A Dry And Weary Land (by Thom)

Psalm 63 is such a well-known chapter, but recently the words have taken on new meaning for Amanda and me. Here are the first 3 verses to Psalm 63: ¹O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water. ²Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory. ³Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips will praise You. (NASB)

Since returning from our trip to Dakar, Senegal, I’ve been forced to think a lot about dry lands and how Christ is the living water. With two brief exceptions, we haven’t had any rain in Mali since October. This is normal, but not too pleasant. The Niger River, which flows through the heart of Bamako, has lost a lot of water. In fact, there is about 150 yards of extra dry ground on either side now. Until recently, though, this hasn’t affected us much. This week has been a different story, though. Upon returning home, we noticed there was no water in the tank. Normally, we only get city water during the night, so we fill the tank up each night for use during the day. Unfortunately, we haven’t been getting enough water at night to even fill the tank. That means no water during the day. It also means we need to get up early enough to use the city water if we want a shower. The last couple of days we haven’t even had a bit of water at night.

And yet, we don’t have it too bad. We have a well on our property, so we can pump up water to wash clothes (yes, by hand), wash dishes, take a “bucket bath”, and flush. We have the money to buy bottled water for drinking and cooking. My heart goes out to the people who don’t have these options. One of the interesting things in this part of the world is the door-to-door water salesmen. Often, you will see kids with a donkey cart and a couple of large, yellow containers on top. These are full of water. We have had to buy this water once! There is no doubting Mali is a dry land. More than the literal meaning, though, is the spiritual dryness. We live in a land that is less than 2 % Christian. The Church is alive and well, if small, and they have found true satisfaction. If you read on in Psalm 63, you see it’s a Psalm of finding satisfaction in God. From Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary: Even in affliction we need not want matter for praise. When this is the regular frame of a believer's mind, he values the loving-kindness of God more than life. God's loving-kindness is our spiritual life, and that is better than temporal life. We must praise God with joyful lips; we must address ourselves to the duties of religion with cheerfulness, and speak forth the praises of God from a principle of holy joy. Praising lips must be joyful lips.

Please pray for Mali. Pray for the physical needs: water, food, shelter. Please also pray for the spiritual needs of the church and those who are not yet believers. In this dry and weary land, Lord, we ask for people to know the satisfaction that comes from a life full of You.

UPDATE: Thanks to all who prayed for our water situation. After nearly two weeks of little to no water, it has come back! We're really enjoying the showers!

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Some Like It Hot (by Thom)

It is definitely getting warm around here! When we left Bamako for Dakar, Senegal a few weeks ago it was starting to warm up. Back then, our average daily high was about 98 or 99 degrees. In Dakar, we were averaging 85 degrees. What a difference! Getting back to Mali, though, has been a bit rough. As spring has started in the US, our hot season has begun in full swing. We're now averaging about 102-104 degrees daily, and I can tell you: there is a big difference between 98 and 104. Yesterday, our mission's field director, Joel Bubna, mentioned to a Malian, "It's getting warm." The man replied, "You haven't seen anything yet!"
Next month, April, is our hottest month. From what we've been told, it wouldn't be strange for temperatures to reach 120 degrees. This is added to what is called harmattan winds: dry winds that blow in from the desert. The harmattan picks up a lot of dust into the sky, and often we can only see a short distance. Sometimes, visibility resembles that of a fog from all the dust in the air! In the picture here, you can see the dust in the air. It looks a lot like a mist.
Please pray for us in this time of transitional weather. Pray that we can adjust, sleep through the heat, and find the energy during the day when the heat tries to sap it away.

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Blessability (by Thom)

OK, I know it’s not really a word, but during our recent conference in Dakar, Senegal, “blessability” turned out to be our running theme.

Nothing is worth losing the blessing of God for! Blessability is THE major issue that determines whether you have success or failure, resources or need, victory or defeat. And blessability is dependent upon one thing - am I fully obeying the Lord in this area? Am I carefully following His ways in this situation? There is no amount of hard work, scheming, talking, planning that can make up for God's blessing not being there. – Ron Hutchcraft, “Daddy’s Smile”

The quote illustrates the importance of our lives and actions. As bookkeepers for the Christian & Missionary Alliance, and as servants to the other missionaries, we want to be accountable to God, to the other missionaries, and also to the institutions around us, like our auditors and governments. What an encouragement it was to me to hear these words, as well as to meet other missionary bookkeepers. Aside from our Regional Bookkeeper in Dakar, I hadn’t met any other people in my same role here in Africa. We had bookkeepers representing the fields of Burkina Faso, Gabon, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, and Senegal. Most of us have only served in this role for a short time, so we also had a lot to collectively discuss and learn.

Please pray for us in Mali, and in the other African fields, as we seek the Lord’s Will in our bookkeeping, so that we are fully obeying and putting the mission in a blessable position.

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After A Week In Dakar (by Thom)

We arrived in Dakar, Senegal this past Monday night and despite having great internet access, we’ve been too busy or sick to tell you about it.
Apparently, there was a bout of the flu going around before we arrived and it caught me Wednesday night. That pretty much eliminated anything productive for Thursday, but we’ve been having very full days otherwise. Our first day, Amanda and I went out exploring on foot. We walked a couple of kilometers down the main road near our guest-house. Some of the first things we noticed: There are a lot more cars and less bicycles/mopeds here than Bamako, we don’t get as many strange stares here, Dakar has a very distinct odor, and there are a lot of conveniences here that are not in Bamako. About the odors – Dakar has open sewers. Enough said. About the conveniences – in our walk we came across a shopping mall! Such a thing doesn’t exist in Bamako. It had a fast-food restaurant, a sporting goods store, a shoe store, a grocery store, and a couple of other small shops. We ate lunch there, savoring the atmosphere. Later in the day, we took a taxi ride and saw a little more of the town. Wednesday, we went and visited Dakar Academy. This is the boarding school where many of our missionary kids go. We got there in time for the second half of their soccer game. I realized I, like most Americans, don’t understand this game at all.
Thursday, as I mentioned, was a lost day, but we had planned to go to Gorée Island. Gorée is just off the coast of Dakar, and was once a center of the thriving slave trading industry. Today is stands as a city-wide museum. Fortunately, I was feeling better after a day and we were able to shuffle around our schedule and go Saturday. Before that, on Friday, we went back to Dakar Academy for a fundraising carnival they held. After that, we had the wonderful opportunity to get together with a couple of friends who we met in language school in France.
We’ve been busy, but having fun. It’s been a great vacation, illnesses aside, and I’m ready for our bookkeeping conference next week. Hopefully, photos will be coming soon, too.
Update: We've added a number of photos from our time in Senegal. Click here to see them.

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Interesting Trivia about Sengal, Dakar, and Gorée Island (by Thom)

Senegal is on the Atlantic Ocean, bordering The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, and Mauritania. The Gambia is bordered on three sides by Senegal, with its only unique border to the Atlantic Ocean. Senegal is about the size of South Dakota.
Senegal’s highest elevation is only about ¼ mile above sea level.
Just over 11 million people live in Senegal.

Dakar is Senegal’s capital city.
About 2 million people live in Dakar.
The western-most point of Africa is in Dakar.

Gorée Island is a small island just off the coast of Dakar.
It was a major slave-trading center and now is a popular place for dignitaries to come. George Bush, Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, and Pope John Paul II all visited Gorée Island.

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The World is Getting Smaller... (by Thom)

... every day.
In times past, missionaries came to Africa on boats. It could take them months to get to the continent. Then they could spend several more months getting to their village. Today, Mali is just a couple of 6 hour plane rides away from the US.
In times past , missionaries mailed home their letters and updates. That also took months, as it traveled by boats. Even until recently, telephone calls to the US were so expensive that they were regulated to luxuries. Today, I can call anyone in the US for 2 cents a minute through the internet.
It's the idea of quicker information that has gotten me thinking lately. Because Amanda and I use this website to open a portal into daily missionary life in Mali, West Africa, not just our friends and families can see what happens here, but it is open to everyone. When someone visits this site through a search engine, such as Google, I can see that, as well as the words they used to find this site. I've recently had people stop by after searching for Sangha, Cliff Dwellings, Pictures of Bamako, and Koutiala Hospital, among others.
One particular search was for "Short Term Missions Trip, Mali". After reading this site, the fellow who found us contacted us. It turns out he was coming to Mali for a short-term trip and was looking for insights and information. He even mentioned us on his personal site. It turns out he is from Lansing, Michigan - not too far from where Amanda and I grew up. Last night, after several emails and phone conversations through the internet, we met in person. That was a neat privilege. He also brought us Dr Pepper and M&Ms, which aren't available here and were most welcome!
Another connection we've made recently through our site was with a person in Canada who has built an online directory of other missionaries who write about their lives online. Missionary-blogs offers a great resource for connecting with people all over the world who work for a common cause, spreading the Gospel of Christ! They mentioned our post regarding the reaction in Mali to the Muhammad cartoons. I find this site very interesting; some of the joys and challenges of being a missionary are true across the globe and some are more locally realized.
Like I said, the world is getting smaller every day. Thanks for being a part of this, and we hope you enjoy the glimpses of our world we can provide. As always, if there is something we haven't explained fully or never even touched on, and you would like to know more - please, email us. We want to keep shrinking our globe, as best we can.

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Off to Dakar (by Thom)

Amanda and I are leaving tonight for Dakar, Senegal. Senegal is one coutry to the west of Mali. We'll be there until our return March 17th. I have a conference which will occupy our second week there. We're using the first week as vacation. It will be our first time to travel outside Mali! Dakar is right on the Atlantic Ocean, we we hope to dip our toes in the water. By all accounts we've heard, it should be much cooler in Dakar than Mali. Lately it has been about 100 degrees each day in Bamako. Dakar should be about 75! Please pray for our safety in our traveling, as well as for blessing in the conference of African bookkeepers.

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