I’ve had some great contact this summer with several African-American pastors and churches. This is in regards to getting the Beninois pastors to come to MALI as missionaries. We stayed in Detroit with the director of COMINAD, Rev Brian Johnson and his wife Ruth. This is the partnership of churches that is seeking to effect reconciliation in Africa and to wake up the black churches of America for more involvement in missions. One of their key ideas is for a local American church to adopt a small village and to build a relationship with them. We are hoping that Duduya, near Kayes, and Assoum, further north, will be adopted in the near future.
We met with leaders from three churches in Detroit and another in Chicago. And just this week Bishop Robert Winn and his wife Mattie, of California, came and spent a couple days here in Baltimore with us talking about these ideas. It was wonderful to see several who have already been to Kayes, such as Ethelyn Taylor who came just last Oct ‘05, and to meet her pastor Everett Lindsay of Christ Temple in Chicago. We also met with Rev. Walter Godfrey, of St Paul Church in Detroit who also came last fall. It was neat to see a poster board displaying the pictures of every one in the village in Bénin that they have adopted. Each picture was displayed with the name of the church member who is daily paying for the person! Then I had the joy of seeing again Rev. Charles Oliver and Rev George Washington and the wives and congregations in Detroit. 
