Sanekuy Village Clinic

Dan, Anco and I with some other CPAM staff went to the village of Sanekuy (Sa-ne-quee) this past Saturday to install a portable ultrasound machine and supply power for the machine via a solar panel and controller. I was once again reminded of the sad situation of the clinics. Most do not have running water or any electric in them at all. The clinics function as small hospitals with minor surgery and baby delivery as well as a dispensary. It is hard for us from the states to understand how a clinic can function with any sort of cleanliness without running water. To get water, they have to walk outside the compound wall to the nearest well and draw it out by bucket and rope. The third picture down is of a well for the drawing of water. Notice the animal around the well and what do animals do after they drink and eat? That's right, they like to poop and pee and all that right by the well opening. Not to sanitary, would you say? Dan Nesselroade and I were talking and we were thinking how far 20,000 dollars would go at each of our six clinics. We could set up a well with a solar powered pump, a water tower, new plumbing and fixtures, and then install some solar electric power for lights and equipment. This would make them into a great functioning clinic and could offer a much higher level of care to the people of that village and the surrounding areas. Then we thought, how could we get this work done. Most of this can not be done by the Malians because they have not even seen anything of the sort that we would like to install. If we could get different churches to take on a clinic as a project and raise the money, get together a team to do the work and just take the clinic as a whole under their care, that would be ideal. The work team would have to be a specialized team and set up like a "extreme or survivor" team because there would not be any comforts of home. They would be sleeping in tents, using bucket showers, outdoor toilets, and no electric except what we produce from a generator while we work. I know that if this is going to happen, God would have to impress on the heart of the different churches and put these teams together. Please pray for God's leading and wisdom on if we should pursue Churches and teams for such as this. I believe that God wants us to show compassion on his people here, now we just need to find the best way to do it. If you have any ideas or questions, please let me know. This is a work in progress but I think it is necessary to make the clinics all God wants them to be. Please be in prayer with us.

Over Half Way with the Roof

We are over half way on covering the second building with the metal roof. The problem now is that we are caught up with the welders installing the trusses, so we took two of the team members and added a second shift for welding. We will see if we can get the roof up by the time the team needs to head back to the states. This is a hard working group of people, that is for sure. Thanks for all your work. God Bless.

Roof on Second Building

The Christ Community Team is here now and they are installing the roof on the second building. They will be here for two weeks and they want to get all sixty-eight meters installed. They are off to a great start and are about fifteen percent done after the second day. They are off to the market this afternoon to do a little shopping since it is market day. Have a great day.

Progress

The Beaver Lodge team has left and the Christ Community team is here. We are getting ready to put the roof on the second building and start to move into the first building. Thing are going well and are moving fast. Here is a picture of all three buildings with the first one almost complete. It is hard to believe that the building in the forefront was still under construction when we first came here and now look at the campus. God is Great.

Dogon Country

We made a trip to Dogon Country this last weekend with the team from Beaver Lodge Alberta Canada. The Dogon Country is an area of Mali that was inhabited by people that were escaping slavery and Islam indoctrination. When they would feel pressure by an outside people group, they would move into the cliffs of the area. They built "second houses" to live in with a supply of food to last a long time. The houses were made of mud dobie bricks up in the cliffs so they could defend themselves and the enemy could not get to them easily. Absolutely fascinating. This is a picture of Daniel with a traditional head rap by our Malian guide (and friend) Sakou. Check out the Obama button on the hat of the guy on the left. Even Dogon people know about Obama. We had a great time with the team and learned a lot.
Alyssa Kah has spent the last six weeks with us here and is now leaving to go home to Indy. It has been absolutely a blast having her with us and us getting to know her better. We felt like she was just part of our immediate family. We Love you Alyssa!

Third building

OK. Its been one and a half weeks since the Indiana team got here and we have completed the outside structure, insulating, and roofing. We started the gutters today and got a portion of them done. These guys really know what they are doing and can FLY. It has been a real blessing having all of them here and especially Ryan Sprunger from Berne Indiana. He attends the same church that I grew up in, First Mennonite of Berne. It has been great to get to know him better and spend time working together. Thank you for sharing him with us here. We are finishing up the details of the building and then we are off to installing the trusses on the second building. It is fun talking to the Malians and getting to hear what they think of the third building. Most of them have never seen a structure anything like this let alone help build it. We told them that this type of building is put up a lot in the States and they just could get their minds wrapped around what it must look like in the States. They kept telling me that they would like to come see for themselves what it must be like to have buildings of this quality. We are blessed to have this building here for the hospital. Keep praying for us as we continue to serve here.

Happy New Year!

Welcome to the New Year. We have a very busy time then next three months with work teams back to back to help with the building of the three hospital buildings. We have three teams here right now for the start of the first week of January.
My parents were here for a couple of weeks over Christmas. It was Great having them here. Grandma got to play games with the boys while Grandpa did a lot of tickling. The boy had a great time with them both. It was a great encouragement to have them here so they could see what our life is like in Africa. I worked about half the time with dad by my side and we took the time off for the other half of the time, so it was a relaxing time for us as well. We all went to church together Christmas morning and then had a feast with the pastors at Bethel. You will notice that we are all wearing the same material in our clothing. Every year the CMA women pick out a Christmas cloth to be worn on Christmas day. It is fun see all the different styles of outfits made of the same cloth. We had a great day with everyone.
Thanks to everyone that participated with our ministry last year through prayer, financial support, and friendship. Without you all, we couldn't be here doing what God has asked us to do. We love you all.