One Year

It's hard for me to believe I'm already one year into my term! It seems like time has flown by, but when I think back to where I was a year ago, it seems like a long time ago. I think my favorite thing about being here is seeing how God is working everywhere, even where (or especially where) no one is joining Him. We have had so many divine appointments, driving around (probably lost) until we found a random village, only to find that there are people there who have wanted to hear more about Jesus, but there has been no one to tell them.
I probably write about this over and over, but the work really is the Lord's! There are people groups here that have absolutely no believers, but what a promise that one day there will be believers from that people group, worshipping around the throne with us! God made that promise, He has to make sure it comes to fruition, He cannot lie! It is a privilege for us to be apart of the completion of that promise.
However, there are definitely times since I've been here that

I have not seen it as a privilige. It's awful how I can get distracted by little things, like, it's too hot here, I can't find anything I need, misquitoes are biting me, I'm sick of having to explain why I don't want to marry the men, etc. It's so easy to get caught up thinking about what I'm missing at home, how much easier life was there, but I forget it doesn't matter.
I want to ask you to pray for the last people groups of Mali without any believers, especially the Moors. They are a nomadic people who live in the desert. Getting the gospel to them will be hard. but Praise God not impossible. There will be Moors worshipping the Lord one day, and let's pray that that day comes quickly!

Things I have learned so far:
-Bambara! My Bambara is terrible, but I can usually say what I need to (using hand gestures to clarify!) and have only made a few major language mistakes (that I know of)
-How to eat with my hands. You might think this sounds simple, little kids do it all the time, but it's hard. I don't know if it's because we got in so much trouble as kids for doing it or because we're out of practice, but it's hard. Especially when the food is so hot it's burning your fingers, Africans can pick up red hot coals, so they don't understand why I can't touch boiling sauce!
-How to drive a stick shift in Bamako traffic! No kidding, one of my biggest fears about coming here was driving a stick shift. To say I got off to a rough start learning is an understatement. I think I killed the enging about 90% of the time (that's not an exaggeration, I was actually that bad). Fortunately, I have only hit one non moving object and no moving ones since I've been here! And I rarely stall anymore either. Clearly that is not my own skill, God knew I would need special grace to drive here!
-How to eat wierd food. I've eaten rat, wart hog, pigeon, and surprisingly, all of those were better than the worst food of all, "to." Especially cold to. Gag.

That's all I can think of for now, but surely I've learned more than that. Who knows what I'll learn in this next year? Maybe Bambara with no hand gestures? Doubt it. Maybe I'll figure out what I'm going to do when I get back to America. Right now, I have no clue! I doubt my parents are going to let me live with them the rest of my life, so I better work on a plan!

On a different note, yesterday we all went to a friend of ours' baby naming party. They had really wanted us to come, and there were 7 of us white women there, which has to be some sort of record. The dad had borrowed a friend's camcorder and insisted on keeping it really close to our faces for most of the party. We stayed for a while, ate (the food was delicious, I didn't know lamb was good until I came here!) and finally asked if we could leave. The dad said that a friend of his had wanted to come meet us, and we had to wait for her. We waited and waited and waited and waited, finally she came. Apparently she was a griot, because as soon as she came, she started singning. She then asked our names, then would sing a song about our names, the command us to stand up and dance, and one by one we each had to dance for her with the camcorder recording our every move. The thing about griots is, they sing for you when they want to, we never asked for this, and you have to pay them! I actually paid the lady $2 for her to sing a song about my name and then she made me dance. That's a rip off. She then would make us get up and dance in groups that she chose, then she made us all get in a circle and dance around. Finally, she made us get in the middle of the circle "one by one" and shake our butts at everyone then point to the next person who had to do this. All of this was caught on film. How mortifying.