Keeping Busy (by Thom)

Normally when I set out to write my posts on this blog, I have my topic and outline already finished in my mind. The process is just a matter of transferring thoughts to the computer, and then uploading to the ‘net. Today has been another story, though. It’s funny to me, since I had about 4 or 5 ideas for updates yesterday and today they’ve all left me. In fact, I’ve started several different things, only to delete them. In the end I’ve come to realize that I didn’t want to write the truth, that sometimes things are difficult. Usually our reports are in reaction to observations or praises, but I want these updates to be an honest reflection of our lives.

With that in mind, I will say that the last 2 or 3 weeks have been very difficult for me. It’s no coincidence that we started classes to learn the Bambara language at that time. Time management has really been my problem. We have class in the morning on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. I’ve found that fitting all the bookkeeping duties in around the language school (not to mention studying) along with adjusting to life in Mali, buying a car, and setting up a house to be daunting. Not for one moment do I think I’m the first to juggle all these things, and that comforts me, but I would appreciate your prayers for Amanda and me as we continue our studies and our lives. Please pray specifically that I’ll be able to sleep restfully (sometimes difficult in times of stress), finish my bookkeeping reports for the field in a timely fashion, and be able to retain what I learn in classes. This next week loams especially large for me, since the beginning of the month is my busiest time and we will also have our field’s Prayer Conference.

"Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us. " ... William Barclay, The Plain Man's Book of Prayers

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How We Got To Mali (by Thom)

Life has definitely changed a lot for Amanda and I in the last 18 months. A lot of you know the story and how we ended up as missionaries in Mali, West Africa. However, it occurred to me last week that a number of you who follow our reports from here don’t know the “back story.” I’ll warn you ahead of time that this is, by far, the longest entry we’ve ever posted, but I’ve decided that now would be as good a time as ever to tell you the story of our journey…

In December of 2003 I was asked by the Board of Directors at WTGN-FM in Lima, OH where I worked to lead a short-term trip to Burkina Faso (if you don't know, it's next to Mali in West Africa) for construction of a Christian radio station. I was very excited, of course. I ended up with a team of myself and 7 other guys from the Lima area and we went in February 2004. We had a very successful trip and finished all the construction we set out to do and more. I also had the opportunity to travel to 2 other towns where we were thinking about building future stations. The Burkina station is operated by the Christian & Missionary Alliance (C&MA). That was the start of my relationship with the Alliance. The whole time I was in Burkina I was thinking to myself, "This would be really great if I could lead several more short-term trips here. That's a sort of mission in itself." However, while I was there I learned that my ideas of what a missionary was didn't match up with reality. I realized there was room for radio people, business people, dorm parents, and relief & development people. All of them could work alongside the church planters and doctors that I already knew about. These thoughts kind of got stored in the back of my mind as I processed all the new experiences around me. With me in Burkina, on my team, was my best friend. He and I spent a lot of time talking about missions. His heart was already in that, and he was trying to figure out his place in the missions world. Accidentally, I think he helped me figure out mine. While we were there, Amanda stayed with his wife (who is her best friend) for the two weeks. During that time, Amanda says she really realized that I was going to come back and say, "Amanda, what do you think about missions?" Those were her exact words. They prayed a lot and talked a lot about these things, but when I came back, initially, I was still thinking about leading more short-term trips.
My first day back at work after returning I went to the news computer, as I normally did when I got to work. I'd read through all the news, sports, entertainment stuff. When I got to the entertainment items, I thought, "What drivel!" With that in the back of my head, I went to my office. It seemed that every experience I had the next several hours, days, and even weeks reminded me of the joys of daily life in spite of adversity that the Burkinabe experience. About 4 or 5 days after returning I remarked to Amanda, “I know I’m back where I live and where I work, but I don’t feel like I’m home.”
With these thoughts all traveling through the vast empty space of my head, it took me about a week to say to Amanda, "Amanda, what do you think about missions?" Those were my exact words. Of course, she wasn't surprised.
At that point, we're in late February, 2004. Over the next 3 months I did a number of speaking engagements in Lima and around Ohio to talk about the project we did, and try to raise awareness for prayer for Burkina Faso (Most people have never heard of it) and the radio station we help build. At one of my engagements, the Lima Christian Businessmen's Luncheon, there was a local Pastor in the audience named Bob Pease. Bob was a missionary in Mali for 30 years, until his wife was in a bad car wreck and needed a wheelchair. However, Bob didn't introduce himself to me. I only learned this much later, when I was at home in late May on a Sunday afternoon and the phone rang. It was the Sunday announcer at the radio station. "Thom, there's a local pastor here with a lady who was a missionary in that place you went (he couldn't remember the name!) for 41 years. She'd like to talk with you." I told him I'd be right there, and Amanda went with me. Her name is Nancy Pierce and she was in the area on a missions tour, and Bob wanted her to meet me, based on that speech I had given. We ended up talking for about 2 hours. As she was getting ready to leave she said she and her husband were coming out of retirement for one year to go to Mali and be the Field Directors. She said they had a need for a bookkeeper, and asked if I had ever considered missions, especially business missions.
At this point, I need to back up about 2 months. After Amanda and I realized we were being called to the mission field we started our planning: "We should have our finances in order in about 2 years…" "Then we'll start looking at different radio ministries...." Those were our plans. I did start looking at radio mission organizations sooner, though. I looked at a number of different groups on the internet. I even had a discussion with one particular radio ministry. I went to their offices in and talked with a guy there for 3 ½ hours. That was about 2 weeks before I met Nancy. It was also about that time that I was realizing that God wasn't calling me to radio missions. I had a minor in college in business, and I felt the Lord saying very clearly, "You've used your degree in radio long enough. Now I want you to use business." (That's a paraphrase )
When Nancy asked if I was feeling led to business missions, my jaw about hit the floor. I gave her my business card, but at the same time thought, "Who knows if anything will come of this." About a week later my parents moved to Utah for my dad's new job. I drove a car out there for them and flew back. When I arrived back in Lima there was an email waiting for me from the Alliance asking me to apply for the bookkeeping position. I wrote back saying that I didn't have any experience and wasn't sure I was what they wanted. They then called me that night and reassured me about that, even asking if we would be able to leave as early as December! This is an amazing thing that I believe only God could have worked out. We were not members of the Alliance (we attended an Evangelical Free Church) and the C&MA does not seem to be an easy organization to get into from the outside. Because of the "Great Commission Fund" we didn't have to raise support and were able to leave sooner. This is now early June, 2004. We started the application process, had our first interview in August. Our second interview was in September. During that one, they said they wanted to recommend us for appointment. In October, we were officially appointed. This is normally a very long process that can span several years. In December, we were to leave for language study in France. Because of visa problems, we didn't actually leave until the end of January. That turned out to be a very good thing because on December 6th, I stepped of my porch wrong carrying furniture and severely damaged my left foot. I was still in the cast when we left for France. We had basically 6 months in France, and then returned to the states for one month (August). On September 1st, we arrived in Bamako, Mali. We're now studying Bambara (the local language: even though French in the official language only about 12% of the people actually speak it) and I've been hard at work in the office. There hasn't been a bookkeeper here in quite some time. I'm having fun, though, picking through the piles and learning all sorts of new things.
I hope this email was informative. My head still spins when I think about how fast things happened. Still, through it all the Lord was gracious to us and guided our footsteps. We have met many wonderful and Godly people who have mentored us along the way, whether they knew it or not! We thank you, too, for supporting our ministry with prayer and encouragement. The emails we get from friends are very encouraging and it’s good to know that we aren’t here alone, but have a whole family behind us: the family of God.

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Drivin' Around Bamako (by Thom)

This post isn't so much about what we see driving around town, but about the fact that we can now do so!! Today (10/25/2005) we were able to buy a used Jeep Cherokee! When we can post pictures, you can be sure we'll do so. In the meantime, please continue to pray for our car fund, as we had to borrow nearly 300,000 cfa (about $600) to purchase it. The total cost was 5 million cfa (about $10,000). That is a really good deal here. Also continue to pray with us that this vehicle will serve us well in our ministries here in Mali.

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Ask The McMurrays (by Thom)

When we get the same question posed to us by different people, I hope we realize that maybe more people are wondering the same question. When this happens, we try to answer the questions in a column called “Ask The McMurrays.” We’ve been asked a couple of times now about the local wildlife so I thought this would be a good time to try and paint a word picture of what we see around our house and around town.

In our courtyard, there are a ton of lizards. Mostly they are green and range in size from 2 inches up to over a foot long from head to tail. Normally, though, they are about 4 or 5 inches long. Some of them have yellow tails, and the biggest of them Amanda has named “Wally”. Outside our walls, you don’t have to walk very far to see several different animals. There is a goat or a sheep (it’s hard to tell the difference here) that is always tied to the power-line pole outside. Our neighbors have a pet monkey. I haven’t gotten to meet it yet, but Amanda did and took some pictures. Hopefully we’ll get some of these on our picture page soon! It’s not unusual to find people outside using a donkey or pair of donkeys to pull a cart. In fact, you’ll even see these on the main roads. There are a lot of what American’s would consider ‘barnyard animals’ all around us in the big city: goats, sheep, cows, horses, donkeys, and chickens. Saturday, I saw a man walking down the road riding a camel! When I’ve left the city, I’ve seen beautiful tropical birds in bright blues and reds. Of course, the wildest animal we’ve seen lives in our house! Amanda and I got a kitten and named him Tisike. That’s a Bambara name from II Timothy. He’s been a lot of fun and given Amanda company during the day. Our house-help, a Malian woman, also really likes Tisike.

I’d love to answer any more questions that come our way. Please send them to us at our email address: mcmali@gmail.com

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The least will become the greatest (by Amanda)

Recently I went out with a missionary (for fear of hurting her ministry with prostitutes I'm not going to mention her name) who ministers at a woman’s prison each week. She was kind enough to let me tag along. It was such a neat experience I want to tell you from entrance to exit what I saw and what we did.

As we drove up to the prison there is a high concrete wall surrounding it with a large door at the front. One interesting thing I found was that the door was not locked! Anyone could enter through it. After going through the doors there was a little room off to the side, I think it was used to monitor who was coming and going. From there we entered a large yard where women and children were sitting and talking. Beyond them were the housing units. As we walked towards the housing the other missionary greeted the women and asked them to join us later for singing if they would like. I was only able to understand what she told me in French and English. The housing was like large dorm rooms surrounding an inner court yard. There were no locked doors and women who had children kept them in the prison with them. Some women had given birth within the last week. There were women crocheting and others washing their clothes and children were just about everywhere. My friend excitedly pointed out the nursery and playground that she had helped raise money to build. We (Americans) would find it dull and dirty, but here it meant so much to the women. We went to each room and greeted women. As we did this she would tell me of the new women here that she was meeting for the first time. She also told me that most of the women were not violent criminals.

After we finished greeting the women we went to the TV room (I call it that because it was the only room with a TV and I cannot think of another way to describe it). This is the part I am most excited about. Some of the women began gathering in the room and the other missionary brought her guitar and we began to praise God in song. To see the joy on women’s faces was wonderful and our time of worship began. After worshipping in song she told a Bible story; it was the one of Saul being blinded. She ended by having one of the Malian women who comes with her each week pray. Then it was time to prepare to leave. She passed out a gift (a tube of toothpaste) to each off the women who had stayed with us and we began to say our goodbyes. I was so blessed by this experience so often we take things for granted and to see how happy they were to sing songs to God and listen to a bible story it nearly brought tears to my eyes. It also got me thinking how blessed I was to grow up being able to go to church and learn Gods word form an early age. Some of the people here in Mali are just learning, as adults, of God’s love and I have had known that gift almost my entire life. So I would ask that you pray for these women and also for my friend and the other women who help her so that they can continue in the strength of God and that the women at the prison will reach out and take for themselves the gift of God.

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"The Message is in the Journey" by Thom

Last weekend Joel Bubna, our field director, and I traveled to San, Mali for a pastors meeting. In Malian culture, to be introduced is very important. Since Joel and I are new here it was very important to go to this meeting of Alliance pastors. Friday, we left for Koutiala. Our mission has a guest house there, and we stayed there Friday night. Koutiala is about a 5 ½ hour drive from Bamako. Early Saturday morning we left Koutiala with 5 other missionaries. Four of them are also new and one of them is our “elder statesman”. It was his job to give the formal introduction. From there we had a 2 hour drive to San. Our introductions took about half an hour, during which Joel give a nice message about the importance of cooperation between the mission and the national church. Standing outside after the introductions someone remarked that we had drove about 7 hours to say “hi”! (That would like driving from Lima, OH to Milwaukee, WI!!) We all laughed about it, but at the same time we knew this is one of the important cultural differences between Mali and the US. Here, relationships are key; much more so than in the states. The US is a country of homes and walls. We live inside. Malians live outside. They cook outside; they socialize outside; they play outside; they work outside. To the average Malian, ‘inside’ is a place to sleep. Anyway, that brings me to the title of this post. The president of the national church instantly recognized the importance of our long trip. He was very happy we came and told us, “The message is in the journey.” How exciting it is to know that relationships have been started and friendships begun.

Romans 10:15 – And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

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