Vacation (by Thom)

We haven't written a lot lately as we're trying to get everything organized for our vacation in December. We're going to be flying to the US next Wednesday (Dec 5th) and staying in Ann Arbor, MI for a week, then Mt. Gilead, OH for 2 weeks including Christmas, and then back to Ann Arbor for a week. Even though we were in the US for 3 months furlough earlier this year we didn't have much rest time as we averaged 2-3 speaking engagements a week and had other responsibilities, too. I don't know how much we'll write here but we'll keep updating the pictures at www.mcmali.com/photos/
Please keep our travels in your prayers as well as the various ministries we work with. I'm finding it difficult to regulate everything that needs to be done in the mission office during the next month in advance.
Here's Hannah practicing getting ready to fly:

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Good News Radio on the Air! (by Thom)

A couple of months ago I wrote here about the Tougan radio station in Burkina Faso finally getting it's license. Well, last month they officially signed on and began broadcasting Christian music and teaching, as well as health education and community messages! This was a long time coming and I'm so glad to be able to share this information! This project is a big reason we're missionaries in Africa today. As an added bonus, the station is planning a dedication ceremony at the end of January. We were already planning on being in Burkina then for another mission project so it looks like we'll be able to attend the ceremony. Here's a before-and-after picture of the radio station, which goes by the moniker "Good News Radio":

Tougan radio station (and my work team) in February 2004.

Tougan radio station today.

For more pictures, click here.

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What I'm Thankful For (by Thom)

Several years back - when I started working in radio - I had to work every Thanksgiving. This was before a lot of radio stations began automating things (I'm not old, but I'm feeling like it a bit right now!) and someone had to be at the station. I decided to make the best of it and during my time speaking on the air I shared bits of "What I'm thankful for...." every 15 minutes or so. I've continued that tradition here at mcmali.com for the last couple of years, as well. Here's the 2006 version and here's what I wrote about our first Thanksgiving in Mali in 2005.
I am so very thankful for my family. Amanda is a great wife who loves the girls a lot and puts up with more than I'll ever understand by staying at home with the twins. Miriam is a little bundle of energy and personality and I'm thankful to be a part of her life and her adventurous spirit. Hannah is more reserved and loves to cuddle, read books, and can sit and stare into your eyes for a long time. I am thankful for her quiet strength and gentile, affectionate personality.
I'm thankful for the wonderful gift of grace. I wouldn't be anywhere without it.
I'm thankful that God gives us different gifts. I'm not gifted at preaching but I'm very good with math and computers and, amazingly enough, there's a place for those gifts on the mission field!
I'm thankful for the wonderful support we received when we were in the US this past spring. We were so encouraged to meet so many people who had prayed for our family. I'm also thankful for all the feedback we continue to get. Emails are wonderful! (hint, hint)
I'm thankful for our upcoming vacation opportunity to spend the month of December in the United States and have our first Christmas with family since 2004. It will be the girls' 2nd Christmas but first with family.
Thanks to all who stop by this blog! Your (virtual) fellowship is why we do this site.

Oh, one quick final note: we are the only Alliance missionaries in our town now so we've decided to invite over some Malian friends tonight for a traditional American meal that is NOT a traditional Thanksgiving meal. We'll be having pizza! I'm going to try and explain the history of the holiday in French. I've been practicing but I'm still praying all goes well.

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Pictures, pictures, pictures

We've added several new pics to the photo section of mcmali.com. The girls will be 16 months old this week and they are a lot of fun! Enjoy!

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On the Lighter Side (by Thom)

Shortly after starting this blog I started to get interested in how many people were coming by. In order to track that I added a little piece of code to the site that tells me what city and country visitors to mcmali.com are coming from. It also tells be how they came. Not surprisingly, a lot of people come from Google or Yahoo. As of this moment, we've had 51,776 visitors to mcmali.com since July 2005. This past week, we had our 100th different country represented (thank you, Austria)! We've also been visited by 47 of the 50 American states (where are you Hawaii, Wyoming, and Maine?). I've got to say, it's very interesting to see a lot of diversity in where people are coming from to see what we have available here at this site. If you look at the map here, you'll see the different countries that have visited us are in red.

Two things jump out at me when I see this: First, most of North America and Europe are represented. That's kind of fun. Second, there are several '10/40 window' countries represented. That term refers to the least evangelized portion of the world which fall between 10 and 40 degrees north of the equator. I know the Gospel is either oppressed or out-right forbidden in many countries that come here and while I'm not the most eloquent writer on evangelism I pray that what we share here about living as missionaries in Mali may be used not only for our primary goal (to share what we're doing and what the church is doing in Mali with those in America so missions is better understood) but also to provide hope for those living without Christ.
I should mention that the US is obviously our number one source of web traffic and France is number two. Mali is number three and I see a lot of people searching various terms from Mali and finding our site. This does serve as a reminder that while Mali is free there is resistance to the Gospel here and I need to be careful about exactly how much information we share. I've gotten emails from time to time that were purportedly written by Americans but were obvious attempts to fish for some very sensitive information about the mission and church here in Mali. I ignore those emails.
Just for fun, here are some of the search terms used in Google/Yahoo/MSN/Ask to find their way to mcmali.com:
"Contact Shoe Store in Dakar Senegal"
"Girls name that means twin"
"Care packages to Africa"
"How to greet in Mali"
"le pain quotidien pronunciation"
"mali cooking"
"mcmurray adopt twin malian girls"
"psaume 23 bible"
"when did cars exist in mali"
"greetings bambara culture"
"bambara bible"
and many, many more.....

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