We can not believe that we are beginning the 16th year of ministry in Mali!
This year school was scheduled as usual to begin on October 1 and our team was in Mali for teacher training and staff orientation. However, just 12 hours prior to the 1st day of school, the government decided to postpone it because of some extensive flooding in some parts of the country. It was disappointing to have all the teachers ready to greet their new students and have to put it all on hold! We actually decided to have our kids come on October 1st for a short day in order to get a photo to send to you, their sponsor! Pastor Steve was able to photograph all 740 kids in 1 day which is a miracle in itself! We are happy to be able to send you a bookmarker with your child on it to help remind you to pray for them each day.
Schools in Mali were required by the government to wait until November 4th to officially open school. This week we were able to greet all our students and kick off the school year properly! We feel certain that the government will end up extending the school year through July due to this delay.
Parent gathering at Meet The Teacher Saturday. Students and parents came to find their classroom and pick up their uniforms for the 1st day of school.
1st day of school – Making sure the Kindergartners make it to their class.
1st day of school. Just waiting for class to start.2nd Cycle assembly.
Our Junior High boys are ready to get the school year started!
This is a very important question when you are in the Sahara Desert and the temperature is topping 105 degrees everyday! Unfortunately, the answer for our school children in Mali has frequently been “NO”.
Due to the political climate in West Africa and the neighboring countries limiting the power due to boycotts, the electricity at our school is seldom on. Some days we may have power for 1 hour and on other days there is no power at all. We have 720 students and 46 staff members who depend on electricity to get water for drinking, hand washing and sanitation. Our well is 300 feet deep and we depend on an electric pump to get the water. No Electricity = No water.
This has been going on for over a year and we have tried to quickly pump water when the electricity comes on in order to fill our water tanks, but lately it has been off all day.
With water being a lifeline in Mali, we knew we had to do something. The lack of electricity was not only affecting the water, but also the internet for our office which is the much needed connection between our team here in the US and the activities there in Mali. In addition, the kids in the computer lab rarely have been able to use the computers during their computer classes.
Heading into the hottest time of the year, we felt that there was no choice but to convert to solar power so that we can pump water, have a functioning office, open the computer lab and have stable internet at the school.
We began the project during our last trip in February and the solar went live this last week! We are very relieved to be able to count on power to help meet the needs of our growing school!
Our staff women were honored on International Women’s Day
International Women’s Day was March 8th. Although it began here in the United States in 1910, we don’t typically celebrate it like they do in many other countries including Mali. Malian women normally take the day off from work and gather together to celebrate. This year our team was in Mali on March 8 and so we decided to invite the women to a Fête des Femmes (Women’s Only Party).
We began by treating the women to breakfast served by the male staff members and then spent time looking into God’s Word to discover what He thinks about women. The morning included a painting party and each woman went home with a special pouch sttuffed with personal items including donated sunglasses.
They were truly surprised and appreciative of the day planned for them. It was sweet to watch them enjoy themselves!
New Bibliothéque! One of the blessings we gained from the extra space we acquired last summer, was the ability to move our school library to a larger room! Not only do the kids on the Honor Roll come to check out a book each week but our elementary classes also use the library for class reading.
3rd grade goes to the library for reading time.
During our last trip we had a few academic contests to encourage kids to continue to improve their skills. Because our teacher training this trip was “How to Evaluate Writing”, we held a creative writing contest for all grade levels. This was a great way to help teachers use the skills they learned and to encourage kids to write at the same time! Teachers chose the top 2 students in each class, and the students read their essays out loud during our monthly assembly. What was particularly rewarding was listening to one of the Jr High students as he read his winning essay.
Kids and teachers alike were applauding this one particular student in the 8th grade more than the others. Their reaction surprised us until we realized something unusual, the essay was all about the characteristics of wolves. This may not sound unusual to you, but Malian students do not know anything about wolves, mainly because they don’t have wolves in Mali! They tend to learn only about a small circle of topics that are central to their life there in Mali. It was surprising because the essay about wolves was so detailed that we were curious to understand how he knew about them.
It became obvious that he had learned about wolves because of our library there at Love Mali! What a blessing it was to see 1st hand how the library is helping students learn about the world around them. It is our goal to continue to develop the library with French books in the years to come.
