2009

Like my daughter in law, I have never done a blog but decided that this would be a good thing to do in the New Year. She's encouraged me to do this so here you go, Kelly!

Our New Year started with a trip to Teriyabougou for the annual field camping trip. Well, in reality "camping" at Teriyabougou isn't really camping since we stayed in their "rustic" hotel but cooked our own meals with two other families. It was great to have some down time before we returned to Bamako in time to get ready for the arrival of the Bible Seeding Team from Raleigh, NC. We all thought we would be distributing 5000 Bibles among the professional class here. Our plans are not always God's plans as He showed us every day when plans changed about every 15 minutes. Little did we know when we told them before coming that they would need to be flexible how much we ourselves would be challenged in our own flexibility.

Because the container of Bibles was delayed in arriving we had contacts with several people in high places that we would never have known otherwise. Folks were begging for Bibles and we actually ran out of them the night of the concert. We even were able to get a Russian Bible to give to a friend here who had never seen a Bible in her own language. As the Bibles were put into hands of unbelievers lives began to change. One man began to read it and decided that he wouldn't go "out on the town"that night but rather stay home with his wife.
Our next challenge is to triage the hundreds of response cards from people who attended the concert and said they are interested in some sort of Bible study.

March 13-20 will see us hosting another team coming from Omaha, NE to teach an MBA level course on Marketing. This will be followed by three more courses and individual consultations at the student's work place. The brochures are being handed out this week. We've already had several positive responses.

Last night we did a first "Karaoke". It was fun but I have to say that I did more watching and laughing than singing. It was a blast from the past to hear songs like 'You are so beautiful' and 'I'm on the Top of the World' or 'YMCA'being sung by colleagues who weren't even born yet when that came out! You can check out our photos.