!!   I cried big tears of joy and they looked so wonderful to me.   I also got to see Isabella, Alexander, Cheryl and Carlos for the first time since we moved to North Star and was greeted with a wonderful birthday rendition from them.    I miss all of you so very much! 

I had a chance to talk about Esa this week with a 12 year old boy, "Manny".   He grew up in Burkina Faso so his French is really good.  After dinner one night many of the kids were sitting around us so I was doing some English with them.  "Manny" asked me about praying and I explained that I follow the Esa road in French with him.  He was translating and talking to the other boys as well.  I asked if he knew Esa and he said oh yes.  He stood up and showed me the cross with Esa on it and the holes in His hands and feet.  Turns out he had seen the movie "Passion of Christ" in Burkina.  So we discussed that Esa is the Son of our Father and he died, buried, rose again, walked on earth and spent time with kids just like him and sits with our Father in heaven now.  And that he loves them and wants them to be in heaven too (I can explain all this in my semi-broken French and with the Lord's help Manny was able to understand.  I kept agreeing with me and repeating the movie.... I really sort of thought I might have found a believer, but then I asked him what he thought of Esa and the movie and he quickly informed me 'no, I follow M'.  He is the right age for the English classes I hope to start and so I hope to connect with him some more.    Please pray for this young man to have an open heart and mind. 

We attended a wedding this week in "Yosemite" - well sort of.  The story is another of... your life is not your own here.  Apparently while I was studying language, "Emma" tried to explain to Abby and Sarah something about drums and "Rita" but of course language being difficult they didn't understand.  About 4:45pm everyone kept telling us "yang-key" which is wash.  I finally gathered through French that we were invited to the wedding of "Rita's" younger sister at 5pm!!!!!!!  So the three of us together, bathing in our open air bathroom bathing and ready in 10 minutes - it was hysterical.  When we returned all the women were doing make-up motions, they wanted to know where our makeup was - we told them "North Star".  Of course we wanted to add, had you told us last week we would have come more prepared!  So we headed off to what we thought was a wedding.  Turns out weddings are like a 4 day celebration - this night was just sitting with women preparing food for the next day.  We did that for about 2 hours and then returned home to eat dinner and were told the drums and dancing would be tomorrow and that is when I should take pictures!    So the next night, we knew we were supposed to wash by 5pm.  We headed out with "Jerri" one of the young girls because "Rita" had been at her sister's all day, for again what we thought was the wedding.  We did see the bride and her bridesmaids wearing matching outfits just like we would except African style, however, there was no wedding while we were there.  We watched and clapped along with a huge circle of women dancing to drummers in the middle of the family compound, with some women even standing on the roofs of houses to look down on the affair.  Everyone was decked out and the dancing was incredible.   When I asked "Rita" when the wedding is, she just kept saying tonight.  But we again were escorted home after a few hours.  None-the-less it was fun to see.   During that day, we heard lots of drums and even passed what we thought was a bridal procession on the road.  I asked why so many weddings today, but we didn't get is straightened out until we got back to North Star.

Turns out Friday 2/26 is the birthday of the 'Prophet M', so schools, government buildings are closed and most people vacate businesses, etc to go pray at the building of their faith.   And it is supposed to be good luck for your marriage to get married the day before his birthday - truly saddening when we learned all this that they pay that much devotion to someone, who is just a man.   Please continue to pray that our people's eyes would be open to this false sense of purpose and hope in someone who is just a man.

Our Father, has answered a prayer in a language teacher in the village.  This week, we were prayer walking and "yalla yalla" which means to walk around and greet people in a part of town we had not been in yet.  We had been praying and asking God which way to go.  A man passed us who I thought was one of the teachers we had met, so I called him "Kar-ah-mo-go" (teacher).   Someone heard me and within a few minutes we were being directed to the compound of the "Kar-ah-mo-go".  When we arrived there, we did not find a teacher like we were looking for but God gave us what we needed.  A young man, "Michael"  came out and greeted us in English after we had been seated with a bunch of other women.  Turns out he is a student on vacation home from university in Bamako.   He immediately showed signs of being a great teacher by helping us with some words when we didn't even ask.  We asked him if we could return to have him teach us.  He was so eager he wanted us to stay then but we had to get back for lunch.  Each day this week we've sat with him for two hours or more learning language, but he is a natural teacher!  We help teach him some English along the way too.  PRAISE THE LORD for this answered prayer.  We don't know exactly how long we will have him but are thankful for the time now.

We did something Saturday morning for the first time we haven't done while in Mali, we went and did something totally just for fun!  It was so much needed release as well.   We had passed some really neat and fairly tall granite boulders piles on our way to "Flossy", one of the villages with the med team, only about 10-12 minutes through the bush from our house in North Star.   We spent an 1 1/2 hours climbing, picture taking, enjoying the beautiful views from the top.  It's up on a plateau so you can see for quite a distance.  I have to admit it was a challenge and made for many laughs and hysterical pictures climbing in skirts and headwraps.  We of course, could not do this simple thing without being a two-bob tele (that's what we call it because we are always the television entertainment for our people no matter what we are doing!) to 3-4 motos that had to come off the dirt path to see what we were up to and greet us.    It reminded me of spending time in the outdoors hiking at home, and allowed for a little escape from Africa in our minds.  It was sunny but a nice breeze and with all the rocks the sand was not bad - we hope to be able to do that again. 

Abby turned 23 this week.  We had brought some Mango cookies and a Fanta with us so she had something to open and that night at dinner, with family and a particularly large number of kids around this evening, I stuck a candle in our couscous common bowl and we sang Happy Birthday to her and she blew out the candle.  They all thought this was very interesting and laughed and clapped along with us.  I tried to explain in French, it was her birthday and I think they understood.

I have joined in the Mali celebration- wish I could share pictures!  Here it is very common to have fabric with words printed on it for special occasions.  The Esa believers here print a fabric each year for Christmas and Easter.  Political parties, presidents pictures and names, etc. are all made into fabric.  I purchased 50th Anniversary special commemoration fabric (it's the same price as the others it's just special this year) as Mali is celebrating 50 years of Independence from the French this year.  It is red, green and yellow with big 50's on it and the slogan of the year "Le Cinquantenaire, C'est pour NOUS".   I designed an outfit to represent my faith - basket weave sleeves to represent crosses and diamond cut-outs to represent the crown of our King!   They do not have any idea about the representation of course, I hope to explain it someday to someone perhaps when our Father opens a door but they certainly LOVE the fact that I'm celebrating with them by wearing this very Malian fabric