Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, just want to let everyone know I will not be going out to the village as planned on Monday but hopefully will get another chance later. However, our family will be on the road for a few days traveling and would appreciate your continued prayers for safety. I will try and post a few pictures from our trip when we get back. Have a good day.

Blessings,

Jon

Thanksgiving in Africa

Hello everyone,

I hope all of you are fine in America as we are doing well in Mali. I (Jon) have had a sinus infection due to the winds and dust of the Saraha desert, I am told this is not uncommon for many people this time of year. In Mali, you do not need a prescription for medication so I just walked a couple of blocks to the pharmacy and bought what I needed. However, you do have to consult with the right people and make sure you are getting the right kind of antibiotic. Teresa and Autumn have not had any major sicknesses and are fine.

French is going as well as can be expected. I have been told that a person will only learn as much of another language as they need and I believe that. There must be some sort of motivation other than just wanting to know another language because of the difficulty in learning. In our case, the motivation is being able to share eternal truth with others in a language that they will understand. Some day, the fruit of our learning and your prayers will be evident.

Thanksgiving will soon be here and we will be celebrating with other missionaries here in the city. It sounds like we will be having somewhat of a traditional dinner as everyone is bringing something to the table, we are taking a couple of homemade coconut pies and cranberry sauce that we brought in our suitcases from America! As to the weather, it does not feel like Thanksgiving here because of the heat but we have so much to be thankful for. A few years ago we started a family tradition on Thanksgiving where we have a time of prayer, the prayer only includes thanks to God for His blessings. It can be a challenge to pray without asking for something but I would encourage you to try it with your own family this year. It is amazing how the Lord inhabits our praise of thanksgiving and reminds us of his blessings.

The day after Thanksgiving, we will be traveling about three hours to another town with two other missionary families for two days of relaxing and hopefully a pool for the kids. It will be really good for Autumn because her time is so limited with other kids her age because we do not see each other except for once or twice each week. It will be quite the adventure because we are all amatuers in the language and you can forget about mapquest helping you over here! We will be back to the city on Sunday afternoon and then I will be taking my first trip to the village on Monday morning with a missionary who has several years experience. I am looking foward to the experience of sleeping under the stars and my first introduction to eating typical village food. If the Lord brings it to your remembrance to pray on Monday afternoon, I will probably be sitting around a campfire with several West Africans from about 3:00pm to 6:00pm your time as the other missionary shares the truth of the gospel in their heart language.

Lastly, I just want to tell you that I had my friend over for dinner last night (supper is not a word here) and afterwards we watched ICE AGE (in French). It was quite entertaining to see him laughing so hard over an animated movie. I am not a big movie person but ICE AGE ranks in my top ten favorites.

Well, that sums up what we have been doing here in Africa. Please keep praying that God will open up a door for witness, I was able to share a few nights ago for a couple of hours with a man who believes Jesus was a good man and prophet but nothing more. I was able to communicate because the man spoke and understood quite a bit of English. It is not uncommon to catch myself speaking back and forth between both languages, they call in Frenglish!

Hope you have a blessed day in Christ,

Jon

Bonjour from Mali!

We are doing the usual here: french, french, french! We can now have a small (very small) conversation with the people we meet. Our professor said we are learning at the normal pace. I want to be able to speak more, but I have to realize that we have only been here for a month. Pray that we would retain what we have learned and can pick up more quickly.

We had our first African guest over for dinner last week. Our neighbor came over and ate peanut sauce and rice with us. This is a very common dish here, and Jon and Autumn think it is the best. They compare it to a Sonic burger. (it doesn't compare!) We are blessed to have this family that has taken us in and is teaching us the culture and language. On Saturday nights, Jon goes out and drinks tea with the men and their dog, Bob (such an american name for a dog;-) from 10 pm to around 1 am. I don't know what he can talk about for 3 hours since he isn't fluent in french, but you know Jon, he can talk! Of course, it does help that the neighbor knows some english.

Autumn is homeschooling and learning french along with us. I am glad that they have her attend all the french classes because she will be a vital part of the ministry. We haven't married her off yet! The other missionaries ask us if we have received any marriage proposals for her, and we say no, well not that we understood anyway! Autumn says, "If anyone is talking about me, always say no," to be safe.

Jon has been taking me out and teaching me to drive a stick shift. This is not something that I am excited about, but our leaders want the women to be able to know how to drive in case of an emergency. I am driving around the soccer stadium parking lot and am not in any hurry to get out on that crazy road! We really need to get a video of the driving to post on here!

We went shopping today for some skirts and the man at the shop made Jon try on an African outfit (he actually put the shirt over his head). In the end, Jon bought the outfit. I have posted a picture of Jon wearing it. It looks like pjs to me. I am proud of myself though, I was able to buy myself a dress and bargain the price. The man gave me a price, and I offered him half. He said no and I said ok, I don't need it. He waited a little while and decided that I meant it and came back and said I could have it for my price. That is how you shop here, they see a white person and put the price way up there, you have to be willing to walk away if they won't take your price. I have also posted a picture of me and Autumn dressed for church on Sunday.

Oh, we got to eat at our first fast food (not too fast though) restaurant this past week. We ate at the Broadway Cafe and had cheeseburgers, philly steak, fries and a CHOCOLATE milkshake. Yum! I think we will be going back soon!

Thanks for all your comments and prayers. Keep them coming!

In Christ,

Teresa

Drinking tea in West Africa

Hello everyone, all is well in West Africa. I just finished boiling some peanuts in salt water and may end up roasting them to give them more flavor. I had roasted peanuts and tea last night with a few of the men in our neighborhood which lasted until about 1:00am. The typical scene of friends and fellowship in West Africa are often formed in outside courtyards or under a shade tree around a small pot of tea. You may wonder what people talk about until 1:00am in the morning and I wish I could tell you but I didn't understand most of what was being said. However, I do know West Africans are like everyone else in that they have lives of joy, hardships, pain, and love. It is around a pot of tea that many of these issues are discussed, I do not know the language very well yet but I was able to communicate and recieve friendship in a language that is common to us all.

I have made friends with one man in particular who is from the Bobo people here in Mali. He has been very patient with me in my learning of French and he is eager to teach me the culture also. I included a picture of us from our study the other night. I have also included a picture of Mali and where we are located in the city of Bamako. Mali is landlocked and we are just entering what they call the Harmatten season. The Harmatten happens when the winds sweep over the Sahara desert and brings in waves of dust over the country of Mali. It leaves dust on everything and at times limits visibility to just a couple of blocks when it gets really bad. On the bright side, it blocks the suns rays and could get "cold." When this happens, everyone starts building fires so the smoke mixes with the dust and gives us a different atmosphere than what we are used too.

Being here is so different from America but I have such a peace and contentment knowing we are serving the Lord. I cannot wait to communicate the gospel where they can understand! Life is good wherever we are so long as God is leading us. I have sensed his watchful eye and protecting hand every day, that is why He is the great Shepherd.

Our main prayer concern is still that we will learn the French language and be saturated with God's presence and grace as we go. Thank you so much for your praying on our behalf.

Blessings,

Jon

We have survived two weeks in Africa!

Yes, that really is a lizard Autumn is holding! It was huge (according to my calculations!) and alive! Crazy girl!

Wow, it has already been two weeks! Sometimes it seems just like yesterday that we arrived, and other times it seems like we have been here for months! :-) We are doing well, we have our episodes of culture shock but are making it. There is such a very different worldview here! Every time we leave our courtyard we are a the highlight. The children run up yelling "Toubaboo", which means white person. We do definitely stick out!

If we haven't already said it enough, the driving is CRAZY here! I hold my breathe whenever we have to go anywhere. To top things off, I have to start learning to drive a stick shift this week! Please pray for that!

We have realized how much we have to rely on God here..........in the states if someone gets sick, you call 911 or get help from a neighbor; here, we can't speak the language well and they definitely don't have a 911 service. Our trust is in the Lord, He brought us here and He will take care of us.

Language learning has been good. We have tutors come in 4 days a week to teach us. Mondays are our busiest day with 4 hours of French. By the time the day is over our brains are mush! We think that we are doing really well saying certain phrases, so when we go out in the neighborhood we try them on our neighbors. We get a lot of laughter, I wonder if that Arkansas accent comes over in our french! :-)

Everyday living just takes longer here. To wash dishes (yes by hand, no dishwasher!), I have to boil water. When we go to the market and buy fruits and vegetables, I have to wash them well and then soak them in bleach water for 20 minutes. We only wash clothes once a week at the office, so we do have to do some by hand. (I can't wait to arrive in Abidjan so I can buy a washer and dryer!)

But overall, I have to admit the experience has been much better that I had anticipated. Our apprentice leaders are wonderful and have been a great help! We had to laugh the other night when we was looking in our medicine cabinet.............we brought enough medicine to last our entire term (and we have more in our air freight to Abidjan!). I guess we are prepared if any missionary in our city gets sick! ;-)

We did find out that we will be leaving Mali two months earlier. We will be going to Abidjan a week before Christmas. We are excited to meet our team mates, they have been a great help!

We will be going out to stay in the village this month, so keep this in your prayers. Also, pray that we will stay healthly physically, emotionally and most importantly spiritually.

Send us a comment or email. We do love to hear what is going on it your life.

In Christ,

Teresa