It's all part of the adventure!: Final Work Day

Today was the final work day for us. How sad!!! It is bittersweet I guess. I woke up and heard that James brought Steve a gift. James is a Christian carpenter (Malian man) that worked with Steve during his first trip to Mali. He has the reputation as a very good carpenter. Steve said that when he worked with him on his first trip, he asked James about his family, and James told him that he had just lost a child. Steve asked him how he was coping so well, and James basically said it's God's will. This is how many people handle death or misfortune in Mali. Many of the things that would cause us devastation are just part of everyday life for people in Mali. I went to look in the bag that James brought Steve, and to my surprise (as in I jumped from being startled), I saw 4 live guineas. James told Steve that his house wasn't large enough to have us all for dinner, so he wanted to provide us dinner. This didn't work so well for me....I really wanted to set them free! However, apparently this is a huge honor/gesture. James also brought Chris a poncho made out of mud cloth, which was very nice.

This morning the guys did a few final things on the water tower. Adam worked on patching holes, Jason and Jon painted, Andy, Larry and Bill worked on building the brick wall to provide additional support, and Steve and Chris worked at the classrooms and trimmed shrubs. As I'm sitting here asking Jason and Andy what the guys did today, I just found out that Jon sang all morning as well and even took requests. Apparently he sang "Like a Surgeon...." (to the tune of a popular Madonna song). Now I'm finding out that Anco even started singing Veggie Tales ("Oh where is my hairbrush...") while he was inside the water tank. I believe Jon got him started with the Veggie Tales.

Rachel, Ewien and I started a new project, and I think we all agreed that we would rather dig. Doug took us down to one of the buildings at Bethel that is going to be converted into a chicken coup because they are going to increase their number of chickens by approximately 1000. So, they needed some larger windows punched out of the building. The three of us girls were given mallets, chisels and hammers to punch holes through a building. This was hard! Also, we had no goggles, so we wore sunglasses to protect our eyes, which didn't really work. We got dirt in our eyes, ears, mouths, down our shirts, all over our arms, and dirt was embedded in my scalp when I showered. We also breathed in quite a bit of dust. I'm glad we only had this task for half a day!

Anco decided that we'd pick up all our work sites after lunch, and then he would take us to see a waterfall (at the pig farm, but there were no pigs). The waterfall was about half an hour out of town. Wow -- it was a bumpy ride. We needed 4wd so we took Anco and Doug's trucks (instead of the usual van). Rachel, Jon and I rode in the very back of Doug's truck (not official seats) and we bounced all over the place. THANKFULLY, Steve was driving. Anco drove ahead of us and left us multiple times. He's a crazy driver! Andy, Adam and Bill rode with Anco and Ewien, and I think they encouraged the craziness. I was desperately wanting dramamine at the end of our trip, so I can't imagine how I would have felt in Anco's car. The good news is our trip to Bamako will probably go fast tomorrow since Anco is taking us! Ha!

The waterfall was very pretty and was a nice treat on our final day of work. Many of the guys climbed under it and a few people (Anco, Andy and Rachel) ended up drenched. I guess there are often monkeys in this area, but we didn't see any. We only saw goats and donkeys.

We then arrived home for dinner. I had a hard time eating guinea when I saw it breathing earlier in the day, so I ate leftovers from lunch. Rachel and Larry were the same as me, but I took the most heat for it. Anco said he just couldn't understand my logic. He asked where I think other meat comes from, and I told him the freezer section of the store. Angela walked in during lunch so Anco even asked her if she understood my logic. Then, Anco, Jon and everyone else shared stories of how to kill chickens. It was a great dinner conversation (can you sense the sarcasm by me?). To top it off, Anco pulled the remaining guinea out of the freezer. He showed me what part of the guinea it was, and in case I didn't fully understand, he also made the motion of the frozen guinea walking. They kept trying to get me to eat it, but after all of that, I refused....I can't imagine why!

We went to a prayer meeting with all the missionaries after dinner. The missionaries asked our team to share some stories. Then, we had prayer requests and broke into small groups to pray.

I'll tell you some of the prayer requests that came up tonight that you can also pray for:
-Pray for our safe trip home.
-Pray for Jon's wife, Lori, as she has to have surgery in early August.
-Pray that the hospital gets well-trained Christian nurses.
-Pray that Bethel receives more students.
-Pray that the containers that were sent from the US for Bethel and the hospital (some from CCC) arrive soon.
-Please pray for all the missionaries and all the work that they are doing out here -- it's truly amazing and they are all amazing people!

A few other things:

-Pray for Anco and Ewien. They did an amazing job with us on this trip. I love how much Anco helps the Malians who are open minded and willing to learn and accept new ideas. Pray for Ewien's video ministry. She makes videos about hygiene, health issues, etc. Also, Ewien is an amazing photographer, and someone from CCC is going to help publish some of her photos. Pray that this amazing opportunity works out for her.
-Pray for our team as we go back to our regular routines in Omaha. Pray that we don't lose sight of what's important in life and that our faith continues to grow even stronger.

Punching holes through buildings Malian style

Ewien working on our hole for the chicken coup. She and I started chiseling an outline so the holes would break off smoother, and Rachel used her muscles with the mallet. Our second hole looked much better than the first once we figured out the best method.

Jon painting. He ended up with red paint all over himself, and when he couldn't get it off, he tried using gasoline to get it off. He didn't smell so great at lunch.