My little helper Balla

It has been a long time since my last post. At the end of June, I had an accident with a 6" jointer and lost the top portion of my index finger. Three other fingers just had the sides taken off but they are still there. Typing has been a little more difficult not having the index finger to use but I am learning to do without.

These last few weeks I have had a little helper named Balla. Actually, he is everyone's helper. You will find him walking around anyone with white skin. He is a patient at the hospital and is undergoing chemo treatments. He is a cute little guy that is not afraid of anything. In these pictures, I was drawing out a new plumbing system for the pediatric building and Balla just had to help me carry around my ruler.

Keep praying for us as we try to finish out the construction of the 2nd and 3rd buildings. We hope to have them done by the first of the year. Thanks for all your prayers and support.

Mother's Day Dinner

I know that I am about a month behind on this blog but here are the Mother's Day pictures and story. On Mother's Day Sunday, we had a five year celebration at the hospital so we were at the hospital all afternoon. After the festivities were over, our boys Daniel and Jeffrey along with Maggie Nesselroade made their moms dinner and the dads tagged along also. It consisted of french bread with oil and spices as an appetizer, green salad with all the Malian vegetables, Mac-n-Cheese with bacon for the main course, and then to top it off we had chocolate cookies for desert. They kids were the cooks and servers without any help from adults. They did a fantastic job. Us along with the Nesselroades had a lot of fun that evening.

Baramba Clinic Mosquito Frames

Its been a long time between posts. There is a lot going on at the hospital and clinics right now. Yesterday, I was able to go with Daniel, our Director of Rural Clinics, to our Baramba clinic to install the frames for mosquito net since the rainy season is soon arriving. I took my head welder, Aubree', with us also. He is such a good welder that I think he could weld tin foil. We set up our "shop" under the mango tree for shade and went to town welding and grinding. It is mango season and Aubree' got hit on the back by one of these mangoes while he was welding and it about put him down. We even put Daniel to work with the grinder. Since this village doesn't have electric, we had to pull our big Lincoln welder down the well worn dirt road with what I would think would be about 1,000 pot holes. It was slow going but we made it there without hitting any donkeys, people, goats, sheep, or anything that was living. Praise God.
We are very thankful for our clinics. We have seven and they are placed throughout the country side within 200 kms of Koutiala. We have a new one that just got built and now I need to go out and start on the plumbing and maybe some solar electric power if the funds are available. So much more work than time is available for doing all this. Pray for wisdom for and discernment for what God wants and not just what we want to get done. The gospel is going forth with the love of our clinics in all these rural areas. Praise God.

They Grow Them Big Here

This is a rat that was caught behind our mission in the nursery. They wanted to know if we wanted to buy it to eat. I gladly declined (Angela wanted it but I had to set my foot down and say "no"). Anybody hungry?

Southgate Team

A team from Southgate Baptist Church came to install plumbing in the third building for two weeks here in January. It was great having friends from our home church here to help. As a bonus, we were able to eat almost every meal with them in our house. It was a great time of fellowship with lots of stories told of old times. What a great encouragement it was for us.

The cross that you see was made and put in place by Dan Faust and Jon Johnson in a village about 25 km from Koutiala. This church is only 2 and a half years old and started with zero believers. Now, there are at least 60 believers and up to 100 come on a Sunday morning from as far away as 20 km by foot or donkey cart. God is really at work in this village and church. I will share more about them in the near future.

The team got a lot more accomplished than I ever though they would. They completely plumbed the third building and finished up the second as well. They definitely did not let grass grow under their feet (not that grass grows here anyways!). We also had two guys from Ft. Wayne come as well to help with whatever they could. They rebuilt our pallet jack, installed new bearings and seals in our washing machines, built counter tops and shelves for sterilization, and so much more. They were able to complete the things that I did not have time to tackle. They all were real blessings.

Keep praying for us as this is a real busy time for us with teams coming and going. I make a lot of trips to Bamako and back. The roads here are not real great so pray for safety. Thanks again for all your prayers and support. We love you all.

A Couple of Pictures

I thought I would send along a couple of pictures of the third building as it sits now. The picture is from the back side of the hospital wall up on the hill. This is our two story building that will have the Operating rooms, delivery, and all the technical stuff. It is really coming together. We will have Southgate Church here the last two weeks of January for the plumbing of this building.

The little buildings are our what I call our Ronald McDonald houses. These two little building will be where families of patience can stay that don't have a place to stay in Koutiala and are to far from there homes to go home each night. The two will house up to 5 families.

Thanks again for all your prayers and support. Things are really busy right now and we have our hands full. God Bless.

Mutton Sandwich

I have found this great sandwich here in town that is sold by a handicapped person down at the bus station. He starts with lamb meat rubbed with his special rub and skewered with bicycle spokes over a charcoal stove. He then has French baggette bread that he puts the meat into. Then, he adds onions, tomatoes, oil, more of his "special rub" and then wraps it in cement bag paper that he has just hit with his hand to get the rest of the cement off of. It reminds me of the movie "Princes Bride" when Billy Crystal talks about his "mutton, lettuce, and tomato sandwich." It is a great sandwich. The problem here is that they don't know germ theory. Last week, the guy ran out of oil that was in a small plastic bag as he was squirting it on one of the sandwiches, so he grab another bag and BIT the corner off of the new bag and kept on squirting on the oil. Ed, Dan and I laughed and said that is something you don't see in America. We ate the sandwiches and they were good (we didn't get sick either). If you can get them hot, that's just a special bonus.