2006 In Review - November

Note: Through New Year's Day we're going to review the year that was 2006 for us, Thom & Amanda McMurray. This was our first full year in Mali and brought many, many changes. We hope you enjoy this look back at our year. Click on the links in each review to read what we wrote back then.

2006 In Review - November

• Continuing to reflect on his video ministry trip from October Thom discussed village life.
  
• Someone close to us began expressing interest in Jesus. We talked about his search for truth and answers to life's questions.
• Hannah & Miriam turned 4 months old.
• We celebrated our 2nd Thanksgiving in Mali. This time it was with our twins. Amanda's dad and friend also came to visit us in time for Thanksgiving.
  

The year is almost over! Tomorrow we'll look back at December, 2006.

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2006 In Review - October

Note: Through New Year's Day we're going to review the year that was 2006 for us, Thom & Amanda McMurray. This was our first full year in Mali and brought many, many changes. We hope you enjoy this look back at our year. Click on the links in each review to read what we wrote back then.

2006 In Review - October

• Amanda reflected on God's provision for the twins. We got a large amount of soy formula for Hannah through friends with M.A.F.
  
• Thom had a painful month that ended up resulting in a root canal. Let's just say that medical standards are considerably different than what we're used to.
• While Thom was suffering with a painful mouth Amanda was knocked down with deep bruising and sprained ankles after falling into an open sewer!
• Hannah & Miriam turned 3 months old.
• After getting the girls' birth certificates we were able to continue the adoption process. Later we reflected on the signification of the girls' names.
  
• Thom did a lot of ministry traveling. He continued his project for the national church taping interviews with Malian missionaries. This trip took him to Djenne and Macina.

Tomorrow we'll look back at November, 2006.

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Adoption Prayer Request

We trust you had a blessed Christmas time this week. It was our first Christmas together with our daughters and we had a wonderful time. We spent half the day at church amongst friends and spend the rest together enjoying “family time”.

As most of you know, we’re in the process of adopting Miriam and Hannah and we’re nearing the completion of that time. When we last wrote the judge in charge of the case issued a delay. I can’t really go into specifics here as to why that happened but we know that nothing is too big for the Lord. We got word right before Christmas that the judge had signed the final papers to complete the adoption but was unwilling to finalize them by calling us back. We’ve been praying a lot about this because it has involved some difficult choices. We feel that the decisions we’ve made – while not easy - were done to honor both God and the integrity of our girls. Yesterday we were told that the judge has agreed to call us back for a court date to apparently finalize the papers! Our date was set for next Thursday – January 4^th. Please continue to pray with us as we get ready for this date – both that the decision really will be final and that we’ll officially know Miri and Hannah as our daughters.

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2006 In Review - September

Note: Through New Year's Day we're going to review the year that was 2006 for us, Thom & Amanda McMurray. This was our first full year in Mali and brought many, many changes. We hope you enjoy this look back at our year. Click on the links in each review to read what we wrote back then.

2006 In Review - September

• After a really difficult August September offered many breaths of fresh air! The girls, Hannah especially, were much healthier in September and the adoption process continued.
• Our greatest joy in September was when the first soy milk arrived. A friend from Holland brought it in her suitcase. Since we didn't have enough we started mixing it with goat's milk. Thom wrote about driving every day to buy that milk. Later in the month we were blessed to be offered a shipment of soy milk by friends from Mission Aviation Fellowship.
• Amanda decided she likes doctor visits.
  
• Our landlord came to greet us and meet the girls. We had an interesting conversation.
• Amanda turned 30 years old September 17th!
• Thom was asked to pray in church and ended up confusing his languages and prayed that God would hurt everyone. Oops.

Tomorrow we'll look back at October, 2006.

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Year In Review - August

Note: Through New Year's Day we're going to review the year that was 2006 for us, Thom & Amanda McMurray. This was our first full year in Mali and brought many, many changes. We hope you enjoy this look back at our year. Click on the links in each review to read what we wrote back then.

2006 In Review - August

• August is a really hard month to summarize. It was our first month with Miriam and Hannah. We wrote many entries about the process and recorded what thoughts we had as we expanded our family and our hearts. The health of the twins occupied most of our thoughts and prayers. Hannah was very sick and we didn't know what the cause was.
  
• In time we learned that Hannah was lactose intolerant and all baby formula we can buy in Mali uses cow's milk. What a relief it was to find out that she could support goat's milk! Still, there were many days and nights where we didn't know if Hannah was going to live another 12 hours.
• We found a pediatrician in Bamako and made our first doctor's visit.
• August 16 was our 9 year wedding anniversary!
• Of course there were many joys in the first month (you just had to look for them). We wrote about some of the surprises of the babies.
  
• After our 2nd doctor's visit we were so happy to find out Hannah weighed more than 5 pounds!
• And, here were some of the stranger aspects of adopting here.
  

August was probably the most difficult month of our lives, but the Lord was faithful and gave us daily strength where we didn't think we'd find it. Tomorrow we'll look back at September, 2006.

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2006 In Review - July

Note: Through New Year's Day we're going to review the year that was 2006 for us, Thom & Amanda McMurray. This was our first full year in Mali and brought many, many changes. We hope you enjoy this look back at our year. Click on the links in each review to read what we wrote back then.

2006 In Review - July

• July started out normal enough. Thom wrote a journal entry about life being in a rut and how he liked it. (Little did he know what was coming at the end of July!)
• What is a missionary? Thom pondered that question and shared some of his misconceptions.
• Amanda talked about the differences in food between American culture and Malian culture and shared a recipe for Thom's favorite African dish.
• Thom visited the bush to film the ministry of a Malian who serves as a missionary in his own country. This was the first of Thom's bush trips. Afterwards Thom wrote a bit about what it is like serving as a national missionary in the bush.
  
• Last, but definitely not least, July was the month we began the adoption process of Miriam and Hannah. Amanda wrote a series of Adoption Diaries. The first two were in July.
  

It was July 31st that we first got to meet the beautiful girls! Our lives changed very, very quickly over the next few weeks and months. Thanks so much for all the prayers and support we received during this time. It's hard to believe it was only 5 months ago! Tomorrow we'll review August, 2006.

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2006 In Review - June

Note: Through New Year's Day we're going to review the year that was 2006 for us, Thom & Amanda McMurray. This was our first full year in Mali and brought many, many changes. We hope you enjoy this look back at our year. Click on the links in each review to read what we wrote back then.

2006 In Review - June

• We made our first prayer card! OK, we were only about 2 years late with this, but better late than never, right? By the way, we've since updated the card to reflect the adoption of the twins. You can download it here.
• Thom discovered World Cup soccer and discovered that it was kinda boring. Well, not completely - and there were some interesting West African story-lines.
  
• Amanda went to an Evangelism Explosion conference to learn about ministering in French.
  
• Thom was in a motorcycle accident. He ended up alright but needed a couple of days in bed to let his wounds heal.
• While in bed, Thom got creative and made a Dr. Seuss-like short video.
• We visited a hardware store and came back with a tape measure and some interesting cultural observations.
  

Wow, the first half of the year went fast! Tomorrow we'll review July, 2006.

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2006 In Review - May

Note: Through New Year's Day we're going to review the year that was 2006 for us, Thom & Amanda McMurray. This was our first full year in Mali and brought many, many changes. We hope you enjoy this look back at our year. Click on the links in each review to read what we wrote back then.

2006 In Review - May

• A work team came with goodies. Thom thought he was going to have to translate for the team at church, which made him nervous!
• We moved from our old blog address to the new, expanded site (www.mcmali.com) with more pictures, info about us, and some fun stuff. We had the most visitors ever in May - a record that lasted 30 days!
• Amanda pondered about whether she could actually eat our critters.
  
• Thom went on a trip to Koutiala solo. He went to work with the bookkeeper for the hospital and to train a back-up bookkeeper for the mission. On the way back he was ordered by an armed military man to take him along. This was... uncomfortable... to say the least.
  
• Speaking of our critters, our personal 'zoo' grew a lot in May. Amanda shared about this.
• Thom reflected on life in Mali and how it is very difficult, yet God remains good. A person very close to us went through a difficult time which drove home this point.
  

Tomorrow we'll review June, 2006.

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2006 In Review - April

Note: Through New Year's Day we're going to review the year that was 2006 for us, Thom & Amanda McMurray. This was our first full year in Mali and brought many, many changes. We hope you enjoy this look back at our year. Click on the links in each review to read what we wrote back then.

2006 In Review - April

• 2006 was a year of babies for us. It started in April when the woman who we hired to clean our house had her baby - Alifahan. She was born small and had a rough start to life but today she is doing much better and has started to crawl all over our house!
• It only took Thom a little over two years, but he finally posted pictures from his trip to Burkina Faso in February 2004. That short-term missions trip was a major reason we're serving in Mali today.
• It was Palm Sunday and hot - and Thom was surprised at the ways the Lord works.
• In March we found our new house. In April we made the move. Amanda wrote about the experience and Thom posted pictures.
  
• Most of our blog entries were written by Amanda or Thom, but in April we posted a couple of stories from other Malian missionaries recalling recent trips into the bush for evangelism.
• Amanda talked about getting bug bites and learning her Bambara Bible.
  

April was a busy, hot month! Tomorrow we'll review May, 2006.

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2006 In Review - March

Note: Through New Year's Day we're going to review the year that was 2006 for us, Thom & Amanda McMurray. This was our first full year in Mali and brought many, many changes. We hope you enjoy this look back at our year. Click on the links in each review to read what we wrote back then.

2006 In Review - March

• Yesterday we said February was a month of traveling. March wasn't much different. We traveled outside of Mali for the first time since our arrival, going to Dakar, Senegal. Thom went for a regional bookkeeper conference. Amanda got to come along and we had a great time seeing another country and culture.
• One of the key themes of the bookkeeping conference was doing the right things to put the mission in a blessable position. Thom wrote a little about this after returning to Mali.
• When people write to us they often ask about the weather. In the middle of March the weather shifted dramatically from dry and cool to dry and very, very hot.
• When we returned to Bamako we found the water was gone! That meant no showers, drinking only bottled water, and using as few dishes as possible. We were blessed to have a well to pull water for emergencies but for 2 weeks we felt a bit grimy.
  

And there's March. Tomorrow we'll review April, 2006.

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2006 In Review - February

Note: Through New Year's Day we're going to review the year that was 2006 for us, Thom & Amanda McMurray. This was our first full year in Mali and brought many, many changes. We hope you enjoy this look back at our year. Click on the links in each review to read what we wrote back then.

2006 In Review - February

• February was a busy month of travel. We started the month by going to Koutiala for the dedication of the new Women & Children's Hospital. While were were there Thom got to visit several of the missionaries he first met on his trip to Burkina Faso in 2004. This was a fun trip down memory lane for him.
  
• Amanda spent a large part of the month house hunting. Finding a place to live in Mali is very, very different than in the US. Amanda wrote about the differences a few times in February and then wrote about finding the place where we now live.
  
• In the middle of the month our good friends Stan & Jaynee Walker visited from Dakar, Senegal. It was officially a work-related trip as Jaynee and Thom worked on cleaning up the mission's books but we also found time to visit Dogon Country. Amazing!
• February 2006 marked the two-year anniversary of Thom's first time in Africa. Amanda reflected on the changes two years can bring.

And just like that February was over. Come back tomorrow for March, 2006 in review.

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2006 In Review - January

Note: Through New Year's Day we're going to review the year that was 2006 for us, Thom & Amanda McMurray. This was our first full year in Mali and brought many, many changes. We hope you enjoy this look back at our year. Click on the links in each review to read what we wrote back then.

2006 In Review - January

• The year started with a camping trip next to the Bani River. This is a tradition for the C&MA missionaries here and was our first time to enjoy this.
• Amanda spent time ministering to a women who left prostitution to follow Jesus. She was very ill and in the hospital a lot. Amanda had some interesting observations about both the woman's faith and the differences in hospital care here.
• A lot of people had emailed us asking about a typical day as missionaries in Mali. The simple answer is that there is no such thing as a typical day. Still, we tried to answer this question. Boy, things have changed a lot. Maybe we need to update this entry....
• When is hot weather not hot? When you're used to 95 degrees and it's only 75. Weird.
• Thom reflected on some difficult aspects of living oversees and how he was going to deal with them.
• We got word that we were going to have to find a new house. That's turned out very nice for us.
• We prepared for the February dedication of the Koutiala hospital.

~and~

• We had our 1,000th visitor to our website. It seemed like so many back then. Now we average about 2000-3000 a month.

There's January in a nutshell. Come back tomorrow for February, 2006 in review.

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Update on Searching (by Thom)

(Note: because of the sensitive nature of this entry several specific details have been left intentionally vague.)

A month ago I wrote about our substitute language teacher. I asked for prayer because he seems to honestly searching for something more in his life. He is starting to realize his religion is hollow and doesn't provide any sort of hope.
I met with him again last week. It was the first time I've seen him since early November. He is doing very well and has been reading through the Bible. He came to be my language substitute again (just for one day) but the only language lesson I had was a practical one: he had many, many specific questions about Jesus and Christianity. Specifically he asked me about what sort of things are required of followers of Jesus. For followers of a religion that demands specific acts to have a chance at heaven it is a radical notion that Jesus wants to give the free gift of salvation and that He already paid the price of sacrifice. The teacher then made a bold statement. He said he's been reading through the Bible and he's seeing that everything in the Old Testament points to Jesus. Even more, everything after the Gospels in the New Testament points back at Jesus. For a person of his faith to make this statement is nothing short of the miracle of the Holy Spirit working in his heart!
At the end of class he asked me if I could give any advice to someone who wasn’t a Christian. I translated John 14:6 from memory (and did a pretty good job at it!): Jésus lui dit: Je suis le chemin, la vérité, et la vie. Nul ne vient au Père que par moi.
I'd like to ask for continued prayer for this man who continues to seek Truth. He has said that he'd like to come to church with some mutual friends this Christmas. I pray that his ears and his heart will hear the words of the Lord and he will be open to them.

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Five Months Old (by Thom)

Today, Sunday December 10th, Miriam and Hannah are 5 months old. We often update on how the adoption process and health issues are going, but I thought it would be nice to brag about how the girls are growing! (Warning - what follows are the words of a very proud father who knows, unequivocally, that his girls are the most beautiful creatures on the face of the earth.)
Both girls look like they're about to roll over. They're oh-so-close and when they're on their chests they can rotate their hips more than 90 degrees and push up off the ground. Hannah's probably a little closer at this point and she only needs a slight breeze to give her that extra push she needs. Miri is a little chatterbox. She laughs and giggles and loves to play peek-a-boo and be tickled. Her eyes are almost always sparkling. Miri seems to always be very curious about her surroundings. She doesn't like to face away from anything and is always turning herself around - in bed, on the floor, on the couch - so she can see everything. Hannah's eyes are her defining characteristic too, but for other reasons. Hannah's eyes are penetrating. She looks at people like she's studying their souls. It can be very disarming. Last week when we were at the courthouse in Segou for the adoption, we had more than two dozen people stop and want to see the girls. Every single person commented on their eyes as their most dominant feature.
The girls are starting to eat solid foods; we've now given them bananas, pear, and apples. This all started within the last two weeks, so they aren't sure about these new foods yet! When they're not sick or recovering from vaccines they're doing a good job of sleeping. Miri sleeps through most nights and Hannah is only getting up once (maybe twice) a night. When we first got them we were up about every 90 minutes during the night. I don't miss those days!
The girls are developing so well, emotionally and physically. I've included a couple of pictures I took today for their birthday. The first is Hannah. Miri is in the second picture. You can click the pictures to see them larger and for more birthday photos and other pictures of the twins, click here.

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Back Again, Again (by Thom)

We got back from Segou this evening. We had a mixed day as we appeared before the judge who will make a final decision on the adoption of Miriam & Hannah. The girl's father was there and he gave his consent to the whole process. However, the judge declined to issue a final judgment and told us that he will finalize the adoption in the next 2 weeks. It wasn't exactly what we were hoping for but we are happy that many good things happened and that we have an end in sight. We'll be returning to Segou in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for the prayers; please continue!

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Then and Now - Part 3

Revisiting previous pictures...


Pine trees don't really exist in Mali. Last year we celebrated our first Christmas in Mali and made due with a Christmas palm tree.

This year we decided to use an unusual cactus bush we were given. Looks pretty festive, huh?

To check out all our photos from then and now, look here.

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On The Road Again...

In about one hour, we'll be heading out to drive to Segou where we have a court date tomorrow. We don’t know exactly what will happen, but we expect the judge to issue a final judgment on the adoption. We also know the natural father needs to be there. We’ve been given word that a friend of the mission is going to bring him. It’s going to be a busy and hopefully exciting week! To summarize, here’s our prayer requests for this week:

• Safe travel to Segou
• That the father will be brought safely to Segou
• That the judge will issue a favorable, final judgment to make Miri and Hannah our legal daughters
• Pray for peace as the extended family is obviously going to have conflicted emotions.
  
• That in all this the Lord’s Glory will shine through.

Thank you,
Thom & Amanda (and Miri & Hannah) McMurray

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Then and Now - Part 2

On our trip this past week we had the chance to revisit some places and people we've seen before. I thought this would be a nice chance to show the difference in seasons and changes in lives over time.


August 9th, 2006 - Terry Newman with Hannah when she was 1 month old and very sick.


December 2nd, 2006 - Terry Newman with Hannah at almost 5 months old. What a difference!

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Then and Now - Part 1

On our trip this past week we had the chance to revisit some places and people we've seen before. I thought this would be a nice chance to show the difference in seasons and changes in lives over time.


July 19, 2006 - Rainy season in Niena, Mali. A garden wall next to the church.


December 1, 2006 - Dry season in Niena, Mali. A garden wall next to the church.

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Quick Travel Update

This is just a quick note to say that we all felt well enough to travel this week. We had a great trip with Amanda's dad and friend as we went to Niena, Mali. Now we're in Koutiala and tomorrow we'll head back to Bamako. Along the way we'll stop in Segou. It was in Segou that Hannah first started to get a little better when she was so sick early on. The workers at the hotel there went the extra mile to help her - even arranging delivery of goat milk. We'll stop there tomorrow to show the twins off. We expect they'll be excited to see them!
Thanks for travel prayers. We'll update this when we return to Bamako; we've gotten lots of great pictures along the way!

UPDATE: We arrived safely back home in Bamako this evening. We had a wonderful trip and are so glad we got the opportunity to share some of Mali's different faces with our family. We also got to tour the hospital for Woman and Children in Koutiala last night. I'm hoping to share more about that later this week.

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