Friday Foto Flashback

(I'm toying with the idea for a new series on Fridays where we'll look back through our photograph archives and find a moment that holds special significance to us. We'll try this a few weeks and see if it has any traction. Any feedback is greatly appreciated!)

Photo taken: 9/16/2006 at Bethel Bible School in Koutiala, Mali.

This was one of the first pictures we took upon arriving in Mali back in September 2005. We arrived on a Thursday, spent the first weekend adjusting to the time change, and then the first week following setting up our new house. The following weekend we were taken to Koutiala, a city 500 KMs (310 miles) east of Bamako. The trip has nice paved roads and takes about 5 hours to drive.

We came to Koutiala as part of our orientation. Even though Bamako is the mission's headquarters Koutiala functions as a major hub of Alliance activity in Mali, due in no small part to the hospital we've built there. Another key to Koutiala is Bethel Bible School, the seminary where many Malian C&MA pastors train. That particular weekend coincided with the biennial Alliance Women's Conference and Amanda spent much of it out in the heat with the women. That's where she snapped this picture. It was brutally hot for 'newbies' like us with temperatures around 100 and Amanda was quite overwhelmed with all the newness of everything: the languages, climate, languages, culture and languages. Still she left the conference with a deep appreciation for the hearts of these women, as well as a burden for how many of them sacrificed for their faith. The support, comfort, encouragement and mutual rejoicing called the second chapter of Philippians to mind. In their call to be Christ-like, they certainly encouraged us!

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. (Philippians 2:5-7 NIV)