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A Love Story Part 2

2009-04-13T21:55:00Z

So I have realized that nothing goes according to plan in life. This doesn’t mean that we just don’t plan, for planning is essential and gives people a focus to work toward, but I believe a true test of character is when the plan doesn’t work out and you press on despite the setbacks or inconveniences. In fact, a synonym for missionary is flexible. Hardly anything goes according to plan on the field, so the missionary spends his day being flexible: re-planning, adjusting, compromising, readjusting...(read more)

A Love Story Part 1

2009-03-30T21:04:00Z

So a lot has happened since I came back from my vision trip to Mali in September of 2008, but I specifically want to tell you a love story. I started at Liberty University in my undergrad August of 2004. In my sophomore year, I went on an evangelism trip to Daytona Beach with the Open Air Campaigners (www.oacusa.org). This is the trip that Justin Conley (my teammate who is specializing in linguistics for the team) and I really became best-friends. The trip was a great experience of preaching on the...(read more)

Mali Trip: The End - 9.9.2008

2009-02-04T18:59:00Z

Heading back to Bamako so I can catch my flight, we stopped for the night at the Eadelman’s (WorldVenture missionaries in Mali). I had a wonderful meal of waffles and great conversations. The Eadelmans were telling me of an oral translation being done here of the Bible stories. They were proofing the story of David and Bathsheba by telling it to one of their national language helpers, who is a woman, for comprehension and understanding. After telling her the story, the Senoufo woman looked confused...(read more)

Mali Trip: God Can Even Provide A Wife

2009-02-02T04:57:00Z

Listening to Mamado and Douda’s testimony was moving. Mamado was the first Christian in his dialect and came to Christ through a Christian radio station. He didn’t have the Bible, so he prayed for a solid year that God would send someone to teach him about Christ. At the end of the year, God sent Tom and Laura Requadt to serve with Mamado when rebels moved into their house in Cote d’Iviore, forcing them to Mali and Mamado’s village. Now Mamado is the pastor of the growing church in his language and...(read more)

Mali Trip: Please Silence Cell Phones In Church

2009-01-12T22:36:00Z

Church went as usual this Sunday. An active, sweat pouring, xylophone banging, Hallelujah singing, old lady fan waving, whole church clapping, praise service! The prayer request time intrigued me. Some asked for crops so their family could eat and others asked for their family to understand the new ways of the Christians (i.e. themselves). There are misunderstandings of why the Christians go to church on Sunday instead of working in the fields, of why the young girls should be taught to read and...(read more)

Mali Trip: Prayer Card English Comprehension Lesson

2008-12-05T04:50:00Z

At night, Tom, Do, Douda, the Salifous and I sat on the Requadt’s porch talking about the day. I gave the guys, who are like brothers to me now, my prayer card and to my surprise, Tom turned it into an English comprehension lesson since most of them are studying English once a week. As they read through the back, I started to realize the magnitude of what I wrote back there, and nervous to see how these brothers would take some of the blunt honesty of their own country. I mean, no one wants or even...(read more)

Mali Trip: Brothers

2008-12-05T04:14:00Z

After lunch, a bunch of us younger people piled onto the back of the motocart and headed out to a local Senoufo village to do an evangelistic meeting. To get an idea of what a motocart looks like, picture the outcome if a Chevy S-10 truck mated with a Honda Shadow motorcycle. It is the bed of a truck attached to the front of a motorcycle creating a dangerous, top heavy (especially with 7ish people and sound equipment crammed in the back), machine that Mamado is driving. Plus, Mamado has only ridden...(read more)

Mali Trip: African Attack Lizard

2008-11-24T00:27:00Z

So apparently Africa has attack lizards! As I was walking around with Tom to make a list of items the team would need to bring from the States, we walked outside to look at the generator room and tool room. I was standing just outside, enjoying the sun, when we heard a massive ruckus above us on the metal roof. I stepped back to try and catch a glimpse of what it was, when over the roof ledge flew about a 6 inch lizard in a sky dive position, claws out, and a mean look in its eye, except for a slight...(read more)

Mali Trip: Why Do You Refuse To Go?!

2008-11-18T12:22:00Z

So, I’m still sitting under the tree with Douda and Salifou as I read and tend to my bloody blisters. I read in The Shack, “Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown.” Why is it that my generation seems apathetic to growth, un-wanting to change and terrified of risk. I’m not talking about the Xtreme movement that swept through youth groups and even the secular world leaving a wake of Xtreme sports, Xtreme energy drinks, Xtreme Baptist whatever youth ministry...(read more)

Mali Trip: There is No Miscommunication in the New Heaven and New Earth

2008-11-13T17:13:00Z

“Life takes a bit of time and a lot of relationship.” – The Shack by William Young In regards to discovering the landscape of my heart: “I often find that getting head issues out of the way first makes the heart stuff easier to work on later… when you’re ready.” – The Shack Could it be that we, sometimes, hide behind head knowledge and cerebral exercises so that we don’t have to deal with the pain and hurt in our hearts, the confusion and muck, the sin? Douda, Salifou, and I set out for Mamado’s...(read more)

Mali Trip: Deadly Vipers; Living Grace (continued)

2008-11-01T22:15:00Z

After the deadly viper was extinguished, Douda proclaimed (as if the snake didn’t even phase him), “We finish!” We then set out on a vocabulary hunt. We would stop randomly, walk into a field and Douda would point at an object (plant, cow, plow, creek, valley, stump, axe, bike), whatever was new and say the word in Bambara and then in his Senoufo dialect. I would repeat each word several times until Douda and Salifou were satisfied with my pronunciation or laugh and say, “Let go!” The word for creek...(read more)

Mali Trip: Deadly Vipers; Living Grace

2008-10-29T00:10:00Z

This morning I woke up to a bowl of cinnamon apple porridge and instant coffee (I will certainly have to find a way to do drip, brewed coffee here!). Douda and one of the Salifous (two young men who I have grown close too. They are the ones that took me to play basketball, but they didn’t have basketball shoes, so Leon wouldn’t let them play.) arrived and we set out on our bikes to the field. Douda carried Salifou on the back of his bike and I struggled to follow behind. I haven’t ridden a bike in...(read more)

Mali Trip: Deep Simplicity

2008-10-22T16:49:00Z

Today was relaxing and restful. I spent most of the day reading, laboriously, through Segu. I never read fiction and this confirms why, but the cultural aspects of Segu are invaluable. It has explained so much, just in the short time I have been in Mali. Tomorrow I am going to experience Douda’s life. In the morning I’m setting off on a bicycle to Douda’s village to weed his garden for a good harvest. I’m sure to be tired. Tom and I went through Psalm 37 today, especially verses 3-6 in regards to...(read more)

Mali Trip: Begin With The End In Mind

2008-10-16T17:01:00Z

This morning is an overcast "cooler" day, so Laura was able to use the oven and make walnut cinnamon muffins from scratch. Everything becomes harder here, like when you can use the oven and not be driven out of the kitchen by the overwhelming heat perpetuated by the hotter sunny days. Laura saw me observing her doings this morning and asked me to tell the wives to know how to cook most stuff from scratch like muffins, pasta, cookies, almost anything. Unless you are in the capital of Bamako...(read more)

Mali Trip: Basketball and Blood

2008-10-14T16:59:00Z

Mondays are market day. The once secluded street, open and free to cars, is transformed into a bustling, busy, crowded path with odors and experiences, most of which are not pleasant to the senses. There are a variety of goods to buy from NFL jerseys, to dried little fish heads, to elegant cloth material, to dough grease balls that really don't resemble anything in taste except for old grease. We walked around the market, with Laura bartering and buying simple vegetables to use for lunch, and...(read more)