At the Hardware Store (by Thom)

We were at the hardware store the other day and Amanda said, “This would make a good story for the blog.” Let me back up and explain why:
This story does a good job of illustrating some differences in American and Malian culture. I wanted to buy a metric tape measure and I had seen one at this store near us a week or so before. Hardware stores here are a lot different than your Home Depot or Ace stores. The entire store was about 6 ft by 6 ft and probably didn’t stock more than $50 worth of merchandise. There is one peg-board which had a wrench and about 4 other things hanging on it. Behind the counter were some shelves, stocked with a few bags of cement powder, and miscellaneous screws and nails. As I mentioned, I had seen the tape measure there before but didn’t have the money on me that day so Amanda and I walked back there to buy it last Saturday. When we got there I saw the one tape measure he had before was gone. At the same moment, I realized I didn’t know the French word for “tape measure” (the answer, by the way, is “le mètre”). I tried to explain what I wanted and pointed to where it was before. He understood right away and said he had sold it, but his brother had one at his store, and he’d go get it right away. He went outside and asked us to sit in his chairs, hopped on his bike, and rode down the street. We waited for about 10 or 15 minutes before he returned, tape measure in hand. I asked how much and he said it was 1,150 cfa (a little over $2). I paid him and we returned home.
Time has a funny value here. I’d never wait 15 minutes for a $2 tape measure in the US. I’d probably walk away and not come back to the store. In West Africa though, time isn’t generally a matter of minutes. Sometimes, it’s not even a matter of days or weeks!
I should say in fairness that not all hardware stores are this barren; I’ve been to some others that, while about the same size, are full with layers and layers of things on every square inch of the walls. However, I’m thinking that anytime someone is willing to take a 15 minute bike ride to make a $2 sale, it explains well how much money he is making normally.
The last little piece of Malian culture to tell you about here involves the taxis. While we were sitting outside the hardware store waiting, we were only about 10 feet from the road and every taxi that drove by slowed down and honked to see if we wanted a ride. It was very funny.
I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into our lives here. After all the emails we got regarding the video in the last post, I’m working on a small project featuring the Malians we interact with on a regular basis. Thanks for all the feedback! Remember, we always love getting emails. You can write us at mcmali@gmail.com.

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After my accident Friday I've been kinda layed up in bed. My foot and hip are pretty sore. Anyway, it gave me a great excuse to be creative with my video camera. Enjoy:

I have another idea or two for a short video, but I'd really like to hear from some of you. What would you like to see? A tour of our house, a safari montage, or meeting the Malians in our daily lives, the Koutiala Hospital, or something else all-together? To vote, please leave a comment here on the blog or email us at mcmali@gmail.com.
One more thing: I've posted my short video here on the blog, but it's also permanantly on our Resources page here.

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I'm Alright, Honest (by Thom)

There are bad weeks, and there are BAD weeks. This one's was in the former category until today, when it fully moved to the latter. I've been fighting off various stomach illnesses for the last several weeks. This week has been a little worse than others. I've also had headaches and fatigue all week. I'm not really sure why, but I'd take it all over what happened today. Let me explain it in pictures:

I was riding my motorcycle to the mission today as I do every day. On the way I saw a person sitting still on a bicycle about 20 yards in front of me. He was looking at me strangely. As I got close he pulled out directly in front of me and stopped. I had two choices: I could have run right into him and risked seriously injuring both of us or "lay down" my bike and take the pain myself. I did the later, as you can see. For whatever reason, the guy on the bike stared at me for a moment and then rode off. I got myself up and noticed I was missing my shoe. I found it in a moment and a girl who had seen the whole thing came up to me and gave me my cell phone which fell out in the accident. I decided I was able to ride on to the mission office, since it was only 1/4 mile away. Upon arrival I noticed that my left arm and foot were totally covered in very dirty blood. Thankfully Gabi Wolterstorff, a German nurse with our mission who lives in the bush, was around and after I cleaned my wounds she dressed them. At first, all I thought was hurt was my foot, arm, and pride. Later, though, I've found my right wrist, right forearm, left hand, and left hip are very sore. My bike seems to be ok, but I was too hurt to ride home and Amanda had to get me. Please pray for my wounds to heal quickly. I still don't know why the man on the bike tried to cause an accident, but it's very possible he has a mental problem. Please join me in praying for him, too.

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Evangelism Explosion Conference (by Amanda)

As I sit here, listening to music on my computer and reflecting on the last couple of weeks, I am amazed at how fast time has gone by. Jeanette has come back to work with baby in tow, I've had lots of guests over (if you didn't know, that's unusual and unnatural for me), and I am still in Bambara studies four days a week in the mornings. As you can tell I have been really busy! I'd like to share everything, but time will only allow me to focus on one thing - a special week-long event that I attended in late May. I went to a Kid'’s Evangelism Explosion (EE) seminar and it was incredible.
I was invited to go by Pastor Christophe Dembele, whose wife is my language helper, and it was a great week. I met some wonderful women who live in the US and were our instructors. They obviously have a heart for God. I was so blessed by this conference; these women made the Bible come alive for all of us at the seminar even though they could speak little French. It was wonderful to be able to share the joy of God's salvation across language barriers and I was able to learn a simplified way of leading children to Christ in both English and French. I was also able to spend time with many other Christian women in the church, not to mention the added bonus of hearing lots of Bambara. Now my language helper and I are working on memorizing the verses in Bambara and we have a team of Christians committed to getting this program translated into Bambara so we will be able to share it with more children in Bamako.
I'd like to ask for your prayers in three areas: for this team as they are working on translating the information, for me as I memorize the scripture in Bambara, and for all the men and women who were at the seminar to go out and share what they have learned.

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World Cup Fever (by Thom)

I’m the first to admit it: I don’t get soccer. Or football, füt, or whatever else it’s called here. I see a lot of it in Mali, though. In the US you might see kids playing street hockey, basketball at the park, or a pickup game of baseball. Here there is only one sport competing for kids’ interest: soccer. The more I see of it, the more I think I understand why it’s not as popular in America. Still, you cannot deny it’s impact here. You might have heard the World Cup is now going on in Germany. Mali doesn’t have a team in the competition, but people here are still very excited about the Cup. Cote d’Ivoire is playing; so is Togo (whose coach just quit), Ghana, Angola, and Tunisia. Those first three countries are all from West Africa, so there is a lot of interest here. It’s also kind of funny. Mali has a competitive relationship with Cote d’Ivoire that’s kind of similar to the relationship between Ohio State and Michigan, or Florida and Florida State, or Nebraska and Oklahoma. I think you get the idea. I can’t really tell if Malians want Cote d’Ivoire to win and represent West Africa well or lose because, well, they’re Cote d’Ivoire. I was reading about the World Cup online and came accross this interesting tidbit regarding the Cote d'Ivoire team:

In many parts of the world football evokes great passions and plays an important role in the life of individual fans, local communities, and even nations; it is therefore often claimed to be the most popular sport in the world. ESPN has spread the claim that the Côte d'Ivoire national football team helped secure a truce to the nation's civil war in 2005. By contrast, however, football is widely considered to be the final proximate cause in the Football War in June 1969 between El Salvador and Honduras. The sport also exacerbated tensions at the beginning the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, when a Red Star Belgrade-at-Dinamo Zagreb match devolved into rioting in March 1990.

Anyway, I’m finding this World Cup time to be interesting. People are leaving work early to watch their matches, they’re waving flags from their cars, and, in general, everyone’s got World Cup fever. Last weekend I actually watched part of a soccer game. I’m hoping to figure out what it is about this game that people love so much before it's all over.

By the way, in case you were wondering about other popular sports here, foosball is HUGE!

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Prayer Card

One of the most frequent requests we get is for a Prayer Card. Unfortunately, when we left the US for France and then Mali we didn't have the chance to get one made up. This is a thing that's high on our priority list when we come home next summer for our first furlough, but in the meantime we wanted you to know that we've made a Prayer Card you can print out and put on your fridge, in your Bible, or wherever is best to remind you to pray for Christ's Commission to be fulfilled in Mali and our role in that. You can find our card on our website here.

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Updated Prayer Requests/Praises (by Thom)

I know we aren't as diligent in updating our Prayer Requests and Praises as we should be, but I want to mention here that we have recently updated them. They can be found at this page here or by following the link to the right. Thanks to everyone who holds up our service and the work of the mission in prayer.

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