Second week

Hello everybody this is our second week in Mali and here are some of the things that happened this week……….
Monday we had the day off. So we went with John to downtown Bamako to look around and buy some souvenirs and fabric. The interesting thing about this day was when we arrived down town there were so many people in the street. It was so crowded we had to hold on to John so we didn’t get lost. Later in the evening some of us rested and some of us spend qbout 8 hours at the hairdresser to get braids in their hair...

Tuesday we had worship and intersession in the morning with the base staff. Later we had kid’s ministry in a kindergarten, we had a story and after that we played with them. The kindergarten didn’t look like anything you have seen before probably………it was outside under a thatched roof awning with wooded benches for the kids. There were over 25 kids and all of them come from families with one parent or no parents.

Wednesday our team conducted the morning worship and intersession, next we went to the European shop to buy food and it was like we left Africa suddenly. In fact it was like a normal European Shop………both in prices and how it looked inside. In the evening Issouf drove us to an orphanage on the other side of the Niger River. The girls especially loved spending time with the babies and they wanted to stay longer. In fact, everyone had a great time holding the kids and playing with them. I think some of them were ready to adopt a kid that day!
Later we had kid’s ministry in the park next to the base. It was a lot of fun. We had a couple dramas, a story, and a couple games.

Thursday in the morning we had worship and intersession with the base, like every morning since we arrived. In the evening the Bamako base staff and our team left to visit a prison for young boys(14-20). There we had a short program with a testimony and a drama and then one of the staff members from the Bamako base preached a short sermon to the boys about being able to make good choices and not bad ones all the time……the focus was on them being good people, but their choices they were making were bad.

Friday we had worship in the morning and in the evening. We spent the day resting and playing games around the base.

Saturday we stayed at the base and in the evening we had king’s kid’s ministry. We presented dramas, a story and some activities. The kids really enjoyed it.

Sunday was a long day! We went to the Issouf’s church in the morning. Then we had kid’s ministry in the park that afternoon. Bradley, Julie, and Rebecca went to an English speaking service for all the English speaking Missionaries in Bamako. Later that night Issouf and the team had a debriefing of our time here in Bamako.