Firsts

We've taken some pictures of a few firsts for Miriam & Hannah: first sled ride, first time with their cousin Corin, and first time with other family members. Here's a sample but more are available at our picture page. Enjoy.

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Pictures

Hannah & Miriam have been meeting their family for the first time and Daddy's been busy with the camera. You're invited to see some of Thom's pictures recent pictures here. Here's one of my favorites (featured are Hannah and her Grandma Grams' cat):

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First Term Review - Weather (by Thom)

We're snowed in today. This is a strange experience! After a couple years in Mali, West Africa where the temps rarely dip below 90 during the day we're living in the 20's and 30's now in Northern Michigan. We're up here vacationing before our furlough officially starts and it is certainly a different world!
In West Africa the first thing you notice as you get off the plane is the taste of dust in the air. I experienced this in Burkina Faso 3 years ago and Amanda and I have lived with the dry, dusty air the last couple of years. At times it feels stifling. The heat during hot season is brutal. It gets to around 120 during the day and only dips into the 90s at night. Still, we survived the extreme temperatures and found fun ways to live with it. We ended up taking 4 or 5 showers a day during the worst of the hot season to cool our bodies down.
In the summertime the rains start and between June and October we have frequent rain storms. One thing we noticed is how much life stops when the rains are falling. Church starts late, stores and roads are empty, and hundreds of moto-bikes are parked under the overpasses.
Before returning for our Home Assignment I was noticing how sandy the roads were becoming. I ride a moped to work and I discovered that I better not take any sudden stops. A couple of weeks ago I came around a corner to discover a power line hanging only about 5 feet off the ground! I tried to brake only to slide. It was a lot like driving on the ice of Michigan. I ended up missing the power line but it struck me as a funny thing that you don't see much in the West.
Now that we're in the cold our family is transitioning. I didn't even own a winter coat so our first day in the US was spent buying warm clothes. We also bought Miri and Hannah winter coats. They don't seem to mind being out in the cold but they definitely don't like the wind! They pucker up their little mouths and start to whimper. It's very cute. They also look very cute in their coats, as you can see:

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First Term Review - Culture (by Thom)

I don't think this is a topic I can adequately cover in just a few words here but we have learned a lot about culture during our first term in Mali. In many ways things are similar to the US: the people love children, they work and play (a lot of soccer), and they enjoy sitting around and talking about things like cell phone plans. However, we learned a lot of differences too. Sometimes we learned this the awkward way.
When I took my first bush trip to work on my video project last fall I wanted to give a gift to say thanks to the missionary in Djenne. I made the mistake of directly giving him the envelope. What I should have done was give the envelope to the eldest person who would have accepted the gift and then passed it along to the missionary. Fortunately they were understanding of my cultural faux pas.
Culturally, Malians don't spend much time in their homes. Instead they spend most of their time in their courtyards. They sit around and talk or watch TV, or both. They eat there and during hot season they sleep outside, too. This is something that we always feel strange about since we do live inside our house. I suspect our guards think we're very strange people.
One more thing: Greetings are so, so important. This is something that strikes most Westerners as very strange but it is very important to greet people. This often starts with a salutation like "Good morning/afternoon/evening/night" and then asks about the person's sleep or day, their spouse, children, house, work, village, village chief, etc. After the arriving person goes through the greetings the other person reciprocates. Even if things are not well you are always expected to answer "No problems". After the greetings are finished you can answer truthfully. This sounds pointless to most Americans but it is such an important aspect of West African life that it is the first thing new missionaries must learn.
There are many other cultural fine-points that we've experienced. We'll try to touch on some of those in future posts.

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State-side (by Thom)

This is a couple of days late, but we're back in the USA. Miriam and Hannah were wonderful on the airplane flights and we didn't have very much in the way of problems at customs. Our first official acts back on US soil were to eat cheeseburgers and then pizza! Our first full day was spent buying warm clothes. We left Mali at 100 degrees and arrived in zero degree temps in Detroit. That was quite a shock. We're now in Lima, OH to pick up our car and then we'll be heading to visit Amanda's mom in Northern Michigan (this doesn't show up on the furlough calendar on our website because it's officially a 'vacation' time and not 'furlough' time). We're having a great time with our girls and our family and friends. Thanks for the many prayers for safe travel!

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Only a few hours... (by Thom)

It's now less than ten hours until our plane is supposed to leave Bamako. We should reach Paris tomorrow morning and Detroit Thursday evening. We're very excited! As you can see from the picture, Hannah is already practicing her flying. Please remember us in your prayers the next two days as we travel.
At the same time, please remember the missionaries and others in Guinea right now. Guinea is a country to Mali's southwest. Most ex-pats are being evacuated right now as the country is breaking down into civil war. I was speaking with another missionary yesterday who was evacuated from Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) three years ago when that country also broke into civil war. He was surprised at how fast everything in Guinea has fallen apart. There won't be easy solutions and a few C&MA missionaries remain there, although many have already fled to Senegal and other countries. Other missionaries are attempting to make their way to Mali but travel is extremely dangerous right now. We're reminded how blessed we are in Mali, but also how fragile everything of this world truly is.
If you're interested, here's a pretty good article summing up the issues that have led to about 100 deaths so far.

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First Term Review - Health Issues (by Thom)

A couple of weeks ago I wanted to start a series here on our blog writing about the things we’ve learned during our first term in Mali. We’re getting set to return to the US next week for our first furlough. Ironically, I intended to write about health issues in the first entry and ended up getting delayed by a serious illness that knocked down both Amanda and me.

The way we treat and approach health issues here is quite different from the US. First of all, we take an anti-malaria medicine daily. Forgetting even one day can cause the on-set of Malaria – the number one killer in Africa. We were blessed in the handful of times that we forgot that we didn’t end up with the parasite. We did come down with other ‘fun’ things, though. We both have gotten the flu here. Amanda got a tape worm in her foot. I’ve had internal parasites. Of course, the typical developing-world problems have also caught up with us, too.

There is a lot more self-diagnosis here. While quality medical care exists in Bamako there is a language barrier as well as certain hygiene issues. The best example I can give of this is from my tooth problem last October. I needed a root canal. The dentist I visited was French but he worked in a very inexpensive clinic. He spoke no English and spoke much better French than I could understand. He would look at the tooth, break pieces off, patch it up and send me home only to come back in a couple of days. This process repeated itself a half dozen times before he finally gave me the root canal. He only used pain-killers after he had already started drilling into the nerve. Also, he wore gloves but would walk in and out of the office with those gloves, touching the very, very dirty door and shaking hands with other doctors and patients. Trust me, I tried very hard to not think about this while his hands were in my mouth. He also ended up prescribing me a pain-killer to which I am allergic. I noticed, though, so nothing bad happened.

Last fall Amanda fell into an open sewer. We were afraid that she might have broken her leg so we went to the hospital. The doctors were NOT gentle with her painful leg, but fortunately it was ‘only’ a couple of leg, ankle, and knee sprains and bruises.

Of course, none of this compares to the health problems of Miriam and, especially, Hannah when they were first born. Hannah’s milk allergy nearly killed her. We did find a great pediatrician in Bamako who saw then regularly and gave them their first baby shots.

So what have we learned? First, God is big. We prayed a lot through our sicknesses and the early problems of Hannah. We saw answers to prayer that brought us the healthy girls we have today. Second, Google is our friend! You can learn a lot by searching for your problem. Thirdly, we’re going to stock our personal pharmacy a lot better this next term. With all the dust in the air we weren’t prepared for the need for allergy medicine. Also, we didn’t pack nearly enough of the basics – like Tylenol. Finally, I’ve learned that if I want to avoid root canals I should probably lay off the corn nuts. (So sad…)

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Our Latest (by Thom)

We're in a very interesting time right now. We've finally gotten all the paperwork finished and gotten passports and travel visas for the girls so they can come to the US. It was complicated, and there were more than a few obstacles in the way, but everything has now come through for us to return for our very first furlough. By the way, for those not in the Christian & Missionary Alliance, we actually call it Home Assignment, not furlough. I will likely interchange the terms here in the future.
Tomorrow I expect to buy our plane tickets and then we'll be all set. Like I said, it's an interesting time. I'm busy trying to make sure everything that I do in the office is covered. I never actually realized how many little tasks I did until I set out to write them down to make sure they would be taken care of! Things are falling into place, though. I'm leaving all the big and little things in capable hands.
Amanda's busy at home trying to pack up our house. Since we'll only be in the US for 3 months we'll be keeping our rental house but we still need to pack up all the knick-knacks and have everything put away to guard against the dust.
In addition to the physical things we're getting ready mentally and relationally to return home. We're excited to show off our baby girls to friends and family for the first time but we'll miss our friends here. We've made good friendships with both Malians and other missionaries. We already know that some of those missionary friends will be gone when we return and others will be leaving shortly there-after. With our Malian friends we know we'll miss them but it can be a difficult job to balance our excitement of returning to the US without sounding like we're putting down their home country. Amanda already is missing Jeanette. Alifahan (her baby) has just started walking and will be running all over when we get back.
I think over the next few weeks - even after we return to the US - I'm going to reflect here on what our first couple of years overseas has taught us about life, the church, and missions. Please keep us in your prayers as we make our final preparations to return state-side. We're so excited to be seeing you soon!

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