I can’t believe it’s December already and that I’ve been in  Mali more than a year now. Oh and I’m officially done with language study too!! That’s right, I’m finished!! Thank you so much for your prayers and encouragement through my 2years of French and  Barbara language study. I took my final Barbara exam December 8th and have now started full-time at the hospital.  Please pray for this transition as I focus on caring for our pediatric oncology patients, diabeticc patients, and as I help with new employee orientation. Pray I would continue to improve both my French and Barbara as I will use both on daily basis. These past couple of months have beven  exciting and busy.

The beginning of November we had our annual field forum, which is a week long  spiritual retreat with all the Mali  field workers. It was a wonderful time to be refreshed and refilled . It’s been cool to see how God’s been guiding and directing all that we do here in Mali. In October, our colleague Tim Wright wanted to do an evangelistic trip in a village with a visiting team from the U.S. He contacted a church planter named Pastor George who told him about a nearby village called Sun (“soon”). This village had previously been resistant to the gospel, but Pastor George had reached out the village chief ’s son, Seydou.  Although Seydou  was a Muslim he’d been attending Pastor George’s church with his two wives and had requested an evangelistic night in his father’s village. After the showing of the film, Seydou, who had yet to give his life to Christ, told everyone that what they’d seen in the film and what they’d heard from Pastor George was all true. Several people stayed after to ask questions about Jesus and to request prayer. Several weeks later a small group of us travelled to Pastor George’s church to see  Seydou pray to give his life to Christ! Seydou is the only Christian in his village. Pray for him as he’s discrippled  by Pastor George. Pray he would have an impact on his village where he’s next in line to become the chief. I’d also like to ask you to pray for a 10 year old boy we have in the hospital right now. His name Is  Modibou. He came several weeks ago with a broken arm. His mother took him to see a traditional healer who tied a tourniquet around his arm. Five days later, with the tourniquet still in place, he was brought to our hospital where we had to amputate his left arm up to his shoulder. Modibou is such a sweet boy and almost always has a smile on his face despite losing his arm. Would you pray for him as head just to life with just one arm. Pray also that during his time at the hospital the truth of who Christ is would be made known to him and his family.

It’s always encouraging to look back over the year and see the progress that’s been made. Those obstacles and challenges that oncelooks so impossible are now behind me. God has been faithful and will continue to be so this coming year.

Thank you for your prayers, encouragement and financial support. I wouldn’t be here with out you!