Alpha Beta

Next week we are going to be launching an exciting new ministry.  We will be hosting a special version of the Alpha Course that focuses on people who are learning English.  The Alpha Course is a small group Bible study designed for non-Christians who are looking for answers about the meaning of life and/or are curious about Christianity and want to find out more about it.  Alpha began 26 years ago as a means of presenting the basic principles of the Christian faith in a relaxed and informal setting.  Today, there are over 33,500 Alpha courses worldwide in 163 countries.  It is supported by all major denominations.

When we were in California a couple of years ago, a church introduced us to Alpha for ESOL (English Speakers of Other Languages).  They have been testing this new version of Alpha and because we work with a lot of people learning English, they invited us to become part of the testing program.  The more we learned about Alpha and the new ESL version, the more excited we got.

We will be hosting our first Alpha meeting on February 17th at our YWAM base.  It will run every Wednesday night for 12 weeks.  Every meeting begins with a meal we will be providing, followed by a lesson and small group discussion.  John will be leading each session and he’s retained the help of a couple of Malian pastors to assist.  For the past few weeks, they have been participating in an Alpha training program on DVD.

We are currently forming a prayer team which is a vital part of the Alpha course.  The prayer team will pray weekly for the course and pray for special requests of our Alpha guests.  We are also in need of sponsors to help offset the expense of the course.  The price of the materials and all the meals totals about $20 per guest for the entire course.  If you are interested in helping in either of these areas, please contact us and we’ll be happy to provide more details.

Super Shuttle

This week, YWAM Mali is hosting a YWAM Africa leaders conference.  We have people coming in from many different countries all over the continent.  John has been very busy picking people up from the airport and taking them to a conference center outside of town.  People have been arriving on flights at all times of the day and night.  John has also been tracking down lost baggage and running other errands.  It has been exciting to meet YWAM leaders from different parts of Africa and learn about the different YWAM ministries in other African countries.

Home Depot – You Can Do It. We Can Help.

One of the frustrations of living in Africa is something is always breaking in the house and things are in constant need of repair.  John is often frequenting hardware stores for parts and supplies.  Of course here, a hardware store is much different from the Home Depots and Lowes we know in the U.S.  Here, hardware stores are usually small 5x10 foot shacks stuffed with supplies. A hardware store can also be someone riding around on a bicycle with a box of tools and supplies tied to the back of their bike.

In the spirit of “turning lemons into lemonade”, John has taken the opportunity to begin a new ministry as he visits the hardware vendors in our neighborhood.  He’s now giving out gospel tracts in each store and beginning conversations about Christianity with the shopkeepers.  Lately, he’s been bringing Pierre, our house guardian with him.  Pierre is an enthusiastic Christian and a wonderful evangelist.  Because he’s fluent in Bambara and French, Pierre is able to help John deliver the Good News and get involved in deeper conversations.

Here’s To Your Health

John is now wearing a new hat.  This semester he’s teaching a health class for middle school students at Bamako Christian Academy one day a week.  This means Cole now has both of his parents as teachers!  This is John’s first experience teaching in a formal school environment.  The first class was on Tuesday and went well.  Helping the middle school students better understand adolescence and the changes they’re going through has been something on John’s heart and he was happy when the opportunity came up to teach.

Come Together

Yesterday our YWAM team joined in a unity celebration with a group of Charismatic Catholics (a unique sect of Catholics) that live in Bamako. The brothers and sisters at a local Catholic retreat center, invited us for lunch and a special time of worship.  It was exciting to spend the day with them and share in the unity that Christ wants the church to be involved in.  After a wonderful meal, we joined our YWAM worship team in leading a time of praise together.  Their West Africa leader then preached an excellent message on missionary service.  We then closed with a powerful time of prayer for each other and our various ministries.

Church unity is something that is very close to our hearts and this was a special demonstration of churches from different denominations coming together – especially considering the great division (and sometimes violent confrontations) between the Catholic and Protestant churches.

Tract and Field

Last Sunday, John had an opportunity to preach at the Bamako English Church service downtown.  The subject of his message was the Great Commission.  Many of the people that attend the English service are missionaries, so at first, it seemed like John would be “preaching to the choir”. But as it turns out, the message was very powerful and challenged a lot of people to take a deeper look at their lives and ministry.  Many of the missionaries in Bamako serve in administrative positions and aren’t involved in direct evangelism.  Many of us on the mission field get easily caught up in projects and tasks that support spreading the Gospel, but we don’t share with people directly.  It’s very sad how we can become so involved and lost in our work that we miss many opportunities to share with people we come in contact with day to day.

At the end of the service, John passed out packets of gospel tracts to everyone in attendance and encouraged them to hand them out throughout the week.  Yes…it seems really ironic that John was directing missionaries to get out and evangelize, but we have been really surprised by the results.  John has been approached by a couple of people this week with stories of how they shared with people they’ve known in Mali for years but never taken the opportunity to talk with them before about Christ.  Sometimes we just miss the obvious.  We’re praying this is going to be the start of a revival in Mali.

For Richer Or For Poorer

Mali is currently rated by the United Nations as the 5th poorest country in the world.  Being surrounded by extreme poverty is an an unfortunate reality of everyday life for us.  Jesus said, “The poor will always be among you”, but that doesn’t make it any easier.  It is one of the more difficult circumstances we deal with every day.  We are continually approached by people seeking assistance for food, money, medical aid, and the list goes on and on.  It’s especially heartbreaking when children come to us, many as young as 4 and 5 years old, begging for food.  The streets are literally lined with small boys begging for food and money.  The need is far beyond anything we can fulfill.  In fact, there are over 1,500 mission, non-profit, and foreign government aid agencies working in Mali, and together, we barely scratch the surface of the overwhelming need.

Today, we were visited by a man who comes by our house every week or two looking for help to care for his family.  He has not been able to pay his rent, so his landlord has locked him and his family out of their room.  He was begging for us to take in his 3 year old daughter until his family finds another place to live.  Unfortunately, this is a need we were not able to meet.  It grieves us to be faced by situations like this.  There are so many and they are so frequent.  We can help a few people, but the majority remain in need.  The needs are usually small…only a dollar or two here and there, but multiplied times the millions of people in Mali, it quickly becomes insurmountable.  Everyday, we’re reminded of the story of the child and the starfish, consoling ourselves that we are making a difference despite the vast landscape of needs.

Golden Years

This year marks two very important 50th anniversary celebrations for us.

Mali gained independence from France on September 22, 1960.  The country is going to great lengths to celebrate.  There are several major construction projects underway to celebrate the anniversary including a large central complex for all the government offices, a new bridge over the Niger River, a new road interchange at one of the busiest traffic circles in town, and a new airport terminal.  It’s exciting to see the level of growth and investment in infrastructure for the country.

2010 also marks the 50th anniversary of Youth With A Mission – YWAM.  Celebrations are taking place all around the world.  Loren and Darlene Cunningham, the founders of YWAM, are going to be making several “founders trips” throughout 2010.  Together with the leaders of YWAM, they will be participating in anniversary celebrations at 40 different locations around the world.  We just found out on Friday, that YWAM Mali will be hosting the celebration for West Africa right here in Bamako.  We have been asked to be on the hosting team and will be responsible for helping with a lot of the preparations and event handling.  Our celebration is scheduled for the first week in May.  We anticipate being very busy getting ready for the festivities.

The Wheels On The Bus

Our staff retreat ended on Friday and we returned to Bamako on Saturday on our YWAM bus.  The trip was peaceful and uneventful.  It took about six hours including stops at many different police checkpoints.  At each stop, our bus was swarmed by vendors selling food and drinks.  The road was in fairly good condition most of the way.  We did have to slowdown each time we approached a village as speed bumps are installed at the entrance and exit of each village.  This made for a very bumpy ride.

It is good to be home.  We’ve spent the last couple of days cleaning our house and taking down our Christmas tree and decorations.  Today was the last day of the Christmas break and Julie and Cole will return to school tomorrow.  We are happy to report that John’s health is doing much better.  The current dosage of his medication seems to have stabilized his condition.  His weight loss has stopped and his energy level has returned to normal.

Bonne Année

Ala ka san kura kƐ hƐrƐ san ye is Bambara for Happy New Year.  We rung in 2010 with our colleagues from YWAM Mali as part of our staff retreat.  We shared a wonderful meal then spent the night singing worship songs and dancing.  We also had several groups from different tribes and countries present a song that represented their country.  As Americans, our group of 6 sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic.  It was really interesting to see dances and hear songs from a variety of places.  Here is a video of a group of Bambara women singing and dancing.  Notice the woman dancing with a baby strapped to her back…this is a pretty common sight in Mali.

A couple from our Koutiala base were married two weeks ago and we used the New Year’s party as another occasion to celebrate their marriage.  The bride even wore her wedding gown to the party and someone from our team made a wedding cake for us all to share.

At midnight, we cheered and spent the next several minutes going around the room hugging each other as the dancing continued.  A New Year’s Eve party was a wonderful highlight of our staff retreat.  What did you do to ring in the New Year?  Click on the comment link below and share your celebration with us.

Retreat!

On Monday, we set off on a trip to our YWAM base in Koutiala, Mali – about a 6 hour drive from our home in Bamako.  We are attending a YWAM staff retreat.  We chose to ride on our YWAM bus with a lot of fellow staff members rather than drive our own car.  Even 6 years after our accident, Julie is still a little apprehensive about making the drive to Koutiala.

So far the retreat has been very beneficial.  The past few months have been difficult for us.  The retreat is allowing us to view our ministry from many new angles and helping to lift us up mentally and spiritually.  Our retreat runs all week and comes to a close with a New Year’s Eve celebration.

Last night was a special treat as we sat around a campfire as the founders of YWAM Mali shared the history of our mission which began in Mali in 1984.  It was interesting to hear how many of the ministries in Mali started.

Joyeux Noël

Merry Christmas from West Africa!  The temperature topped out today at 100° so we’re a long way from the blistery cold many of you are experiencing this time of year.  But it’s Christmas none-the-less.  We attended church last night at our friend Pastor Christophe’s church in Sabalibougou.  We left shortly after midnight.  Finances are a little tight this year, so we didn’t have Christmas clothes made.  Today, we spent the day celebrating as a family.  Julie prepared a wonderful Christmas dinner including pork roast, homemade stuffing, and a pumpkin pie made from scratch.  We also enjoyed unwrapping many gifts – some we found for each other in Mali and many sent by family and friends in the States.  We felt overwhelmed by generosity.

It has once again been a long time since we’ve updated our blog.  Our many apologies.  John is still not feeling well and is continuing to battle tiredness and fatigue.  He has also begun losing weight again.  As an added “bonus”, his hair is beginning to fall out as a result of the medication he’s taking.  These are all symptoms relating to his thyroid condition.  He and the doctor are working on finding the right dosage of medication for his treatment.  Unfortunately, it’s pretty much a matter of trial and error to reach the right point.  Hopefully John’s energy and vitality will return soon.

Go Go Go Joseph

One of the difficulties of missionary life is the need to say good-byes.  Our friendships are formed with people from all around the globe that are constantly coming and going.  Yesterday, we bid farewell to a longtime friend named Joseph.  John originally met him in 2002 during our CAN soccer tournament/Jesus Film showings in front of our house.  At the time, he was a refugee from Sierra Leone.  Over the years, he and John became good friends.

Joseph has a wonderful talent for making wooden pens and desk sets.  John helped him start a business and he has been successfully making a living doing this for the past several years.  We’ve had the joy of presenting several of you with pens and gifts made by Joseph.

Sierra Leone is now beginning to stabilize following almost 10 years of civil war that ended in 2000.  Joseph has decided to return and reunite with his family and reestablish his life.  It was difficult to say good-bye but we are very happy for him as we know this is something he’s been looking forward to for several years.  Today, he presented a special handmade YWAM plaque to John.  We will be continually reminded of Joseph because we see his pens and handmade nameplates on desks of many of the businesses we visit.

Flip Flop

Sorry to leave you in the dark for the past couple of weeks.  There’s really been two reasons:  Burnout and John’s Health – the two are probably related.  Now it’s time to try and get things back on track.

Update on John’s Health:

John’s been really slowing down the past few weeks and been suffering from feelings of confusion and delusion…very similar to the symptoms that led us to the discovery of his thyroid imbalance back in April.  After some tests, it appears we haven’t been monitoring things close enough over the past few months.  We discovered his medication has been overcompensating and his condition has actually reversed from having an overactive thyroid to underactive.  The doctor has completely changed John’s treatment and medication.  Now we’re going to spend the next few weeks trying to bring things back into balance again.  We’ve been going to a different medical clinic which we have a bit more confidence in.  The service has also been better and much cheaper.

When we first arrived at the clinic and explained the purpose of the visit, we were referred to an orthopedic surgeon who was the first doctor available for consultation.  This seemed like a total mismatch based on the treatment we were seeking.  But in God’s perfect way, He had a bigger purpose for the choice of doctor.  John has also been suffering a problem in his ankle and foot for the past couple of years.  In recent months, the problem has grown more severe.  His right foot and ankle has swollen to about twice its normal size.  He’s been fearing that he will require some type of surgery to get it corrected.  He brought it to the attention of the doctor during the consultation to get his advice on it.  As it turns out, this particular doctor was John’s attending physician in Mali following our car accident in 2003.  Because of John’s memory loss, he doesn’t remember the doctor.  But the doctor recognized John right off.  After a few basic questions, he said, “There are some things you’re not telling me.  I need to know EVERYTHING that’s been happening.”  This led to John mentioning his staph infection.  The doctor responded immediately by saying, “Did you get a prosthetic as part of your treatment?” He then zeroed in on the foot problem being related to John’s shoulder injury and the infection has spread to his foot.  He ordered some blood tests to confirm his suspicion.  It turns out that what we thought was an initial referral to the wrong doctor, turned out to be the best choice of doctor in Mali!  He was the only person with the background information on John’s medical history to pursue this avenue.  He said no surgery should be necessary and thinks everything can be treated with oral medication and locally applied cream treatment.  Wow…two big discoveries in one visit!  Now it’s just a matter of getting through the next few weeks and hopefully things are brought back into proper alignment.

Update on Christmas Outreach:  CANCELED!!

This has been a huge blow to John’s ministry.  The Board of Directors of BCA has rejected the idea of having our kids share the Christmas message with our neighborhood this year.  John has been devastated by this decision as much of his current ministry has been based on this project.  It is VERY difficult for him to understand why the Board feels it’s more important to “preach to the choir” and have the kids spend so much time and energy sharing the Christmas message with our missionary parents who know the story backwards and forwards when there are literally hundreds of people living footsteps from our school that have NEVER heard the Christmas message.  Even with his pleas of “If we don’t share it with them, how will they ever hear?”  The response has been, “Then you share it with them.  We don’t want our kids involved.”  John is really rethinking about his vision of involving our kids in missions projects when the parents seem so resistant to their involvement.  It is difficult for him to understand why so many missionary parents don’t seem to want their kids to follow in their footsteps.

We’ll Leave The Light On For You

It’s been a busy time of hospitality for us.  We’ve enjoyed hosting a lot of people in our guest room the past several days.  Julie will be attending a women’s conference this weekend and we have a couple of young ladies that will coming in from Koutiala and staying with us for the duration of the conference too.

Friendly Fire

A few weeks ago, we shared about a church team visiting from the U.S. that John had assisted with back in August.  Unfortunately, we ended up parting ways when it was brought to light that the team’s goals were contrary to our (the overall Christian community’s) work in Mali.  Their actions have caused a lot of trouble for the Malian church.  We found out yesterday that team returned to Mali last week and are currently here and continuing to pursue their unhealthy and dangerous agenda.  Much against the cries of Malian church and mission community, they are stirring up legal battles in Mali.  This team’s actions are putting the church at great risk and sabotaging the efforts that so many have worked years, and some have given their lives for.  It is devastating for us that this team’s self-interests are being held above the goals of the national church.  This is an extremely sensitive situation.  Please be praying for this misguided church team.  We are doing everything we can to do damage control.  With the spiritual battles that are currently going on, we didn’t expect that we would having to be dodging friendly fire too.

A Bug’s Life

Rainy season seems to be drawing to a close.  We miss the rains and the coolness they bring, however it will be nice not to tromp back and forth thru the mud everywhere we go.  Mali’s agricultural life and economy are dependant on the rain and we’re hoping this year’s rains have been enough to produce a healthy harvest.  We could have used more rain, but we’re happy we haven’t suffered dangerous flooding conditions that many of our neighboring West African countries did this year.

The end of rainy season also brings out a host of bugs.  The mosquitoes are especially bad this time of year with so much standing water.  Not only are they annoying, but very dangerous too as they are carriers of malaria which kills millions each year and is one of the leading causes of death in Sub-Saharan Africa.  As a family, we take preventative medication every day and so far have remained malaria free since arriving in Mali.

We’re also currently being overrun with grasshoppers with hundreds swarming on our front veranda each night.  Julie is also having a special battle in the kitchen with weevils in our flour.  She still gets creeped out every time she sifts them out of the flour and they make a mad dash looking for a new place to live and eat.

But our biggest concern right now is with Nairobi eye or blister beetles.  These are small bugs that contain a powerful acid.  When they are squished, they leave a acid on the skin that causes a very painful, burning rash that lasts for several days.  We need to be careful when we find one of these bugs, to resist the natural inclination to squish them.  Instead, we need to flick them off then kill them with a rag or tissue.  We have found quite a few of these critters in our house this week.  We’ve avoided the acid so far this year (we’ve all experienced rashes from them in past years), but it’s still very unsettling to have so many crawling freely about the house.

Good Tidings of Great Joy

Much like many of the stores in the States, we’re already shifting our focus on to Christmas.  In particular, a few days ago we shared a vision of a new Christmas outreach project for Bamako Christian Academy.  Thank you VERY much for your prayers!  Although the idea was originally met with some resistance, the school has decided to go ahead and take on this event!  We are excited about this new opportunity.  John in particular is busting at the seams to get started.  This is a wonderful example of some of the new ministries we’re moving into.

Each year, our school has traditionally done a Christmas program in English for the parents and families of the school.  Although it’s been fun and educational to put on a Christmas program each year, our idea is to move this event out of the closed environment of the past where we’ve been “preaching to the choir” that knows the Christmas story backwards and forwards.  Our idea this year is to move it into an outdoor, open-air event in our school neighborhood and share the Christmas message with our neighbors and community who have literally never heard it before.  We’ll be sharing traditional Christmas carols, acting out the Christmas story, and reading it from the French and Bambara Bible.  Our kids will also have a chance to learn a couple of Christmas songs in French and Bambara along with a few Christmas phrases.  We’ll also have translators on hand to help us in the presentation of the Christmas message.

This is going to be a wonderful opportunity to involve our kids in a local missions project and show them how they can actively share the Gospel with the people of Mali.

Melon Heads

Yesterday, we celebrated our annual Fall Festival at Bamako Christian Academy (BCA).  We started with an international potluck lunch with parents and students bringing a special food that represents their home country.  This mini “Home Town Buffett” is always a treat and we get to try some new, interesting, and very tasty foods.  Next, we had a watermelon carving contest made up of teams from different regions of the world.  Pumpkins are tough to come by, so we use watermelons instead since we’re just entering watermelon season and they are plentiful.  We then follow-up with each family sponsoring a carnival game booth.  Our family traditionally hosts a Coke bottle ring toss which is always popular…perhaps it’s the thrill of wining a free bottle of Coke with each successful toss.

New Fall Season

We’re embarking on some new ministries.  We feel like we’re being called in a couple of new directions right now and we’re looking forward to seeing how they’re going to pan out.  Ironically enough, following our French studies this past summer, we’re suddenly facing some new opportunities in English based ministry.  We’re hoping for a good mixture of both English and French in the process.

John in particular is leaning towards working with MKs (missionary kids).  He is interested in helping them develop a heart for missions and learning how they can make some valuable contributions to working with Malians.  He has recently started doing regular chapel presentations and begun working with a student ministries team at Bamako Christian Academy (BCA) to help them develop and implement a missions vision.  He is also feeling led to help develop and teach a heath class at the school with a special focus on helping the kids understand puberty and many of the changes they are facing.

John also has a vision of doing some evangelism outreach projects with the kids.  He is most excited about doing a Christmas program outreach this year.  So far, this has met with a lot of resistance from the administration, teachers, and the few parents he’s talked to.  This has been a real discouragement.  He is going to continue pursuing it hoping it will gain acceptance as people have more time to think and pray about it.  Please be praying with us.  He has high hopes we can still pull this together for this year.

We’re also getting more involved in leading an English family Sunday school.  We’ve been somewhat involved in the past, but we feel we’re being called to be more active.  We have recently done a couple of drama presentations followed with some teaching and lessons.  They have been VERY well received and we’re looking forward to incorporating more.  We’ve discovered some neat tools, including an amazing team called The Skit Guys.  These guys are so gifted in what they do and are serving as a real inspiration to us.  Our current featured video is called “God’s Chisel”.  We had a lot of fun reenacting this as the opening class this year and it was an overwhelming success.

Last night we began a small group Bible study in our home.  It’s called Learning to Love People You Don’t Like.  It is a challenging topic for all of us.  Relational problems with other missionaries continues to be one of the leading reasons many missionaries end up leaving the mission field.  We’re hoping this study will help us and others better understand and practice the true definition of love that Jesus shares in the Bible.  We were a little disappointed that only 3 people showed up, but it went very well none-the-less.  We will continue promoting it and hope that our numbers will grow.

Stay tuned…we also have a couple of other new ministries on track ready to launch in the next few weeks.

How Long Does It Take A Missionary To Change A Lightbulb?

[INSERT PUNCHLINE HERE]  Life in Africa can often turn the simplest tasks into huge challenges.  We have a special term for those things…WAWA (West Africa Wins Again) moments.  One of the big ministries we’re involved in is hospitality.  We have a guest room in our home that we affectionately call Baywatch Bed & Breakfast.  We enjoy hosting missionaries and other visitors and provide a place with a few special amenities and creature comforts they don’t normally have access to such as running water, electricity, a sit-down flushing toilet, hot water, air-conditioning, western meals, and English speaking companionship.

The other day we were preparing for guests when the light went out in our guest bathroom.  We tried replacing the light bulb with 3 spares we had on hand and none of them worked.  (We always test them at the store when we buy them as the failure rate is pretty high on new (Chinese) bulbs here.)  John dragged out a ladder and checked the light fixture and everything seemed to be okay.  The light in the guest bath is the only one in our house that uses a standard screw-in light bulb.  All the rest of our lights are big, ugly florescent garage type lights, so we couldn’t verify if the problem was the light fixture or the light bulb.  John went out looking for a replacement bulb and had to walk to 3 different stores to find one.  After an hour and a half, we finally had light in the guest bath again.  Ugh!  Never take the simplicity of changing a light bulb for granted.

Next will be the shower.  We imported a special hot water heater from England for our guest bath last year.  We ran it for a couple of weeks until it started a fire in our main electrical circuit box.  Our next big project is going to be running a special wire from the guest bath directly to our electric meter to bypass our sub-standard house wiring.  Oh…where is Home Depot when you need it!

Mille Bornes

We have passed several big and exciting milestones the past few months.  We’ve decided to mark these and other special moments by creating physical memorial stones.  There are a couple of really cool stories in the Bible when people marked important places and and events with memorial stones.  In particular, Genesis 28:10-20 and Joshua 4:1-21 have served as an inspiration for us to mark these times and victories so we won’t forget them – especially when we’re lost in times of struggle and difficulty.

We’ve decided to take things a step further by painting our memorial stones.  We have had a lot of fun creating these.  In addition to reminding us, they have also been conversation pieces and opportunities to share about our blessings when people visit our home.

To date, we’ve painted rocks to mark the start of dedicated family times together each week, our summer trip to language school in Switzerland, our 20th wedding anniversary, and Cole’s 13th birthday which we also marked with a special right of passage party with several other families and boys his age a few weeks ago.

One of our favorite family games is a French card game called Mille Bornes (1,000 mile markers.)  We’ve enjoyed tying the theme of this game in with making our own mile markers.  TRIVIA:  When the French colonized Mali, one of the legacies they left behind were borne markers on the national roads.  They are placed every 5 kilometers to mark the distance to approaching towns.  If you receive our printed newsletter, see if you can find one of these bornes in our masthead picture at the top of the page that we’ve been using for the past 9 years…we’ve customized it a little to fit the title of our newsletter.

Spirits In The Material World

There are many definitions of the term “spiritual warfare” and different views of the spirit world.  We have come face-to-face with some very strong spiritual forces of late.  Ephesians 6:12 has taken on a very real meaning in our lives and ministry.  Throughout the past few weeks, we have become witnesses to the strength and power of the spiritual world both in terms of good and evil.  We have a whole new understanding of the Holy Spirit and His role and influence in our lives.  The Holy Spirit has played an instrumental part in the restoration of our marriage and ministry.  On the opposite side, we have also had some very real encounters with Satan and his evil spirits.  On one night in particular a couple of weeks ago, we were so disturbed that we needed to get rid of an African shadowbox picture that had been hanging in our house and had been identified as something containing evil spirits.  We literally took it outside our house and burned it at 3 o’clock in the morning to help rid our home of evil spirits.  Unfortunately, it didn’t end there.

This past weekend, we had an even closer encounter where actual verbal battles took place with spirits in our home.  This is a difficult and controversial topic for a lot of people so we won’t go into a lot of detail.  We’ll just summarize by saying we have a much different and very real view of the spirit world now.  We see things in a completely new light and have a lot more respect for what spiritual warfare means.  While it wasn’t played out in the Hollywood portrayal like the Exorcist, Ghost Busters, or Poltergeist, we did get very close and saw some very real manifestations of spirits.  We had the strength to see the situation through and with God’s help, we were able to declare victory and literally clean house and cast them out.  It was not pretty, it was not easy, and it’s something we don’t want to see again.  However we were never scared or felt it beyond our control because of the authority we have in Christ.  We feel much stronger now as we know that we will have ultimate victory if and when we encounter this type of situation again.  It also becomes one of our primary calls for assistance from you, our prayer warriors.  You play an extremely important role in helping with these battles.

What’s In A Name?

We have a young man working for us as a guardian and caretaker.  His name is (was) TiDiane (pronounced T-John).  He’s a wonderful Christian young man that is very involved in ministry and his church in Magnambougou.  Unfortunately, he’s been living with some very difficult and dangerous circumstances.  His father is a very big and well respected imam (Islamic leader…similar to a pastor in a Christian church.)  He is responsible for leading and teaching in several different mosques and villages.  In addition, he serves in the capacity of a powerful witchdoctor.

TiDiane has been in the process of being groomed by his father to follow in his footsteps to become an Islamic leader.  At an early age, he was taught to read and write Arabic and learn and memorize the Qur’an.  Not too long ago, TiDiane’s brother became a Christian and soon led TiDiane to Christ also.  This really upset their father who began by throwing them out of the house and cutting them off from the family.  Over the past several months, their father’s heart has softened and he has gradually been accepting his sons back.  But in the process, he is still making the lives of his sons very difficult and often threatens them with injury and death.  They are both living back in the family compound but are not allowed to live in the house.  It’s a very complicated relationship we don’t quite understand.  Their father is especially troubled about TiDiane as he had such high aspirations for him being a Muslim leader.  He has placed several curses on TiDiane which have resulted in physical injuries to TiDiane. 

Several days ago, TiDiane was late arriving at our house.  He came in limping and had a lot of difficulty walking.  He explained that his father had cursed his knee the night before.  John sat down with TiDiane and prayed with him.  He specifically prayed for his knee and placed his hands on him during prayer.  After praying, they talked more about the situation.  John was curious why TiDiane seems to be a bigger disappointment to his father than his brother who led him to the Lord.  TiDiane explained how his father had been investing in his spiritual development as an Islamic leader.  He also talked in detail about his name.  TiDiane is just his “short” name.  He has a very long and complex Muslim name with each name a reflection of the power and authority his father has vested in him.  Upon hearing this, John felt led to free TiDiane of this bond.  He gave him a new Christian name of Pierre (Peter) and shared Matthew 16:17-19 with him.  Pierre’s face instantly lit up.  He began thanking John.  Suddenly he stopped, and looked down at his leg.  He began freely bending his knee back and forth then began walking around in circles.  He looked at John and said, “Je suis guéri!”  (I am healed!)  He continued walking around and saying it over and over.  He said all the pain was instantly gone and his knee felt normal.

Pierre is very proud of his new name and is eager to share it with everyone he talks to now.  This is one of those missionary stories you read about in books or magazines.  We never thought we’d be experiencing things like this first hand in our life and ministry.  What an exciting opportunity this has been for us!

Over the past couple of weeks, there has been a young boy from next door constantly in our compound whenever Pierre is here.  Pierre seems to have adopted him like a young brother.  The boy rarely leaves Pierre’s side and is eager to help Pierre work around our house and yard.  They often sit down and Pierre has been spending countless hours sharing the Bible (in Bambara) with the boy teaching him about Jesus.  Please be praying for Pierre (especially his situation with his father) and Bakary, the young boy that he’s currently teaching and shepherding. 

The Good, The Bad,& The Ugly

Yes…it’s been a long time since we’ve posted an update to the blog.  Thank you for your continued interest and prayers.  The last month has been very busy and overwhelming for us on many different levels.  We have been going through a lot of extreme circumstances…both good and bad.  These back-to-back highs and lows have been very confusing to us.  This is when we need to be communicating with you the most, but we’ve been too caught up in our circumstances to take the time to sit down for a few minutes and share.  Quite honestly, we’ve been waiting for things to stabilize enough for us to understand them ourselves and be able to communicate what’s happening.  And in the middle of it all, we’ve been launching into several new projects and ministries.

There is no way we can summarize everything, but we’ll try to catch up with a few highlight posts over the next few days.  Please rest assured that we are physically safe and sound.  But we have become ever aware of the huge spiritual battle we’re involved in.  Please continue praying.  We feel things are beginning to settle down a bit and we’re regaining our vision now that the dust is starting to clear.