We returned home to Bamako this weekend after spending the week in Segou. Segou is the second largest city in Mali and a very interesting place to visit. However, this trip wasn't for tourism reasons as we were taking part in our mission's annual field conference. Each year we gather together as a team and share ministry reports with each other, share testimonies about how we've seen the Lord moving in our lives, and enjoy a message from an American pastor. This year Pastor Cory Stout of
Community Heights Alliance Church in Newton, IA blessed us with a series of messages based on the book of Nehemiah (which happens to be one of my favorite books of the Bible!).
In addition to Pastor Stout the Newton church sent his wife, a husband-wife team to lead worship, and two other ladies to run youth ministries. We were so grateful to have someone watching the twins during the meetings, which allowed us to relax and participate with the rest of our team.
It was two years ago that we met in Segou for our conference with Miri and Hannah. We had only had the girls for 1 week at that point and Hananh was so sick that we were praying daily for her to live another 24 hours. It was that week that we realized Hannah's problem was lactose intolerance and set out to find goat milk for her. A fellow named Soloman from the hotel's kitchen set out to find the special milk for her fresh each day. Since then, every time we stop at the hotel Solo comes out and proudly announces to everyone that his girls are looking so healthy and big. He takes a lot of pride, deservedly so, in their development.
During the course of the week we heard from various missionaries about their ministries the past year. Some were just returning to the field after a furlough time in the US. Others are getting ready to take on new roles in ministry. We heard about the foundations being laid to start ministry centers (primarily aimed at students) in both Bamako and Koutiala and about the recent conversion of a man who made his living as a traveling witch doctor. He'd go village to village using his charms and potions. His wife had become a believer a few years earlier but he resisted the Gospel. However, he recently accepted Christ as his savior and responding by bringing out all his witch doctor paraphanelia to give it to the missionary as a sign of his surrender (by the way, that brought up an interesting discussion - the missionary didn't want those items on his property so they ended up finding an outhouse and throwing all the stuff down there!)
It was a great week but a bittersweet one for us. This will be our last field conference in Mali before we move to Dakar next year. We had a lot of goodbyes to say and shared our testimony reflecting on the blessings we've received over the last 3 years here in Mali as well as the clear moving of the hand of the Lord in directing us to a future in ministry in Dakar.
It was a week of blessings. I wish you all could have shared directly in it. When we're in the US in early 2009 we'll probably share with you directly many of the amazing things we've heard about what the Lord is doing in Mali.
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