On the Road

In just under 3 1/2 hours we'll be flying out from Detroit, east-bound for Dakar, Senegal. We have 1 layover, 2 total flights, and 12 hours of traveling. This will be, by far, our shortest trans-Atlantic trip (next shortest: 25 1/2 hours!).
Miriam's favorite part of flying is the tunnel we get to walk through to board the plane.
Hannah's favorite part of flying are the airport trams and buses.
Thom & Amanda's favorite part of flying is when it's all done.

Please keep us in your prayers over the next day as we travel and adjust to our new home in Dakar.

Click here to read more!

You Are the Light of the World (by Thom)

I had this sent to me a couple of weeks ago. This picture is fascinating and I've spent several moments looking over it in details with my friends and family. Basically, it shows where evangelicals around the world are concentrated. Some of the places are obvious - most of the United States, South Korea, Australia, & New Zealand - and some places surprised me - notably Holland, Chile & Madagascar. I have many evangelical friends from Holland but I still let the stereotypes of 'liberal hotbed' define my perception there. I was also pleasantly surprised to see Burkina Faso and part of western Mali show up even if it is a faint light. At the same time, I was saddened to see the needs for the Gospel to reach a large part my own United States, especially in much of the west.

If you click on the map a larger version will appear in your browser. Enjoy studying it and hopefully you can use it like I am now - a prayer guide for what parts of the world have the strongest needs for the light of Jesus Christ.

Click here to read more!

Au Revoirs and African Cuisine (by Thom)

It feels like we're in "goodbye mode" now. Yesterday Amanda cooked a great African dish for our friends (although everyone wanted to eat with forks instead of their hands - wimps!) and we said our goodbyes. Today we head up from Lima, OH where we've lived the last 5 months and arrive in Ann Arbor, MI. That's where Amanda's dad lives and we'll stay there our final week in the US. "Goodbye mode" isn't fun but we are excited to get back where we love to be - serving the Lord by serving missionaries in Africa!

Click here to read more!

Car Fund Update (by Thom)

Once we found out we were going to be moving from Mali to Senegal to serve the mission from the Regional Office, we were faced with the task of raising funds for a new car. In Mali we had a 10 year old Jeep Cherokee, which served us well but was unable to make the move with us. In many countries over there you cannot import a vehicle over 5 years old. So for the past several months we've been mentioning to churches, family, and friends that in order to buy a car we need to raise funds. Our goal is $25,000. That's not a magic number or anything, and probably won't allow us to buy a new car (vehicles are much more expensive in West Africa), but it's our goal. If we can raise more we will be able to buy a sturdier, newer vehicle. That said, we now have $13,679 or 54.7% of our goal. To borrow an idea from the United Way, here's our fund-raising thermometer:

If you would like to help with this need there are a couple of options. You can send a tax-deductible gift to:

The C&MA
Thom McMurray Vehicle Special
P. O. Box 35000
Colorado Springs, CO 80935

There's also a secure way to make your donation on-line, through the C&MA's website. If this interests you, click here.

Thanks for considering this and praying for us. We'll keep this updated and hopefully start to see this car turn more red in the months to come.

Click here to read more!

New Pictures

We uploaded quite a few new pictures to the site yesterday (29, in fact!), including the one below. Artistically this picture of Hannah isn't anything great but it's a very, very special picture. Yesterday afternoon Miriam came up to me and said, "I want to take a picture". I got my camera down, showed her where to look and where the button was and she went right to Hannah and took her picture. So, here is Miriam's very first try at taking a photo:

To see the rest of the new pictures, click here.

Click here to read more!

The Countdown Officially Begins (by Thom)

We have our tickets to return to Senegal. We'll be leaving the US on July 2nd. We were hoping to fly sooner but this was the first available flight we could make.
For those who have traveled internationally, you should be able to relate to this: we are so excited that our trip is only 12 hours from the first take-off to the final landing! Our trip from Bamako to Detroit in January took us 27 hours. This will be our shortest trans-Atlantic trip to date. Miri and Hannah are great airplane passengers, but it's still a challenging day for all of us.
To our friends in Dakar: see you soon!

Click here to read more!

Passports! (by Thom)

It's official: we have American passports for Miri & Hannah. Need visual proof? Check out the picture. We've talked to the travel agent and are working on getting a return date to Africa, which should be in less than 2 weeks. Yea!

The Happy Americans, Hannah & Miriam.

Postscript: For those of you who found our blog via Missionary-Blogs.com, you may not know the back-story here. Miri and Hannah are our daughters, whom we adopted in Mali, West Africa, in 2006. We've been working on the naturalization process for a couple of years now and it's finally complete! We've been held up from returning to Africa until we got their new passports. If you'd like to learn more about the miracles and blessings from the adoption you can read more of our blog or go here to see an article I wrote in 2007.

Click here to read more!

I Already Knew That (by Thom)

We had Chinese take-out for lunch today. Afterward I opened up my fortune cookie and saw this message:

(click to see larger version)

I didn't need the wisdom of a cookie for this, though, since it's only about 2 weeks until we arrive in Dakar! (Ok, that's not really vacation, but it's sorta correct. I am looking forward to crossing the waters!)

Click here to read more!

Kid Games (by Thom)

I like, Sissy? Airplanes.
I like, Sissy? Chicken.
I like, Sissy? Big trucks.
I like, Sissy? Mommy.
I like, Sissy? Dora.
I like, Sissy? Yellow cars.
I like, Sissy? Grandma.
I like, Sissy? Airplanes.
I like, Sissy? Meat.
I like, Sissy? Daddy.
I like, Sissy? Airplanes.

And so-on, and so-forth. This is a game that Miriam and Hannah invented for our car rides. Miriam holds a Magna Doodle in her hand and says, "I like, Sissy?" To that, Hannah replies with something she likes and Miriam will attempt to draw that thing or person on her Magna Doodle. It's a lot of fun to listen to, even though airplanes get mentioned a lot, and I love seeing both their creativity and who they mention in their game.

Click here to read more!

Moving Even Closer (by Thom)

In the last update, we mentioned we had finally gotten Social Security numbers for Miriam and Hannah and were ready to apply for passports. Today was the first day we were able to get an appointment at the passport agency and things seemed to have gone well. They told us that, baring any unforeseen problems, we should be getting their passports in 5-6 days! If that happens then we're looking at leaving the US to head back to Senegal on June 26th, just two weeks before we celebrate the twins' third birthday.

Click here to read more!

Moving Closer (by Thom)

I mentioned last month that we were having to extend our time on furlough in the US while we sought passports for Miriam and Hannah. Well, I'm very, very excited to announce that a major obstacle in that process has come through. As of last Saturday we now have Social Security cards for each girl! (It only took 6 months and 3 applications!) Now we can actually apply for the passports. We're planning on returning to Africa at the end of June, although we don't have a firm date yet set. We'll keep you posted here when we do, though.

Click here to read more!

Vacations and Measuring Sticks (by Thom)

During our time in the US Amanda, the kids, and I have been privileged to travel a little bit. While most of our families live in Ohio and Michigan my parents moved out to Utah a few years ago and we had the opportunity to fly out there and spend 3 weeks. Actually, Miriam and Hannah spent three weeks in Utah but Amanda and I only spent two. The middle week we left the twins with Grandma and Grandpa and drove down to Arizona and Nevada for a little vacation. It was the first extended time away from the girls since they came into our lives but aside from the natural reflex to miss them we had a great time (by the way, technology can be wonderful. We took my laptop and connected from the hotels each night and were able to video chat with the girls back in Utah!).
Amanda and I started by driving to Sedona, Arizona where we rode in a hot air balloon and did a lot of hiking in the Red Rock Park. Then, we went down to Phoenix for 3 days where we attended three spring training baseball games. That was a lot of fun. Lastly, we drove back to Utah via Las Vegas, where we stayed a night. Don't worry - we didn't damage our Christian witness! :)
Of course, we took a lot of pictures and many of them have been added to our picture page here on the website, along with some other pictures of Miriam and Hannah.
One of the odd consequences of being a missionary is that we don't live anywhere long enough to set up a wall or doorway where we can measure the girls' growth each year. In lieu of that, we take a family picture each time we go to Utah in the same place. It's a bend in the road near a river in a park called the Mount Nebo Loop. Below are three pictures from this area:

Thom's mom, Thom & Amanda in August 2005

Amanda, Miriam, Thom, & Hannah in April 2007

Thom, Miriam, Amanda, & Hannah in March 2009

Click here to read more!

Vehicle Fund Update (by Thom)

During our furlough in the US we've been asked a lot how people can help us. I'm not always the best about communicating these sorts of things, but we're trying to raise money to buy a car when we arrive in Dakar, Senegal. We're not sure yet exactly how much we'll need but we've projected a target of $25,000 to buy a gently used vehicle. As of the end of April we had just under $12,000 in our vehicle fund.
If you feel the Lord moving you to help with our purchase of a car in Senegal, you can send a tax-deductible gift to:

The C&MA
Thom McMurray Vehicle Special
P. O. Box 35000
Colorado Springs, CO 80935

There's also a secure way to make your donation on-line, through the C&MA's website. If this interests you, click here.

Thanks for considering this and praying for us.

Click here to read more!

It Beats 40 Years Wandering... (by Thom)

Wow, it's hard to believe it's been over 2 months since I last posted! Home Assignment (furlough) is a strange time for me and I have difficulty expressing what it all means to me. I am looking forward to getting back to Africa, but at the same time trying to enjoy the moments we have here in the US.

One of our big challenges this home assignment was to get the twins their social security numbers and passports. The former must happen before we can approach the latter but we've been unsuccessful so far in getting those numbers. We've talked to our local office many times but until yesterday we didn't seem to be getting anything done. Today I'm hopeful that we will have those in a week or two. After that it is passport-time, which shouldn't be as difficult. However, between this complication and a few others happening on the African side (some related to our move from Mali to Senegal and others related to other people's transitions) we've had it suggested to us from our leadership that we extend our home assignment two months. Now, instead of returning April 29th, we'll head back to Africa at the end of June or beginning of July.

We were not happy to have to wait so long to get back home, but we also recognize that leaving soon doesn't seem to be God's timing. In fact, the whole idea of "God's Timing" seems to be central here. We've seen so many things fall out of place so quickly that it really has forced us to throw up our hands and say, "Lord, we're sorry if we've tried to rule this situation. We give it back to You."

Please keep us and the Soc Sec #'s in your prayers. We think we have the housing worked out for our extended time remaining and we have a car at least another month. We're not sure yet about after May, though, since so many other missionaries had plans to come home.

By the way, it has been a long time since I've posted new pictures, too. I'll work on that soon. In the meantime, here's a family picture we had taken in the mountains of Utah last month.

(Click to see larger image)

Click here to read more!

Kid Prayers (by Thom)

I know I haven't written a lot since we arrived in the US last month. Part of it has been business, part has been negligence, and part has been my-fingers-are-frozen-solid-and-I-can't-type. We got on the plane in Mali and it was 95 degrees that day. The next day we arrived in Detroit, MI and it was 5 above. It only got worse from there over the next few weeks. We're slowly adapting, though.
This evening I had the privilege of sharing the story of how we came to adopt Miriam and Hannah and how the Lord really pulled Hannah through a rough start. I love to share that story - it might be my favorite thing about being back in the US. Tonight we were at the Gallion, OH C&MA church where we had a wonderful time and made many new friends. After the evening service where I spoke we had a meal together in the fellowship hall. There was a 5-year old child from another West African country there who is in the US anticipating surgery for a problem that keeps her from walking. I was trying to speak to the little girl in French with a little Bambara thrown in when Miriam came over. Miri walked up, grabbed my hand and grabbed the hand of the little girl and announced, "I want to pray for Jennifer*". I was stunned. Miri had never said anything like this before. She loves to pray at supper time and calls us on it if we forget, but she's never asked to pray elsewhere and we've never included her before in prayers for others. Still, her tender heart was showing so I prayer for the girl, pausing each line so Miri could repeat, and afterwards Miriam was satisfied and ran off to play again (leaving me on the verge of tears - of joy). She's only 2 and a half years old, but as a dad, I'm so excited to see her interest in these things!

*name changed for the story.

Click here to read more!