New Year's Campout

For New Years weekend, all of the personnel in Mali went on a campout. It was SO MUCH FUN. One of the couples who works for the company lives in a house on a large amount of land. So we all headed down there for the weekend. When we arrived, Nafi was stirring the biggest pot of chili I've ever seen over the fire. We set up our tents and hung out until dinner time. There were 4 holes in the ground for bathrooms and each of them had a straw wall around it. There were also 2 showers set up in the same way for bucket baths. We had a fabulous time sitting around the campfire getting to know everybody and having a blast. At midnight we walked over to a huge tree where somebody had set up a ball to drop. It was one of those big rubber balls with a handle on it, covered in Christmas lights, and hoisted up with a rope. Everyone counted down as the ball dropped and we rung in the new year. Then, someone started singing and before we knew it everyone was belting out "Don't Stop Believing." As good a New Year's song as any I think.

That night we FROZE. We were pretty far south where it's quite a bit cooler than it is here. I was wearing 3 layers of clothing, and a sheet in a sleeping bag in my tent and I was still freezing. 60 degrees just doesn't feel like it used to. The next morning we slept in, ate breakfast, sat around talking, played games and just hung out. And...I even won the Texas Hold 'Em game...don't worry, we weren't playing for money. Thank you, Randy Dane and Trent Vest for teaching me how to play about 7 New Years Days ago. That evening we watched The Rookie projected onto the side of the house. Man that movie made me homesick. I may or may not have burst into tears when it showed the Ballpark in Arlington...I don't even like baseball. Then we went to bed and headed back to town the next morning. I'd never been camping before I came here...turns out I like it!

Joyeux Noel

I love Christmas. And I was a little curious to see how spending Christmas in Africa would be. I really missed the cold weather, but other than that it was pretty darn festive. We felt SO loved by friends & family back in America and we really enjoyed our time with friends & family here in Africa. Abby, Sarah, and I woke up Christmas morning and started it off with delicious hot beverages. Then we opened all the presents under our tree...and there were tons from parents, churches, and friends back in America! We had agreed on a 10,000cfa limit (about $20) for presents for each other and we had so much fun picking stuff out for each other and trying to be sneaky about it...which is pretty difficult when you spend 24 hours a day with a person. Then we got dressed and loaded up our food to go to the Thompson's house. We also loaded up a bunch of presents that a church had sent for all of the personnel who would be here on Christmas day. At the Thompson's we ate, opened presents, and had a good ol' time. Then the 3 of us went to Nafi's and exchanged presents with her and Rita. Then the 3 of us came home, put on our pajamas, got in the big bed, watched Glee...and...since it was Christmas...we even turned the air conditioner on...watch out.

Caroling Caroling Thru the Sand

On Christmas Eve, the 3 of us, Nafi, and Rita went out caroling to our friends' and family's homes. We had told them that we were coming by to greet, but that we couldn't stay long because we had lots of households to greet. They understand Christmas (Noel) here to some degree, but we used this opportunity to tell them why we celebrate and that we wanted to celebrate with them because that's what we would do with our families and they are our African families. We would arrive at a house, sit down and talk for a bit, tell them why we'd come and why we celebrate, and then sing for them. I'm not gonna lie...at first I thought the singing part would be kind of awkward. I mean, we were singing in English. I'd imagined us just sitting there singing while they all stared at us then looked at each other like, "Whaaaaat...this is so weird." But they didn't! As soon as we started singing their faces lit up and they would immediately start clapping along...in perfect beat, of course, because they're awesome. And sometimes they'd even start dancing. Such a good time. We even stopped at MacParadise for burgers (they're the best in town) and dates (the kind you eat).

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day was amazing. We went over to Nafi's house along with all of the other personnel in town. When we got there, Nafi forced us to make sure the pecan pie (see above) was good enough to serve. It was. Everything was there. A volunteer team had brought over turkeys from America and we made all the fixin's. Our team's contribution was deviled eggs, a pumpkin roll, and cherry dump cake. We ate, cleaned up, and played games with everybody. But the best part was that when everybody left, the 3 of us and Nafi & Rita stayed up finishing the last season of LOST until about 2 o'clock in the morning. All in all, a great day in Africa.

Man, they know how to party...

Tabaski is the biggest holiday for the people here. While it is an M holiday, it has become much like Christmas in the sense that many people celebrate it more for the fun and festivities than for the spiritual reasons behind it. As we asked our friends & family about the holiday, we found that we were told various things regarding its purpose. Basically the head of the family acquires a sacrificial animal...here they mostly use rams. The ram is then sacrificed in commemoration of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son before God provided a ram in the son's place. (Just FYI...most people here say that the son was Ishmael, not Isaac.) The sacrifice is also for the atonement of the family's sins. Then the people have a big party and eat all the meat.

Holidays are always tricky here. We don't want our presence at our family's party to make it appear that we are in agreement with the purpose behind it. And we certainly don't want it to appear that we believe the dead ram we're eating is in any way atoning for our sins. We know that our sins have already been covered by the blood of Jesus...and He is alive...pretty awesome. BUT relationship is everything here. And we see these celebrations as an opportunity to share our beliefs. And it helps us to better understand what our family is searching for from God. So, we went to our family's party. The household that we visited had five (five!) rams...about $1000 of meat. Our people group is one of the more wealthy people groups here, so they really do it up right for this stuff. There was a ridiculous amount of meat being eaten and one heck of a dance party...that pretty much sums it up: meat & dancing.

As soon as we pulled out of our house, we saw rams being killed across the street. There was blood everywhere, rams laying strewn about with their heads half-detached, and rams in the process of being cut up. It's really kind of gory. When we showed up at our family's house, everybody was sitting in the courtyard cutting meat up. Women were doing some kind of loopy thing to the intestines to make them look braided...I guess they take up less room in the pot that way. We sat around talking before we ate the snack (which would qualify as a giant meal any other time). It was meat (ribs for the most part) that had some kind of delicious seasoning on it and had been grilled. Then we sat for a little while longer and drank sodas (a special treat!). Then the dancing began...all the girls and young women were in this one tiny little room with music blaring and booties shaking. So fun. Then we ate the meal....tons and tons and tons of meat that had been boiled in this stewish type sauce on top of rice. We were so full. Nafi had left earlier and they sent her home with about a 10-lb. bag of meat...it was crazy.

There will be more pictures on Facebook, but up there is one of me, our supervisor Nafi, our Aunt Bea, and Abby.