Sunday in Binabougou

We traveled to Binabougou today for church.  This small village is about a hour northwest of Bamako, at the end of some pretty rough roads.  It’s always so fun to arrive at the little school where we’ve been holding church, where we are greeted by the local children.

Not many white faces travel in these places, so we create a bit of a sensation when we are there.  The children are intrigued with the hair on John’ arms and with our pointy noses.

This little boy had a can full of rocks–his toy today.  He was shaking it to make noise.

And these boys had a bow and arrow.

Chiaka and his son, Oumar brought our “church in a box” and helped to set up the small school room.

 

While we waited for church to begin, we noticed Oumar had his little green French Hymnbook and he was singing, “Israel, Israel, God is Calling.”  He was happy to sing it again just for me.  He is a bright light in this place.  Oumar will be 8 years old in October.

Today for our meeting, we had 2 investigators and a gaggle of children.   We partook of the sacred sacrament emblems.   John and I gave talks, followed by Chiaka.   Then we showed them a video about King Benjamin and we talked about the things he prophesied about Jesus Christ who would be born in a future day.

Afterwards, we talked about how those prophecies were fulfilled, how Jesus came to earth, and how he prepared the way for us to know how to return to Him and our Father again.

Chiaka showed our visitors where the account of King Benjamin is found in the Book of Mormon, testifying of Christ.

We had a great meeting.  The gospel of Jesus Christ is simple and pure.  It’s not complicated or hard.  It’s the perfect plan for us.

The school children in this class are learning a recitation for Mother’s Day which is held here on May 30th:

Here are the stats for this little class:  51 students, 31 boys and 20 girls.  They had 0 absent Friday.

The children helped clean up the last pieces of bread after church.

When our son, Aaron came a couple of weeks ago, he brought a few white shirts that were donated by kind friends.  We gave one to Oumar and he was thrilled.

Today after church we talked about the future of the church here in Binabougou, N’gomi.  After attending here the last few weeks and discussing this with Pres Sekou, we all feel that it’s time to discontinue holding Sunday meetings here.  Instead, we will encourage the members here to join us in Bamako where they can have the full church experience with all of the organizations and leadership support.  Chiaka is really excited about this change.   It will be a great opportunity for him and for his son to be surrounded by the rest of the members there.

Dinner with Anounou and Goundo

We had a lovely evening out with our dear friends, Anounou and Goundo Sissoko at Guido’s.  Anounou is one of our oldest and best friends in Mali.  We first met him many years ago when we first came to Mali.  He is the Field Director of the Ouelessebougou Alliance and a legend here in Mali.  He will be retiring from this position in a few months.  We are so grateful for all he has done for the people of Mali and for us personally.

Moving Day for Pres Sekou!

Last night Pres Sekou met with a landlord in a neighborhood within a 30 minute walk to the church.  They negotiated rent payments.  They struck a deal.  Sekou was up All Night Long moving into this new place, before his dear Dina and their baby arrive from Accra tomorrow after noon.  We helped Sekou take a few more things over and we got to see the new place.  The landlord and his workers were there, fixing bathrooms and painting today.  Soon this place will be turned into a beautiful home for our dear friends.

This is the best feature of this apartment–the balcony and view!

This apartment has 3 rooms and 3 bathrooms.  One of the rooms could be a kitchen.

The neighbors.

This afternoon Dina flew home with the baby.  Oh, happy reunion in a new place!!

Bamako Branch Leadership Training

Today we had a special Leadership Training Meeting with our branch leaders (we missed Valerie and Dina, who are with their new babies).  Sekou conducted the meeting and John did the training.  For 2.5 hours we reviewed important principles from the Handbook of Instructions about branch and ward leadership and individual responsibilities.  It was a great meeting with lots of questions and involvement.  This is the first generation here, we are with the Pioneers.

After reviewing the responsibilities, we did this activity where they had to remember who was in charge of what.

Here is a reminder of what our Sunday schedule looks like:

And these are the callings as they stand now:

Back row left to right: Pres Sekou, Seck Dolo, Elder Lewis, Ibrahima Togola, Francois Cisoko. Front left to right: Biggo Trinita, Frederick Mbaya.

After the meeting we shared some of John’s ties with them and also some BYU t-shirts.  This is a great team!!

Ramadan’s Festive Ending in our Neighborhood

This is the view from our back deck.  We live next to this traditional compound.   Here is a bit from my journal this evening:

It was interesting to go our on the decks tonight at sunset and watch the end of Ramadan here on our street. First I went to the back to look in on the compound down below. There were no men in sight. Before the sun actually set, I saw bowls of rice and sauce sitting out as if they’d already eaten. But no men anywhere.

Then I went to the front (north) deck and looked out over the streets below on our corner. It was like an Easter parade of mostly women and children walking as families, dressed in beautiful bright new clothes.  I could tell the clothing was new and special–like Sunday best, like holiday best. Clean and bright. The little girls had bows in their hair and many had matching dresses. Young men and boys had clean crisp boubous (tunics with matching pants) on. Women carried new hand bags and had nice shoes on. It was really like watching a parade of newness. It was festive and fun. There were lots of cars out, and men were in cars, but I saw hardly any walking.

I think people are going to visit family and friends to break their fasting. Maybe the men are all roasting the slaughtered animals. I’m not sure where they were. Not long after sunset, there was a prayer call and a few men went to the mosque, but not that many. I think they are all eating now in family compounds. The women must be exhausted.

Ramadan Ends and a District Meeting with Pres Sekou

John and cows as we walked from the church to catch a taxi.

Ramadan is ending tomorrow night.  We’ve had a full month of fasting during the days and eating during the dark hours.  Life around us has slowed a bit, in the heat of the day.  The vendors have thinned out, especially those selling food.  Here is a bit that I recorded in my journal about our taxi ride to and from the church today:

Some of the big fruit stands along the main road were back today, but not all. Another interesting thing I noticed this morning was the movement of cattle and sheep through out the town. They were in the backs of trucks and bakkies and tied on motorcycles. They were tied to posts outside of compounds. These are big long-horned bulls with lonely eyes, some brown, some black and white. Maybe they know their doom is pending.  They will be in the pot tomorrow when Ramadan ends.  I saw two today actually being butchered as we passed by–one in a soccer field near the road had been killed and quartered. The white and black head was still attached to the carcass, but men were taking sections of the meat away–a leg and thigh, a rib cage, a chunk here, a chunk there. Another cow was being wrestled to the ground right off the street, and I’m sure his neck was slit after we passed by.
People are preparing to celebrate the end of Ramadan with feasting and there will be lots of animals butchered today and tomorrow. It’s interesting that this cattle is delivered alive to the compounds and killed on site. I saw dozens of bulls and cows tied up today, waiting. I wonder if they’re given a final meal. Probably not.

We had a great meeting today with the Elders and Pres Sekou.  We are thinking carefully about the best way to strengthen the church here.  Our impressions are that we need to strengthen the core in Bamako, and not spread too thin.  We talked today about the best ways to do that and still help those in the areas farther away.

I am so grateful for good leaders here and good missionaries and for this opportunity to serve with them here.

Bamako Branch Primary

I recruited John to help me in Primary today by showing a French video about King Benjamin and what he taught.  It was great and the kids loved seeing it and talking about the different things he talked about and the coming of Jesus Christ at some future day.

We helped the kids memorize some of King Benjamin’s words about serving others–how when we are in the service of our fellow beings, we are only in the service of our God:

Mosiah 2:17
Lorsque vous êtes au service de vos semblables, vous êtes simplement au service de votre Dieu.

Then we took the kids into the adult Sunday School to recite that scripture.  They were great.

I love these kids.  It’s always a joy to be with them.

Sis Lewis, Leila, Mike, Prunel

Here are our 2 Ex-Pats, Abram and Eric.  Abram has been here teaching school the last 2 years and Eric has just arrived.  He’ll be working at the US Embassy the next 2 years.  They’re such a great help and support to our Branch.

It’s been a long wait–shelves finally arrive!

I’m not going to mention cleaning the church today to prepare for the Sabbath tomorrow because something way more exciting happened!  We’ve been trying to get some shelving units for the branch for more than 5 months.  The red tape is unbelievable.  We’ve needed permissions, approvals, accounts set up with vendors and who knows what else.

Today the 2 shelving units finally arrived.  Only one of them was wrong, but within an hour or two they were able to bring the right one and assemble them with a real power tool.

It was a joyous event after a morning of cleaning and hosing off.

Oh how beautiful!!  Now we can keep things more organized here.

The existing shelving was taken upstairs to our “library,” which was really an unused kitchen with piles of supplies getting dirty everywhere.

Now we can clean and organize and access these materials.

Ibrahima found a baby bird that fell from the mango tree.

Meetings with Pres Sekou and Fr Mbaya this afternoon.

And tonight John got a haircut!  We are ready for church tomorrow.  This evening we got news that the road to Binabougou will be closed tomorrow, because of some construction.  That means we’ll be attending church here in Bamako.  That will be a treat.