Mali, West Africa

Wow, it seems like so long ago, yet at the same time it seems like yesterday. A year ago from today I left for Mali, West Africa for a month and stayed with some missionary friends of ours who live there (they'll be home mid July...yeah!). They have a daughter who is my age, and she is one of my close friends. I'm so glad that God gave me this once in a lifetime opportunity as it was really neat to see what life was like in a different country. I enjoyed getting the chance to see how the Lord is working in other countries. It was also really neat to get just a little glimpse of what missionary life is like. One question that I get asked is if I traveled alone, and no, I didn't. I traveled with my friend's grandma, who is an experienced traveler.

Some of the things that I did while I was there were taking pictures (1,357 to be exact), helping sort medical supplies at the mission hospital warehouse, swim (our friends had a huge, in-ground pool in their backyard...it felt great when the temperature was high, as it usually was), took a tour of the mission hospital, go to a Malian market, walk around the town, and many, many, many other things! It was a wonderful experience, and I enjoyed it so much. I'll be honest, I miss it. I'm not even sure what I miss about it. I just miss...everything.

One thing that really stood out to me while I was there was the fact that even though the Malian people had so little, they were happy. The children made do with what they had. The children loved having their picture taken, and then enjoyed seeing themselves on the display screen of the camera. One of the memories still vivid in my mind it little children crowding around me to see a picture I had taken of them. They would giggle as they pointed to themselves in the picture or get this huge grin on their face. They were so precious. How often are we not content with what we have, when we have so much compared with those children? They would just play with almost anything they could find. It was really convicting to me, as I am not always content with what I have. In America, we "have it all". If we need food, we simply go to the store. If we want something bigger, something better because what we have isn't good enough, we go buy it. And still, we aren't always content!

As I said earlier, I took a ton of pictures so I can't post all of them, but here are some of my favorites...

A river at sunset

A mother working with her child on her back

Some girls were building sand castles in the street

A child on her mother's back

Pots at the market

A Malian market

Children crowding around me to see a picture I took of them

(this photo was taken by another missionary lady)