Things I've learned in Africa!

Some Things Learned Since Coming to Africa in 1984!
Not all perfectly, of course!
Some (tech items) we all learned during this period, but we learned them while on the field, in Africa :-) 

·         French language

·         Bambara language

·         Pulaar - Fulani language

·         Salutations in Moor, Wolof, and Soninké

·         Raising kids to adults!

·         Diapers and discipline!

·         4-wheel driving off-road

·         Diesel engine maintenance

·         Riding a moto in the bush

·         Living in Africa and the importance of greetings

·         Eating w/ hands (giving a new meaning to eating together)

Oumar, a Fulani evangelist, and two of his kids

·         West African foods

·         Sleeping on hard mats

·         Mali bathrooms!

·         All computer and i-net stuff

·         Networking ministries

·         Reconciliation and dialogue

·         Construction Mali style

·         Well digging

·         Car & generator mechanics

·         Games: Quarto, Phase 10, dames, Trente Deux, Speed Uno, Pigs, etc.

·         Archaeology of Israel

·         Living w/ diabetes and depression

·         Living with shoulder and back pain

·         Mali & WA social and political life and issues

·         Travel in African transport (giving a new meaning to rubbing shoulders)

·         Sahel flowers, trees and trimming them

·         Reading the Quran and Hadiths

·         Reading the Maccabees and all the Apocrypha

·         Staying cool in a hot place!

·         Digital photography 

·         WA history and slave trade effects

·         WA tribes and social structure

·         TEE & BCC ministries

·         Read classics i.e. Augustine, Origin, Knox, Eusebius, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Pascal, Brother Lawrence, Francis, Gill, Carey, Josephus, Jerome, Ignatius, Wesley, Kipling, Bunyan, Beza, Luther, De Sales, Hugo, M’Cheyne, Newton, Fenelon, Polo, Owen, etc.

·         Greek studies and exegesis

·         Liturgy appreciation

·         Church dependency issues

·         Eating healthy

·         College financing

Bala teaching about Abraham's sacrifice
after I showed him how to.

·         Stocks, bonds, mutuals, annuities, IRAs, etc.

·         Cross cultural teaching

·         Development work

·         Refugee help            

·         Mali business contracts & hiring and firing

·         Dealing w/ beggars and the poor

·         Storying of Bible for evangelism and discipleship

·         Sonlife (living with Jesus)

·         Training for Storying

·         Handling short-term teams of many kinds.

·         Digital audio ministry

·         Partnerships with 2/3^rd World churches

·         Partnership w/ WA churches and missions

·         Partnership w/ African Americans, Brazilians, and Chinese!

·         Math teaching and home schooling

·         Sending kids to boarding school

·         Fallacies of Islamic theology and practices

·         Witness to Muslims

·         Islam structure & different groups in WA

·         Bible school teaching

·         Animism theology in WA

·         Language learning techniques

·         Studio building and setup

·         French typing and letter form

·         Solar and battery living

·         Depending on God for support: always

·         Continued learning of Gods’ grace

·         Contextualization of the gospel

·         Teaching contextualization (in other languages even!)

·         Use of OT in SLM evangelism

·         Seeing Jesus in every part of OT

·         Audio recording and editing

·         Difference of  sheep and goats J

·         Navigate in bush w/ or w/o a GPS

·         Geocaching!

·         To terimelike (bartering) for everything you buy, except what has a fixed price, and knowing the difference!

·         Fine tune theo.: NCT & Unfulfilled Prophecy, but opposing Open Theo., Emergence, Preterism, & Prosperity Gospel, etc.

·         Abortion protests and support of prolife positions

·         Alphabetization (Literacy teaching) in Bambara and Fulani

·         Walking in intimacy w/ God

·         Flexibility in ministry opportunities.

·         Prison ministry

·         Christian schooling

·         Orienting new mis’ies to life and ministry in Africa

·         Walking and exercises for heart & back health

·         Christian ‘salat’ prayers to help Fulani believers

·         Field finances and spreadsheets

Pastor Moise getting ready to make a compressed dirt brick

·         Management objectives and vision

·         Casting vision & team leadership

·         Servant leadership

·         Foreign currency handling

·         Living thru a coup d’état

·         Moving family across borders

·         Understanding JWs and Mormons a bit better.

·         Losing parents & other mentors

·         Asking questions of people and scripture

·         Recognition of personal limits

·         Adaptability of media in ministry

·         Tolerance of limits in partnership

·         Allowing expression in delegation

·         Foreign language book sales

·         Film and projector operation

·         Recruiting and training new workers, 17 so far!

·         New 2012: compressed mud brick construction

croc pond and flooded wadi

I had a nice short trip with Idi Thiam to visit some Moor villages.  Claudio Elian went along, and it was his first time in most of the places and among the Moors.  Idi’s grandson, 10, was along and was a lot of fun.  Also along were three men who live in Kayes but come from some villages: Ould Baba of Hamo, Dade of El Gelita, and Salek of Taskaye.  
We left Sat morning, had lunch in Daba 1, spent one night in Daba 2, left early, had lunch in el Gelita, spent one night (with rain) in Taskaye, left early again, got held up for 3 hours by the flooded wadi at Nyakalel, finally ate at Hamo, broke down at Medina, and made it home to Kayes about 9 pm Monday.  They wanted to give condolences to an old man whose wife, an aunt of Salek, had died recently.  They also wanted to discuss a lot of village problems and politics with everyone and held some informal meetings in the Dabas and Gelita for that.   Claudio, Mamadou and I, and a guide, visited the croc pond of Gelita, but found only one dead croc above the dry falls.  Great pix tho ;-)    I was able to read or play quite a bit of Fulani scripture to Idi in the car and in the villages since he wasn’t really involved in the village discussions.  As several of the men also speak Fulani they heard the Psalms being sung on the car cassette player, too.  

( see more photos on Picasa at: http://picasaweb.google.com/malibowers )

Jim's Journal from June 22nd - Staying with the 'Devil'

I feel I’m sitting in the house of the devil! Idi’s Moor friend whom we are visiting is a renowned marabou healer, Mohammad Siby, in Yelimané where his son, Bassirou, has been staying for several months: he’s transformed and sane and calm! Idi says he was terribly violent last year, insulting, angry, suicidal, depressive, and for the first months here he was attached by chain to a log! You wouldn’t believe it for seeing and chatting with him now. There’s several here like this, near thirty, mostly healed or in process (none in view are chained). A man’s daughter wouldn’t talk for over a year and hardly ate: OK now! Another young man, a truck driver, violent and out of control now calm and friendly. Idi says the marabou, our host, gives each a ‘special secret only they know’ and this heals them. I’m sure it’s a combo of traditional medicine that affects them physiologically, as well as psychologically, and there are Islamic incantations of evil nature and compacts that affect them spiritually. It’s a success story! And people send cases from miles around, even from BKO, DKR, and France! May God give us wisdom in the face of such magic, and may he have mercy on these folk for believing such lies.

chatting n drinking tea

We arrived after a three hour trip, 175 kms from my house, after short stops in Medine for meat, a commission in Keresignané, and greetings to Brehima Konté in Djoni. BK had heads the transformed eye clinic now that Andrew and Cilla have retired and left back to England. Emma ‘Guindo’ also works there as an aide and evangelist. They said they can do most treatment that Andrew did except cataract operations. For that they save up a list of candidates and have the Kayes eye surgeon come every so months; just last week they did around forty. J Tito S, Salomon, A, Idi T, Benjie, and Idi’s youngest son, Brehima, are in the car which got us here smoothly with no tire or mechanical problems yet. I pulled out a MegaVoice Hassaniya mp3 player (recently supplied by LeRoy), and our host and two others are still listening to it two hours later. May the Gospel of Truth bring bright Light to this home! I was able to show them an SBC Bible Storying scarf and explain in Bambara the stories of Adam, Cain, Noah, and Jesus for about half an hour, PTL. We brought Fulani literature, as usual, but this is a Soninké and Moor home so Salomon and Tito can barely communicate here! We also have some DVDs and tiny players (sent by Gordy last year), in Bambara, French, Fulani, and Hassaniya, so we’ll see how they work this evening. [We showed the Hassaniya Jesus film to a small audience; the battery kept going until the Upper Room story. Perhaps if on battery some parts can be skipped so the cross and resurrection can be shown in full. [The Hassaniya DVD also has a Wolof soundtrack, one on each channel of stereo, but since this player can’t control balance we had a mixed voice, but no one complained.]

pix says 'house of Mamadou Sibi: demon master':

Early on Sunday morning we drove back down the highway to near Keresignane and then turned north to Davou, it turned out to be 45 kms off the highway right on the north country border. We think we even stopped in a north country village to ask directions. Our host was a cousin of Idi’s wife and his mother had recently passed away, so Idi was up there to express condolences. He has lived and worked in France for years, and on this six month break he’s rebuilding his home in concrete. He was very gracious, and after a fine meal he showed us all over the small village. I think his brother is the chief, but he was away. They have a brush arbor school house and a pump well, but not much else yet. We were able to show the new “Gidli Baba O” (love of the father) movie in Pulaar of the Prodigal Son. Again we used one of the small DVD players, and this time we got thru the whole movie. A few Fulanis bought some of our literature. I forgot to get out the mp3 player, so I’ll send one up via Idi soon. We left around 5:00 pm and made Kayes by 8:00 pm after driving thru a driving rain storm.