New Teams

It's been forever since I updated! A lot has happened, we've had some great teams come in and have seen God do some amazing things. One team was a dental team that came in. They spent entire days pulling teeth (it was really gross). I tried to stay as far away from the blood as possible, so I just cleaned instruments and loaded shots. You would not believe how scared the people get when they have to get their teeth pulled. They were hollering and trying to get away from the dentists. One lady had 16 teeth pulled! I'm not sure how may she had left after that, probably one or two. It will really make you remember to brush your teeth!
Last week we had a group from the Tennessee Baptist Convention come. They have adopted the south eastern part of Mali, so we showed them some villages there. We had to go out the week before they came and make sure we could find the villages and make sure the villages were ok with a bunch of white visitors. We made it to the first village fine, but when we went to look for the second, we couldn't get to it. The road had turned into a river during rainy season. We decided we would take them to another village, but we didn't get to go out there. The team got here and we were taking them to the village, but we didn't end up in the village we had planned. The other car and I got separated and when we we finally found each other, we were at a different village and just decided to stay there. It's funny how God has to work pretty hard to get us where He wants us! We

found a believer in the village and spent the night with him. He had lived there for over 25 years but had only once shared his faith with anyone in the village. We asked him to take us to a few different places and we shared stories from God's word there. The people were really open and seemed hungry for God's word. The second village we went to was a little different. The people were friendly, but it was clear that the chief and was not open to hearing the gospel and was not willing for anyone in his village to become a follower of Jesus. We were a little discouraged until the second day when a young man who had been hanging around us a

lot told us that he wanted to become a follower of Jesus. The second night we went to greet the chief, but didn't plan on staying there until he told us that more people had come and wanted to hear stories from God's word. He told us that 2 men had wanted to follow Jesus, but that they had sent someone in there place to hear the stories. We stayed there for a while and then went back to bed, not really knowing what to think about these two men, or knowing who they were. The next morning as we prepared to leave, it started raining. We were a little impatient to leave because we had crossed some creeks on the way in and wanted to get out before the water got too high, but our translator wouldn't come out of the hut until it stopped raining. We waited and waited on him, and finally he came and told us that the two men had come to talk to us. We talked to them for a while
and they told us that they wanted to follow Jesus even though they knew they would face persecution.These men understood the gospel, but they knew little else. It's awesome to see how the Holy Spirit's power to draw people to God no matter how little they know. They begged us to come back and teach them more, but they said don't go back to the chief's, teach them somewhere else. Once again I was reminded that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. God is doing all the work, but we have to be obedient to the great commission and make disciples of all the nations.
Please pray for these new believers as they will be facing a lot of persecution in the coming days. Pray that God will give them wisdom beyond their knowledge and strong backs to face the struggles coming up. Pray that they will have a heart for evangelism and share the gospel with those around them.

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.

Family in Africa

Yay for my family coming! Eight months is by far the longest amount of time I had ever gone without seeing them, so it was great to have them here!
They got here on a Saturday night, but none of their luggage made it, so that was bad. Sunday we rested and hung around Bamako, and fortunately Sunday night all of the luggage came in.
Monday morning we headed out to the village. In Mali, it is VERY important to have a Malian name, which no one in my family had. Within minutes of entering the village, they people in the village realized my family didn't have Malian names, and sent out to find the right people to name my family.

We were sitting talking to someone and a tiny, energetic, old lady ran up to my mom and started hollering her new name ( Bintu something). Poor Mama had no idea what was going on so we explained to her that this was her new name. Then the lady started dancing and singing "Togoma! Togoma! Togoma!" which means, namesake. Mama was then forced to get up and dance with the lady and they danced around and clapped for a while. If there was anything from the past 8 months that I would like to have on video is was that.Then is was Sarah's turn (not as funny, but she had to dance) then Elizabeth's. 3 different women were chosen to name them then their family members came up and told them things like, you're my mom because you were named after my mom, it was quite a big deal. Daddy and Jonathan got new names too. The weird thing was that they did not

give any of them the same last name, even though we're all family. Every person has a different last name. I guess they wanted to give as many people the chance to be "togomas" as possible.
The first village we were in was incredible because God is really, really working there. 2 journeygirls lived there for 2 years and when they left there were six believers. In the eight months since they left, that number has grown to 55. The believers are so bold and passionate. They are going around and sharing the gospel and forming their own church. They are desperate to have someone come teach them so they can know more. Unfortunately, in this village, my mom fell and fractured her wrist and Elizabeth got a stomach bug. Too bad.
We only spent one night in that village, so the next afternoon we headed to the next village. Fortunately for us, this was a big week for that village. Not only did they have a new baby, so there was a baby naming party coming up, but there was also

a wedding! To make it even better, both parties were for one man. His first wife had just had this baby, and he was about to take a second wife. Big week for him. Everyone was really excited. They had a pounding party complete with a singer. She sang for us, "White people can buy cars, white people can buy cell phones, white people can buy food, white people can buy (anything you can think of) but they can't buy children." I have no idea why she sang this, but she did, and made us all to dance to the song.We spent 2 nights in that village, then came back to Bamako. The Africans
were all very impressed to meet an entire white family, it was really funny. It was such a great time, I'm so glad they came!

Desert Elephants!

It's been a long time! I have lots to tell. First of all, God is really working in Mali! You get so used to people being stubborn and resistant to the gospel that when people are actually receptive, you almost don't know what to do! In April we had a team come out who is working with one of our people groups in the south. These people have been really resistant to the gospel for a while, but God is really showing His power there. We were sitting in a village talking to the chief just making small talk when a man (who none of us had ever met before) just asked us how to become a follower of Jesus! Nothing we had done, just God working in his heart. We shared the gospel with him and he said he wanted to learn more so that he and his family could become followers of Jesus. We went to his village on a later day and shared stories from God's Word and answered his questions about what being a Christian meant. After talking a while, he told us he wanted to change his name to Paul, meaning that he wanted to become a Christian! Malians commonly change their names to Christian names when they decide to follow Jesus. Please keep Paul in your prayers as he continues to follow the Lord with only one other believer near him. He told us how he knows he will be persecuted by his village but he still wants to follow Jesus.

Another cool thing is the research trips we've been doing. The Tennessee Baptists are adopting the area near Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire, and we've been researching the area looking for villages for them to go to. The first village we went to we asked if we could share stories from God's word.He said yes, but he wanted the whole village to be invited! We said of course that was fine. The chief began hollaring at a man, and our translator said she heard him tell the man to get speakers and a microphone (keep in mind this is a village with no electricity or running water or anything). A little bit later, men are setting up sound equipment! Lots of people from the village began arriving and a man got on the microphone and told the rest of the people to come "right now, right now, right now!"
Lots of people from the village came and we actually had to use the microphone or not everyone could have heard us! Lots of people were able to hear the gospel and they really seemed to get it. One man kept insisting that there were many ways to God, including Jesus and Mohammad. I asked him if got that from the story and he said yes, that Jesus had said he was just a prophet. Another man said, "No! Jesus said that he was God! That's why he was whipped and beaten and killed! You weren't listening!" Now, for a Muslim to say Jesus is the same as God is a big deal, so that was really cool to hear.
The next day we went to a few more villages, but we couldn't seem to find the right one. We got to our last village of the day and 20-30 people were listening to our stories. After presenting the gospel (the Creation to Return story, an overview of the entire Bible with the theme of Jesus as the promised Savior) we asked them if they wanted to become a follower of Jesus. After an awkard silence, two men raised their hands! We asked them questions to see if they understood and they really seemed like they did. They told us that they were ready to be baptized and that their was a church a good distance away but they would go there to be baptized. Being baptized can mean a lot of persecution for people here, but they insisted that is what they wanted without any prodding from us.
Hopefully the Tennessee Baptists will be able to work in these villages and disciple the new believers. Can you believe that there are people who really want to follow the Lord, but they don't know how? How can they believe without being told?

Now, the coolest trip I have ever taken: to see the desert elephants! Now, people ask me all the time about the cool animals I see, and you have to understand, West Africa doesn't have cool animals. That's East and South Africa. Seeing monkeys here is a really big deal. The only animals I see reguarily are cows, goats, and sheep. Occasionally camels. So, seeing elephants is a really big deal. This is a migratory herd of about 400 elephants that travels from Burkina Faso to Mali every year looking for water. The last watering hole before dry season is over is a little south of TImbuktu, so this is where most of the elephants are. Unfortunately, by the time we got there is had already rained, so some of the elephants were headed back to Burkina, but we still saw about 90-

100 elephants. They were hard to get to because they were completely wild (or "savage" as the French say) and they kept running away from us. At one point, one of them actually started chasing one of our cars. The people in the car were pretty scared, but it was really funny. There was even a week old (I don't know how we knew it was a week old) elephant that was only about 2-3 feet tall! We had 3 or 4 trackers with us, and they were so scared of the elephants! They were so funny, if we tried to get too close they freaked out. They kept telling us to get away because they were so scared the elephants were going to attack. It was SO much fun.
Finally, here are a few common Bambara blessings:

• For a new marraige: May swindles not interfere
• For a new baby: May he be a moslem and may he have more younger brothers and sisters than old ones
• For a sickness: May it be a sin expiator
• For a death: May his resting place be cool
  
• For a holiday: May worms not alter it nor termites