The Last Month, Part 7: The day it finally made sense

We prayed and prayed and prayed for this next day.  We'd finally be able to spend all day over there and really knock some Stories out.  We only had 5 left in the Old Testament!  We ate breakfast, swung by the boutiki for tea and sugar, and arrived in Tea Village.  We got to work almost immediately!  This never happens...there is always buffer time of chatting and sitting before we would launch right into work.

We settled in on our little porch and were able to test FOUR Stories...just that morning!  It took us the same amount of time to do 4 that had been taking us to do 2.  We were floored.  When we left to go back to Max's village for lunch, we knew that we only had one more Old Testament Story left...the Story of Isaiah's prophecy.  During our lunch break, I started feeling really uneasy.  So far the women had loved the Stories because so far they had been Stories about people who they acknowledged as great prophets.  Some of the Stories...or at least a version of...are even in their holy book.  So it had pretty much been smooth sailing.  But I knew we were about to get into Jesus Stories.  I kept thinking back to our first day...when Max felt so pressed to warn us about their loyalty to Isl-m.  Abby and I talked about it briefly, but weren't really able to come up with a plan.

We went back to Tea Village and tested the Isaiah Story.  That Story has Jesus all over it, but never says His name.  As we were waiting for the 2 ladies to come in for the first Story that says His name, my heart was about to leap out of my chest...

They could think we're disrespectful...

They could become hostile...

They could resent Max for bringing us...

They could kick us out and we'll never finish our project...

They'll be turned off to Jesus forever...

I told Abby, we HAVE to ask Max about this.  We told him that the next Story was about Jesus.  We asked him if that was okay to play in this village.  We told him that we wanted to respect the women.  We asked him what to do.  He said, "I know that the last Story was talking about Jesus.  The women didn't know because they have never heard, but I knew.  You'll just have to ask them.  When they come in, tell them that you want to respect them and that the next Story is about Prophet Jesus.  They can either say, 'Okay, I will stay,' or 'I will not listen' and leave.  And you have to let them leave.  You have to be okay with it if they want to leave."

Okay.

So which 2 women come in but the woman who is the obvious leader of the other women and the woman who we have pegged as being the "most" Musl-m.  Whatever Woman 1 thinks or says will dictate what the rest of the women will do.  And Woman 2 just seemed like she would be the most opposed to Jesus of any of them.  She was fully-covered in all black and had all of the mannerisms of a staunchly Musl-m woman.

Max told them the situation as I pretty much held my breath for fear of bursting into tears...and this is what Woman 1 said:

"Yes!  This is good to us and we will listen.  The girls have brought these Stories to us and asked for our help.  And we can tell that the man telling them is a very, very, very Sunny man and that he has a good head on his shoulders.  Because he is the one saying the Stories, it is okay for us to listen to them."

Now--if you're just tuning in, you need to know that the original plan was for us to live in our village full-time for the entire 2 years telling Stories ourselves.  We were forced to leave our village due to some security issues.  I have to confess that for pretty much the remainder of my term--up until this very  moment--I struggled with bitterness.  I didn't understand having to leave my village.  I didn't understand why the timing never seemed to go as planned.  I didn't understand why we had been forced to re-strategize so many, many times.  Our language learning was slowed drastically by the fact that we had to live in the capital, where Sunny people were few and far between...and where we had to deal in French and Bambara.  Because of that, we decided to do a recorded Story set...instead of learning to tell  32 Stories ourselves. And in this moment, I got to see why.  God certainly didn't have to let me see...but He did.  God knew that the Stories needed to be told by Nick.  God knew that our voices wouldn't have gone nearly as far as his.  God knew that these little old women, in this little bitty village in the middle of nowhere wouldn't have listened to the Stories otherwise. 

The Last Month, Part 6: Interrupted

We came home...well...back to Max's village at about a 7 on the shajazzed meter.  We knew we'd need to pick up the pace a little, but the fact that we got FOUR Stories tested in one day was not lost on us.  We had never come close to that before.  We were usually pretty tickled to get more than one Story tested in a WEEK!  We called Nafi...who was back home leading a training with our co-workers, including the girls who usually lived in Max's village...and told her the news.  I can't tell you what an encouragement it was to hear not only her excitement, but the excitement of all of our teammates...and know they were praying for us.

We found out that the next day we wouldn't be able to go until later because it was a Friday, which is the day of prayer.  We were a little rattled because we didn't have that kind of time to wait.  It turned out that we missed almost the entire day and only got 2 more Stories tested.  It was such a focusing moment onto the urgency of our task.  We were at a mini-standstill and it was literally because they were being piously loyal to the only road they know.

The Last Month, Part 5: Tea in Tea Village

Here's the deal...Malian people are the most wonderful people you will ever meet.  Even our co-workers who have worked in other places will vouch for the fact that Malian people are just genuinely kinder, more hospitable, more welcoming, more generous...all in all the most wonderful...people.  I am biased, but it is true. :)  So don't get me wrong.  As anxious as we were, we knew they would be gracious.

But that doesn't even come close to touching what actually happened.  I can't even put it all into words, but basically the connection between those women and us was both immediate and intense.  I have not seen or spoken to one of these women in a year and a half and my eyes are full of tears right now just thinking about them.  I know this will sound both crazy and a little arrogant...but they loved us. (What's not to love, right? :))  

Shortly after we arrived, it was time for us to present the tea to the host.  It didn't take long before the tea was steeping and being poured back and forth, back and forth.  Little shot glasses of super sweet hot tea all around!

It was finally time for us to start.  We were told to set up on an indoor porch of the main house/hut and 2 women at a time would come in.  So we laid down a mat on the dirt floor and I sat behind Abby with the computer.  Abby sat toward the front, closer to the 2 chairs that were facing us, where the women would sit.  Max sat in a corner to watch over us.

The women began coming in and we played them a Story.  We started with the Story of Abraham's calling (the Stories up to that point had already been tested).  It was slow going at first and we got 2 Stories tested that morning.  This was far beyond our previous pace, BUT nowhere near what the pace needed to be in order to complete testing.  We had to leave at lunch time because Max's wife had prepared lunch for us in their village...even though when we got back to Tea Village we had to eat again!  We were able to test 2 more Stories that evening for a total of 4 on Day 1.

This is my view:  Abby has played the Story for the women and now they are re-telling it and answering questions about it.

And it's just that simple.  This is the recorder that has the Stories on it, plugged into our battery-operated speakers.  This is one of my favorite pictures of all time.

Abby waiting to do her thing.

The Last Month, Part 4: They Pray

I'd like to point out that this was cold season.  And it was glorious.  We actually wore socks under our Chacos when we all sat around the fire at night.  I slept INSIDE a sleeping bag.  A sleeping bag!  Something that is designed to keep you warmer while you sleep!  We even had to warm up the water for our bucket baths over a fire!  It was crazy and unlike any village experience I'd had before that point.  I kind of loved it.

So the next morning, we woke up, we washed, we helped prepare breakfast and then ate it.  Then we waited for Max to tell us it was time to go.  I was sitting on the little dirt porch of the little mud hut writing in my little prayer journal (which I CAN'T FIND and it is driving me crazy!).  I remember once again recounting how much work needed to be done in such a teeny tiny amount of time and thinking God never promised we'd finish...He just told us to try our guts out.

We had brought 24 Stories for testing (of 32 total...4 had already been tested and 4 more still needed to be recorded with Nick).  We had strategized how to eliminate steps and test Stories and document everything at one time.  We had our recorders, our speakers, our computer (which we'd use until it died...then we'd have to drive ~30 minutes into a town with electricity to charge it).  Max had told us that the "women's chief" had lined up about a dozen women to help us that day.  We still didn't know what that meant.  Would we play Stories and ask questions for all 12 women until they were ready to leave?  Would a few come at a time?  At this point, it was taking us a couple of hours to test one Story so we thought we'd need to be able to spend an entire day at Tea Village working straight through except for meal times.

Finally Max told us to load up the truck and head to Tea Village.  We had about a 20 minute drive, so we plugged the computer in to the truck charger just so it would be max charged when we got there.  On the way there, Max got pretty serious and said to me and Abby...
"You know, this village, they pray."  (This is the way to say they are Musl-m).
"Yes, we know, Max."
"No, I mean, they really, really pray.  Even for Sunny people, they are very strong prayers."
"Okay, we understand, Max."
"I know what you two are doing because I have traveled and I am more educated.  And I am okay with it...but they really pray."
"We understand."

Needless to say we were a little anxious when we finally pulled in, and with a huge cloud of dust, turned off the truck.  We got out, adjusted our extra shawls over our heads and around our shoulders, grabbed our gear, and followed Max to the compound of huts where the women were.

The Last Month, Part 3: Unknown Village, Unknown Everything

By the time we arrived in Max's village, it was pretty late.  Abby & I still had to set up our tents and settle into the guest hut as well as speak with Max about how exactly things would work the next day when we headed to what I will call "Tea Village."  And...obviously...as always...we still had to eat!

Max told us that we'd wake up the next morning, eat breakfast, and then drive in the truck to Tea Village.  We'd stop at the boutiki on our way and buy lots and lots of tea and lots and lots of sugar to give to the people...this is a common thing to do when visiting somebody.  He said he didn't really know how things would go, how long we could work, how many Stories we could test, etc.  Lots of unknowns.

That night we slept inside a little room that they had cleared out especially for us.  Usually someone else slept in there...with some chickens.  We'd find new eggs in the corner every so often.  :)  We still slept inside our tents because that's what we use for mosquito netting.  I remember laying there, looking through my mesh tent at the grass roof and having absolutely zero idea what the next day would hold.  Would they really want to listen to our Stories once they knew more about them?  Did they realize how much time we were asking of them?  Would they be hostile once they realized the Stories were about Jesus?

I can remember laying there, not knowing how Abby felt...maybe she was even already asleep.  "Abby?"
"Yeah?"
"I can't believe we're here."
"Me neither."
"This is not where we thought we'd be sleeping tonight when we woke up this morning."
"Definitely not."
"I'm a little scared of what's going to happen tomorrow."
"Me too, but we just gotta do it and God will take care of it."

Here's an excerpt from Abby's blog describing this same night:
As I laid in the hut that first night I started to worry about how the whole process was going to work. Michelle and I knew that we needed to work all day, everyday. We also knew that we had no relationship with these women who were going to hear these stories. In Africa relationships are key. Here you earn your voice through a relationship that has been nurtured over time. We knew that for the women to let us speak and for them to listen to the stories some kind relationship would need to be forged. I couldn’t sleep at all, so I just prayed that G0d’s Word would go out among these women and their lives would never be the same because of it.

The Last Month, Part 2: Testers Needed

So at New Year's, we still had several Stories that hadn't even been recorded for the first time yet.  And we had even more Stories that hadn't been tested.  One of our major issues was that every time we would identify a group of women who were willing to test our Stories with us, something would happen and it would fall apart.  Then we found one woman who was willing...and she went out of the country for an indefinite amount of time.  So before New Year's, Abby and I knew that we were going to have to do something drastic in order to test our Stories with Sunny women.

We had a conversation about pleading with Nafi to allow us to go back up to our village and test Stories there.  We already knew the women, we had "earned our voice" there, we knew exactly where we could sleep, where we could eat, where we could shower, and most importantly, who we could meet with.  The day after this conversation, we went over to Nafi's house where we learned that some concerning things were going on in the news that would prevent us from going up there.  That was as discouraged as I'd ever been.  That means we were pretty much down to Plan B (actually we were way past B at this point).

We knew that there were some Sunny villages close to the village where some of our co-workers lived. We had been involved with lining up these co-workers' housing and other needs and had gone with them to move in when they first arrived in Mali, so we had a pretty strong relationship with their host family.  Abby and I figured we could just ask their host, I'll call him Max, to point us in the direction of a Sunny village and we'd roll up in there with our Stories and see if anybody would help us out.  Nafi said she'd give Max a call and see what he said.

In the meantime, we're desperately trying to meet with Nick so that we can record the rest of the Stories.

We find out that Max is willing to help us out and that he has spoken with a neighboring Sunny village about allowing us to come in and test our Stories.  We had offered to compensate the women for their time since we had no relationship whatsoever with them and we really needed to ensure their availability.  We make arrangement with Max for a few days later so that we can meet with Nick and record some more Stories.  We want to have all of our Stories recorded before we go so that we can knock out all the testing at once.

We hear from Nick that afternoon that he will not be able to meet with us that day after all...and maybe not the next day either.

That's when things went absolutely INSANE!!  Abby and I looked at each other, looked at our list of what all needs to happen before we get on a plane 3.5 weeks later, looked at the calendar, and then back at each other.  We literally did not have a day to spare...we didn't even have a few hours to spare, honestly.  We couldn't wait for Nick. We both knew it...pretty much in unison, we yelled, "LET'S GO!"  We absolutely HAD to get on the road immediately because you are absolutely, completely, totally not supposed to be on the road after dark.  It is forbidden.    We knew we had about a 10 minute window to pack our bags, pack our Story stuff, fill out our "on the road" paperwork, call Max, call Nafi, pack our truck and get on the road before we entered the no-leave window.  And we did!

We arrived in Max's village right after the sun had set and got settled into our little "guest hut."  Then we got scolded for not remembering to call Nafi and tell her we'd arrived.

The Last Month, Part 1

A (very) brief synopsis of our storying process:

1.  "Craft" the Story
2.  Record the Story using a Sunny man called a crafter (crafter:  "Nick")
3.  Have a different Sunny man, called a back-translator, listen to the Story and tell it back to us in English (back-translator:  "Bryan")
4.  Enter every line into an Excel document where each line has a list of information under it, including Scr!pture references, key terms, culture notes, crafting notes, and...
5.  Write testing questions for each line
6.  Play the Story for 2-3 Sunny people and ask them the testing questions (questions are to make sure that Sunny people are understanding the Story in the way Scripture is intended to communicate it...even if it doesn't make a ton of sense in English)
7.  Record testing answers on the Excel document.
8.  Make any notes/observations and provide support for why each line is worded the way it is
9.  Change lines as needed
10.  Re-record the final version
11.  Back-translate the final version
12.  Edit as needed.