a week with our goldfish

So this last week we’ve had an intern Kristin, (who we've called goldfish – if you want to know why ask me later) visiting with us, running around with us, seeing how we’re living and working.

So here’s what we did

Thursday Dec 6
We picked up Kristin from the airport, then straight to lunch, then drive 3hrs to our town

Friday Dec 7
Walked around town, went to the tailor's, visited friends in the morning and then had house church, and a Q&A time about the journeymen program and Onestory.

Later we walked to Smallville – and intended on playing a story for Benny and his family, when we got there he hadn’t got back from the mosque in town yet. We sat, and waited, and talked with his wives a bit while they were working, and had some rice porridge. By the time Benny got there, it was getting pretty late and we had to walk back to town, to get there before dark.

Saturday Dec 8
Walked around town, went to tailors again, and sat and visit with some of our market / boutique friends

Afterwards we drove a couple hours to check out the town of Denver. It was market day so we walked around the market to greet and see if the people still speak our dialect. Denver is on the main road from the capital to Guinea, so they get lots of travelers, people from other people groups, or dialects going in and out of town. But from what we noticed they still speak our dialect.

After walking through the market we stopped by the mayor’s office. We introduced ourselves and met with him and his third in command. We told them that we have come to tell God’s stories in Maninka. The mayor later told us there were two churches in the area (one catholic and one protestant), and then introduced us to one of his workers who is a believer. By the time we got done talking with the Mayor, we had hope to talk to the believer some more, but we didn’t see him when we left the office. After checking out some other sites and getting an idea of where the churches are we headed back for Ktown since it was getting late.

We plan to go back to Denver and visit the churches within the next couple days

Sunday Dec 9
We had house church with our guard that morning. And around the afternoon we went to K-ville to stay a couple nights and visit with friends and family. Later that evening after dinner we had house church with Brother and told a story from the New Testament

Monday Dec 10
In the morning we walked around and visited with some of our griot (musician/storytellers) friends. Later that afternoon Brother was asking for more Jesus stories, so we told another one, and then after dinner even Kristin told one. In discussing the stories Brother made some comments like “the teachings of Jesus are more important than any other prophets”

Tuesday Dec 11
We visited the other friends and family in Kville that we didn’t get to see the other day. We also walked around to take some pictures, and Kristin even got to ride a donkey, and help re-mud one of the huts.

After lunch we headed back to town, and that afternoon Brother came by to do some recording in our studio. Our house girl also stopped by, and we invited our guard’s kid to come in and listen to the recording. We ended up doing about 3 takes of the story but overall it turned out real well.

Brother also told us that earlier that day he had just told the story we recorded, to a group of men and women during a funeral.

Wednesday Dec 12
Sometime during the past couple days Kristin caught a bug and by this morning was a bit sick. When her stomach seemed to settle down we drove up to the capital. Once in the capital we just took it easy at the guesthouse, then later that evening we visited with Judy.

Thursday Dec 13
By the morning Kristin was feeling much better, and we took her to a nearby market to get some wrap skirts. After shopping it was time to drop Kristin off at the airport. I walked Kristin to the entrance of the airport where they check passport and tickets. While the security was checking her passport he pointed out that her Mali visa had expired two days ago, and he wanted us to go to immigration and re-new it before he could let her in the airport. Since Kristin didn’t speak our language I was translating for her, and after talking with the security, we convince him to let us both go through. So we got in, waited in line for a bit to get checked in, and waited with her till she got through all the check points without a problem.

So that’s what this last week has been like. Kristin got to do and see a little bit of everything. She got a taste of sickness in Mali, praise God it didn’t last too long. She experienced village life, town life, and life running around doing research. And she saw how sometimes things don’t workout as planned, and sometimes they do. Praise God for all these experiences, including ones that don’t go as planned, we know God has a better plan in mind.

1st 3 pictures: Kristin in the village; last 2: Bro. in our studio