Thanksgiving

As you can see it is now cool season. Ed Bonvillain has switched over to the "urban" look to ride the motorcycle in to the hospital in the mornings. I have put my motorcycle back together and this is what it looks like when I go to the hospital. It is going to be great transportation for me with the carrying capabilities it has. On Friday we had our Thanksgiving festivities with lots of food and the game cornhole. It was good to spend time with other missionaries that we don't get to otherwise. We have so much to be thankful for. When I look at the suffering that a lot of other people endure, I can't help but think the things that I "suffer" for are pretty much non-existent. God has given each one of us so much in suffering of His Son, we each can have an eternity with Him. Let us be Thankful!

Laperoscopy hook up

What an exciting day! Yesterday and today Dan, Ed, and I worked on hooking up all the pieces of the Laperoscopy machine. Today was the test run on a goat in the OR. Where else but Africa?!! Instead of using CO2, we are using a Craftsman air compressor with the compressed air running through a water and oil filter to clean up the air before going into the machine. The final product worked great with only a few minor glitches. Tonight I have to work on a couple of the instruments that are used in the cauterization process which should be no problem. By the way, the goat is doing fine.

Chameleon and Container

We have set up some of our stuff from the container in our house now and have enjoyed using some of our things we have sent. This is what the container looks like when it arrived. This is also the first time that we have used the loading dock at the warehouse and it worked great. It made unloading so much easier and faster. Nobody got injured!! Praise God. We have not killed our chameleon yet. He (or she) is doing good. Today after church we have invited a Muslim guy over for lunch and to talk. Since our French is not very good, we have also invited friends of our over also that speak French to help translate when, not if, we have trouble communicating. We pray that things will go well. Hope you have a great day.

Container

We received the container today at the hospital. It is a real blessing. We finished unloading it at 6:00 pm. It has been a long day. We are also trying to raise a chameleon that we got in the market yesterday. I hope we don't kill it. We have to let it out of its cage so it can eat bugs and get water from the leaves it crawls on. Oh Boy! I will get some pictures of it tomorrow and post them. Stay warm. We are.

Mosquitos

For the last couple of days we have noticed that the boys have had mosquito bites on their arms in the morning. We decided to put up a net over top of them tonight. I really do not want the boys to get malaria especially after what we saw with the little Malian boy. Here is a picture of them playing in the "tent". Just living life can be an adventure out here we have found out. The boys are going to a Survivor birthday party this weekend for Emma Nesselroade. They don't have to go far to find the bush!!! I have been working with Jordan Stull to figure out a kitchen plan for the Bonvillain's new house. We are doing a house switch-a-roo between some missionaries to make room for a school house. I hope everyone has a great day.

Clinic in the Village

On Sat., there were some people from the hospital and church that went out into one of the villages to put on a women's health clinic and show a Malian movie to show them about Christ. The doctors used a school building as the clinic and the school desks as exam tables as you can see Dr. Dan in one of the pictures. There were three Doctors including Dan Nesselroade, Malian nurses, pharmacist, pharmacist assistants (Ed and I), and three Malian pastors. The love of Christ that was shown to these woman was incredible. There is a new church in this village that started a year ago and now there are 60 converts to Christ. That is unheard of in Mali. They are not typically receptive to the Gospel. God is doing an incredible work through the hospital and through the Malian Pastors. At the movie, which was at 7:00 and lasted three hours, there were about 200 villagers. The message that was given at the end of the movie was very powerful. Lives will be changed because of the obedience of these people to minister to the villages. I can't stress enough that God is moving mightily in and around Koutiala. I took some pictures but, I can only post a few. If you want, you can enlarge the photo by clicking on it and this will give you a clearer picture. Keep praying for these people.

Our Orientation in Mali

For the last two days we have been involved in Orientation class for new missionaries. We learned things like what to wear and not to wear (which is a HOT topic), how to cook with the things found in Koutiala, history of Mali, and things like that. We had a meal at one of the Malian's house and had the traditional food made up of toe with okra sauce and rice with a pork and veg. sauce. Here are a couple of pictures of the meal. As you can see, we eat with our hands and not table ware. Yes, it is messy. On a different note, I am going out into the bush to a small village this afternoon with Dan Nesselroade, Ed Bonvillian and a Malian Pastor to put on a health clinic and show the "Jesus" film. Pray that they are receptive to the Gospel. Have a blessed day.

Finally, an Angela update

Angela's day starts out on the road running. She gets up and throws on a "running skirt" and runs up towards the bible school down the main road to Bamako. She gets all kinds of looks. The Malians don't understand doing exercise. Life is so hard and physically difficult that they typically do not need to do any extra exercise unless of course it is soccer. She home schools the boys in the morning and prepares supper in the afternoon. In her free time, she keeps up on her emails and facebook. Here are a couple of pictures of her in action. Have a blessed day.

Angela update comming soon!

I am going to be giving an update on Angela here soon. I need to take some pictures of her in Action before I post it. I do have a picture of Jeffrey up in his friend Noah's tree house. This is for Jeffrey's friends. He has been having fun with his new friend making mud balls, swimming in the pool and playing in the tree house. He misses all friends! Keep praying for him.

Sunday church

Today is Sunday and we went to Church at the Koutiala Bible School Church. I took a little video of the Youth Choir while they were singing. Those of you that have been here, this will bring back some memories. The service today was in English and Bamada. There is a work team here and the head pastor came along to work, teach and preach. So, he gave the measage today. The picture of the kid and donkey were taken at church also. I believe that he rode it to church but, I didn't ask.

The weather today is perfect. It was cool this morning and only in the low 90's this afternoon with almost no humidity. We are going to go exploring here in a little bit to find a good place to hike and ride bike and moto. We hope to see some wildlife. Have a great day and God bless.

Welding

Today I was welding at the hospital. The malian welder that welds all the roof trusses in place came down w/ malaria and had to go home. So, I spent all day welding out on the roof trusses for the new pharmacy and warehouse. It was in the upper 90's and was a little warm. I am ready to relax in the shade the rest of the evening. Have a blessed weekend.

First orthopedics

One day at the Hospital, I was working with Bob the Builder (my boss) and a telephone call came in to my cell phone and asked us to come to the birthing room. Bob and I went and we were met there by Olive Gifford. They had delivered a baby that was breech and broke its arm in the process. The nurses wanted us to make a brace to keep the arm, shoulder, and elbow from moving so it could heal. We took a piece of 1" x .125" strap steel and made it into a 90 deg. angle. The two lengths were 3"x2". I took a picture of the brace in place on the little baby. The baby is healing well. Praise God.

Photos

Here are a couple of pictures of the wonderful scooter (moto as they call it here) and our truck.

Motor scooter

Well, we bought a scooter yesterday. What an experience!! We bought a new KTM 50cc motorscooter from a local dealer in downtown Koutiala. I took a Malian with me to dicker with the dealer. Good thing too. I would have paid at least 20% more if I would not have taken him. I gave 312,500 Francs for it. ( That's only $625). Right after I bought it, we took it to the mechanic to do a "new start-up". They took the thing completely apart and tightened every bolt and nut. I would say that 60% were loose or missing completely. We took all the oil out of the engine and replaced with new because the oil that came in the engine was only a 20w oil. I wish I would have had my camera to show you what that "new" scooter looked like all apart. The mechanic worked on it for 2 hours and I paid him 1000 francs ($2). Well, it does run ok now and will make Angela good transportation. Today, I found the ice-cream boutique. The chocolate and banana tasted exactly the same; vanilla. It tasted good being that it was 100 deg. outside. Well, I'd better get to work. A bientot.

First week in Koutiala

There are a lot of things we did the first week here in Koutiala, Mali. Angela went to a woman's retreat for ladies in the capital city of Bamako. The boys and Doug spent their time setting up the house and working on getting a Toyota truck running so we could have wheel to get around and work. We will post some pictures of our house and truck when I can figure out how to post them on our blog. I hope you all have a blessed week.