The year we served in Mali, we went to a field directors' conference at a resort in Senegal. Dad was asked to write a report to everyone at the conference and I was asked to do a report on what being an FD's wife entails. Yesterday I came across this report, and want to share with you what I wrote......."Lost at night in the city of Bamako and not even knowing the name of the quartier where we lived, arriving in Bamako and finding no computer working in the director's office, finding a team of missionaries who were mostly chiefs and not many Indians, experiencing a break-in in our house, finding residual resentment of the position of field director's wife among the missionaries, people calling and phoning at all hours of the day and night, dealing with missionaries from five different home countries and trying to unite them into a "team", resignation of the bookkeeper, getting house help, never having a meal alone for three weeks at a time, a missionary on the verge of an emotional crisis, a total electrical blowout occurring on the mission compound, when much of the equipment in the house and office died, some neveer to be resurrected, personnel issues to settle, resignation of bookkeeper number two, dealing with anti-authority issues among missionaries, helping with Côte d'Ivoire evacuation of missionaries from several denominations - these all happened to us in the first six months of our year in Mali!
Sounds like a disaster, doesn't it? But yet we were not particularly discouraged and we did not give up. We took a day away at a hotel each week (if possible) to sharpen our perspective and get some down time. And in spite of all the above, we had some very good times in Mali. Missionaries visiting in our homes and us in theirs, experiencing beautiful three hour services in the Bamako churches, learning to listen to others - both church and mission, enjoying the Niger River by day and by night and seeing the beautiful commenmorative statues everywhere in the pretty city of Bamako, as well as having the love and support of the majority of our missionary staff - these were all the things that kept us positive and upbeat most of the time.
Our life was so full of variety that year. We had Chris and Marcia Braun come for a field visit, and we took them to all our mission stations and were asked to also sit in on the interviews they did with the staff. At the end of the year we had a conference speaker from New Jersey who was a real blessing to us. There were work teams who came through Bamako and had a meal with us on their way to other stations to the north.
One memorable group who came was the Alliance Women. Twenty of them at least, and they stayed for a week. We took them around the country and they were such a great group to travel with and to entertain. One poor lady was sick the whole time they were with us, maybe a flu - or just overseas sickness (this was her first trip to such a place!) but we cared for her in our home. The women were a blessing. I think the whole group was twenty and they had split in half to visit Mali and also Burkina. But the last day of their trip, all twenty landed at the Bamako airport and we were in charge. Jeff Amstutz was there to help fortunately, as we had our hands full. One lady in a wheelchair lost her passport and it was almost boarding time! Panic! They finally found in fallen down in the folds of her dress! The sick lady I was taking care of, but I had to go and help everyone fill out their boarding passes as they all needed help so I asked a police lady to please stay by the sick lady in case she needed me. As I was filling out boarding cards, the police lady came running up, "Madame, Madame, votre malade!!" So I went running to look at my sick one and she had thrown up all over the place and I got her into a rest room. Jeff helped Dad get all the baggage checked through. And when the last pair of legs of the last lady disappeared up that spiral stairway in the Bamako airport - which leads to the departure lounge - we breathed a BIG sigh of relief! Dad and I got in our car, looked at each other and just laughed!! We made it!
We had a personal team come from Indiana and had done all the correspondence with them. We had everything ready for their arrival the next day, and went to bed and to sleep looking forward to a busy day the next day. The phone rang about midnight - it was the pastor of the work team! No, he was not in Indiana, he was in the Bamako airport! Communication had gotten fouled up! We tore into our clothes and drove as fast as we dared the several miles out to the airport, and there they stood in the rain waiting for us, with eight people and carts of baggage! We had reserved rooms at SIL and went there at midnight, but they were full that night. So nothing else to do but take them all to our house and put them up. We had two guest rooms with a double bed in each. We had a couch and mattresses we dragged out and made up into beds. We got everyone a place to sleep that night - and they all thought it was a great adventure! We bonded with that group and they with us. When we returned to the States, we were asked to go and do their week long missions conference and we had a great time there with them in Indiana. One lady nurse from that group still sends us much of our medication in sample form as she works for a couple doctors in an office and they have extra meds!
There was also a large group of ladies from Salem Alliance Church who came to Bamako and rented rooms and conference hall in a beautiful hotel in town, inviting women of all other missions to join us for a weekend of retreat. They had just the Alliance women together first at a mission guest house in the city and brought gifts for us all, plus providing meals, etc. Then we all joined together at this big hotel and had a great time of fellowship, worship and messages. That was very special!
So we had our ups and downs during our year in Mali - but isn't life often like that? So we answered the call for two separate years to help out in two different African countries after retiral, and our lives were enriched as a result of our positive decision to answer those calls!
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