I hope these names and faces are recorded in heaven, these friends who come to help clean the church every Saturday.  I will document them here and say Thank You for your service.

Preparing a building for the Sabbath each week is no small thing.  Dust flies freely here and it lands everywhere.  It takes all morning to sweep it up and mop the floors so we can feel peace here on Sunday.

Here’s our cleaning crew today:  Ibrahima Togola, Sekou Dembele, Elder Koffi, Ann & John Lewis and Fr. Mbaya.  Thank you.  We love you.

A bad thing happened.  It started with a mosquito hovering in front of my computer screen.  I could see the mosquito had my blood in her belly.   I could feel her bite on my leg.  I watched her land on the upper right edge of my screen, and then, from a few inches away, I flicked her to her death.

The instant I flicked her (and the edge of my screen) something bad happened.  My screen started to fritz, flicker and flash.  I feeling of dread filled me.  I turned off my laptop and turned it back on.  Three times.  The flashing continued.   It gave me a headache after 5 minutes.  I went to bed, praying for my laptop.  I woke the next morning, praying for a miracle to fix the problem.  There was none.  Seeing my distress, John looked online for clues of what to do to solve this problem.

He tried every diagnostic he could find.  The last resort was to open the laptop and look for “something loose and tighten it.”  There are 10 tiny screws holding my laptop together.  We have a normal-sized screwdriver here that I use to pry coconut out of the shell.  That’s all.

So we went on a quest to find a tiny screwdriver with a flower head in our local hardware stores.  It was asking a lot.

This is our best go-to hardware store.  We visited several, but this was our best chance stop.

Would they have a tiny flower-headed screwdriver made for opening laptops?  You’re right.  No.

I was sad.  John was sad.  He so badly wanted to find a way to fix my laptop and make me happy.  I felt as sad as these sheep on their way to the slaughter.

Only the color of these mangoes cheered me a bit as we made our way back home.

For four days I lived without my laptop.  I pulled out an old dinosaur laptop we brought with us just in case we ever needed a back up.  I was able to write there, but not post photos and all the things I love to do.  I was so sad.

We called our friend, Anounou yesterday and asked if he knew where we might find a tiny screwdriver.  This morning he dropped by 2 screwdriver sets, one large, one tiny.  This evening when we got home, John tried again to open my laptop.  I prayed.  The smallest screwdriver in the set (a flathead) seemed to fit into the screws.  One by one, John was able to loosen them, until he got to the last one, #9.  It was stripped.  I prayed.  It finally came loose and he opened the bottom side of the keyboard.

Nothing looked loose.  He ran his fingers over the wires and parts and pieces.  I prayed.  Everything (as much as we could tell) looked in order.  After about 5 minutes of touching things, he tried turning the laptop on.  I prayed.  The screen lit up.  There was no flashing.  It was calm.  It was correct.  Oh my word, he fixed it!!   I am praying again, my thanks for the miracle of healing and for the miracle of being able to write and post again.  I am so very very grateful.

We came back to our school room after visiting Famoussa’s family to set up for our sacrament meeting.  Chiaka is one of the partners who direct this private school where there are about 8 small classrooms like this one.  The bench desks are small and uncomfortable.  Many are falling apart.  The classroom we use is for grade 4A.  Judging by the calculations and math on the chalkboard (below) these are pretty bright kids.  Chiaka is a chemistry and math teacher here.

These are the other class rooms here at this private school.  Education is the key here to escaping from poverty.

Looking over the school wall:

Well, no one else made it to church here today.  This is a hard reminder of how difficult live is here in a place where every day you must earn the money needed to feed your family that day.  Getting to church is difficult.  Most have to take transport of some sort.  Sometimes it’s discouraging for us too.  We know that living the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ will help bless the lives of our friends here.  We also know that it’s hard to trust and have faith when your children have no food or when family members are sick.  It’s all so hard here.  It’s hot, dusty, broken and hard.

Even so, we had a sweet and reverent sacrament meeting, just the 3 of us.  We sang together, listened to the sacrament prayers, remembered how Jesus died for us, remembered our promises to Him and His to us, and we listened to our prophet’s voice.

My heart and my mind and my soul love what we are doing and why we are here.  On days like today, I remind myself what it was like in Nigeria when I lived there from 1984-1987, working in small branches out in remote villages.  We were so few, we and our few our member friends.   Today there are missions and stakes and temples in Nigeria.  All in my lifetime!  It’s miraculous.

Our friends in Mali and Pioneers.  We are their cheerleaders.  I am so grateful to be here right now, in this exact place.  Things just take time and lots of love.  We have both.

This is another thing I love about church here.  It fits in a box.  We don’t need all the bells and whistles.  We just need a few things–scriptures, hymnbooks, and trays to pass the sacrament.  That’s all. 

These young boys were curious and dropped by afterwards.

Carrying the box back to Chiaka’s compound:

Chiaka Traore is a Stalwart Pioneer.  We are grateful to him for his service and his great faith.  He will help the church grow here in this nethermost corner of the vineyard.

This morning we drove out to Binabougou for church.  We were a little early, so we made a few phone calls to make sure everyone was coming.  When we called the Balo family, Famoussa told us he had to go to the village today to visit family there, so we asked if we might come right away to greet him and the family before he left.  The last missionaries we had here were teaching Famoussa and two other related families here.  We wanted to help re-establish that connection so the Elders can come back to teach them again.

We walked up the mountain side to the Famoussa’s compound.  Several families share this compound.  They are a happy bunch and were excited to see us.  The children loved the Elders and gathered around us.  They were all busy getting ready to go sell at the small local market.  Everyone here helps to support the family.

Chiaka came with us and we had a wonderful visit with Famousa and Nicole.  They have 5 children.  Famoussa is a teacher at the public school in N’gomi.   We talked about Catherine’s death 2 weeks ago.  Famoussa is her uncle.  We read a few verses from Alma 11:42-44 about what happens when you die.  It was a beautiful little lesson that comforts all of us.

Here’s a look around the compound at all the industrious things going on this morning–

This young boy was in what I’ll call the blacksmith’s shop.  He was surrounded by tools and things being repaired.

Here’s the cooking area:

These girls were getting ready to take some piles of laundry to a small stream quite far away to do the washing.  They bundled everything up and put it on their heads.  The youngest carried the washboard.  Everyone helps.

Here are the heads of the 3 families (from the left):  Chiaka, our group leader; Famoussa’s 2 brothers whose names are Pascal and Ungolo; Famousa and Nicole with their youngest and oldest and Elder Lewis.  Pascal, the brother next to Chiaka is the father of Catherine, who died.

Here is a gift they shared with us–peanuts!  Our favorite!

We love being with these families and know the peace and joy that comes from the gospel of Jesus Christ.  What a gift we have to share!

When you exit the church compound (the door in the top left corner), the first vendor you’ll meet is an older gentleman who sits here every day, dawn to dusk, selling charcoal.  A few weeks ago, the large bags of charcoal by the church compound door were as tall as I am and they came out into the street.  He’s sold all but a few bags now.  He sits by the top of this photo and bags the charcoal into the small black sacks which he sells to women passing by to use in their cooking fires.

Here are the sacks that are taken apart to make the dusters shown in the last post.

We walk down that dirt road to a main paved road to flag down a taxi.  It usually only takes a few minutes for one to pull over and we negotiate the price to take us home.

Today we went first to the Pharmacy at Ponte 2, not far from our apartment.  John needed to pick up his last COVID meds.  I waited outside with these street boys while he went in.  There are thousands of street boys in Bamako who carry their tomato paste cans and beg for food or money.  I talked to these boys (who were very hungry) about Ramadan.  I’m not sure they were fasting because they simply had no food, or because it was Ramadan.

The pharmacy only had 1 of the 2 meds John needed, so we started walking to the next pharmacy, a mile or two away.  Pharmacies are spaced throughout the neighborhoods where most people can get to them within a half-hour walk or so.  Along the way, we passed the ATM we frequent at the BDM Bank.  There are very few working ATM machines in Bamako and each has an armed guard to keep you safe.

When we eventually found the next pharmacy, they didn’t have the medicine John needed, so we carried on to find the next pharmacy.  Here are a few pics I took along the way.

The ice cream man’s delivery bike:

A clothing and shoe store:

A gas station for motorcycles:

Asking to make sure we were still on the right road to the pharmacy.  John’s got our church-cleaning brooms on his shoulder.

Oranges for sale:

A Malian drinking fountain equivalent:

It’s still mango season.  My mango allergy has returned, so I have to pass on these for now.  Last week my face and hands were covered with rash from a mango reaction.  The sources I read say it’s the skin of the mango that causes the problems, but when I eat certain varieties of mangoes my lips also swell up.

Here are a couple of pics of the gutter/trenches that line almost every street.  Sometimes they are cleaned out.  I’m not sure what will happen during the rainy season.

And finally we came to the 3rd pharmacy!  The medicine John needed had almost doubled in price since he bought it the first time last month.  Wow.