Blessed by Pastor Turner

Today is Thursday, Nov 17 2011
 We are indeed blessed!  We have just made the acquaintence of Anthony Turner, a pastor from Colorado, who has come to be guest speaker for the 7th Annual Celebration here at CAM/Healing 2 the Nations base in Yirimadio.  Ray & I took him on a walk around the neighborhood this morning, to give him a taste of what it is like here. Along the way we spoke to children at play, ladies doing their laundry, shopkeepers tending their boutiques, and even a few men that greeted us as we walked by. We also got to show him the brick making process at 2 sites where houses will soon be raised, or added onto.
 We have known Pastor Anthony for less than 24 hours and are already feeling refreshed and encouraged by him.  We are looking forward to what else he will bring us, individually and as a church body this week. The theme for this time is Knowing the True Father (and the Father Heart of God),and he will teach and lead worship for us in special services on Friday and Saturday. Sunday will bring the culmination to the event, with a big fete and dinner on Sunday afternoon. 
 The main course for that dinner, biliba-daddy-sheep, has been in our enclosure for more than a week, and has helped himself to more of my garden plants than made me happy! He, with the able assistance of the much smaller young 'lion sheep' that was brought here in preparation for Paul's wedding in January, pretty well stripped the new stand of sweet corn that we had hoped to harvest in just a couple of weeks. (I get my revenge on Sunday!Um-m-m-! Mutton!) Seeing what was happening, and realizing that tying them was not working, I surrendered the patch after salvaging 1 small whole ear of sweet corn, plus 3 more nubbins that had the upper ends chewed off. We also dug what peanuts had grown (see picture of Ray & Adama)since the peanut plants went the same way as the corn. Ray & I ate the corn nubs for dinner last night before getting on our 'moto' to go to Handel's Messiah choir practice in town.  Actually, we got off our bike and got on Rokia's (thank you, Rokia) when we found we had no headlight. (We see many bikers running without lights, but we are not yet that adventurous!) Just a side note to the spirit of family care that she displayed; she returned the moto to us with the light fixed-- so we were especially glad that we had filled the gas tank for her:)) 
 The boys have filled several hundred small plastic bags with water, in preparation for thirsty attendees at the sevices, and will have a holiday from school on Friday. Shade will be provided in the open area that is just below our kitchen window, and stacks of metal chairs will be pulled out of storage for seating. There are also dozens of colorful plastic plates and plastic mugs that have been carefully hoarded from last years celebration to serve the meals. A neighbor has been hired to be an extra cook for the weekend, so that our regular cooks can participate in the services along with the rest of the base family. 
 As I write this, there is the sound of singing and music downstairs. The boys are in the middle of their weekly music lesson. They have a music teacher who comes and teaches about 10 boys, all together, for an hour.  Then they have the assignment of practice on the other days, each one taking a 15 min turn practicing on the instrument (piano, drums or guitar) that they are learning.  (American children should be so faithful at their practice!)
 Hope you are enjoying the adventure with us.  I promise to write again soon.
Take care to be a blessing this week, as you serve God and others.
Mim in Mali