I'm Back

I am officially the worst blogger ever. I can't believe it's been six months since my last post! Well, a lot has happened since then. I can't talk about everything, so I'll start in April, the busiest month ever! I had one volunteer come who wanted to stay for three weeks among the people her church has engaged. It was pretty brave of her because April is one of the hottest months! We left Good Friday with the intentions of celebrating Easter weekend with them. It's already an eight hour drive to this village, plus we had a major tire blow out that required buying a new tire (thank God for protecting us and providing someone to change the tire!) so we didn't get to the village until pretty late. The believer there had no idea we were coming, and he was definitely surprised to see us (I'm not sure if it was a pleasant surprise or not). We talked to him and found out that he and the other believers were planning on celebrating Easter the next day, from Saturday night until Sunday morning. In true Malian fashion, they would celebrate with food and dancing.
The next night, we got dressed up in our nicest Malian outfits and started the party. Peter, the leader of the believers spoke to them about Easter, then we got started dancing. We danced the exact same dance to different songs from 9pm-1am. Everyone stands in a circle and walks around doing two steps with their left leg, then two with their right, then back to left, back to right, and so on. No one really kept in beat and some people went faster than the other, so it kind of created a domino effect with all of us in such a crowded circle. There was a lot of tripping and falling into the person in front of you, then pushing them into the person in front of them, and so on. Anyways, after a couple minutes of this the music starts to pick up and the dancing gets a little faster. At this point you turn to face the inside of the circle and your left leg stays semi-still while your right legs does two steps in the front then two in the back. I say semi-still because you're still moving to the right in the circle. Honestly, it's not difficult at all, but I'm a terrible dancer, so it was a little challenging for me. I was the weakest link in the dancing circle and no one liked to be behind me because they would run into me so much. They did, however, like to watch me from outside the circle; they laughed and laughed.

Easter morning we were all tired, but about 20 believers gathered together to hear about the resurrection of Jesus. It was a privilege to celebrate with these new believers, but heartbreaking to know that the rest of the village has no idea what or why we are celebrating.

The rest of the trip went really well. We went to many new villages and found a lot of people interested in hearing more. We even were able to train Peter in going to other villages to share stories from God's Word. Although we have a car and could have driven, we wanted to show Peter that you can go to villages and share the gospel even if you don't have a car, so asked him if we could walk to a village and share the gospel with him. He picked the village and told us that it was 6 kilometers (about 3.5 miles) away (we went back and drove it and it was definitely 9 kilometers!) Our visit went really well and about 50 people heard the gospel. On the way back, Peter told us he wanted to go to another village, this one would be a 15 K (about 9 miles) walk.
"Round trip?" we asked. "No," he replied, "each way." We didn't want to squelch his enthuiasm for sharing the gospel in other villages, so we agreed. That's 18 miles! Oh my, it was a long walk. I was terribly sore the next day, but it was completely worth every step. We were all able to share the gospel and Peter presented a powerful gospel message. He told them plainly that they had to roads to choose, one led to heaven and one to hell. He is a very timid man by nature, but the Holy Spirit has given him incredible boldness in the last year that I've known him.
God is really working among this people group and it is such a privilege to be a part of it!
Please pray for them for two things: First, they are facing a lot of persecution, so please pray that God will give them strength to bear it and that He will continue to grow the church through it. Also, here at the end of dry season, food is running out. It will not be until the fall that the harvest comes in and they will have food. Please pray that God will provide food for them.

After the three weeks in the village, I went on vacation! We went to Paris, Mersaille, and London. France was fine, but London was freezing! I was actually looking forward to coming back to the 110+ temperatures of Mali!

Now I need to share with you two "compliments" I've gotten from Malians.
1) "Oh, Lala (my Malian name), you went to America and you came back big!" It's a compliment to tell people they've gained weight, it means America was good to you.
2)"I want to gain weight so I can be like you, big but not too big"
I realize this is a genuine a compliment as us telling someone they're beautiful or they've lost weight or something, but please keep your compliments to yourself, people!

That's all for now, hopefully it won't be 6 months before my next post!