Technically our 2nd day, but our first REAL day on the project.

Started the day with a focus on Ephesians chapter 1 - Chad Swanson led us into the Word (quite well I might add!) Each of our team members will be leading the team through Ephesians at some point over the next few days.

We hit the road and held on tight to any of the handles that we could find. The "traffic control" is...uncontrolled. Many of our first-time-out-of-country-team-members are going to be trusting Jesus a lot on the roads. The van rides are definitely crazy.

Today we dove into the construction project and made quite a bit of progress considering the tools and materials that we were handed, brought, and using. CAMA services has hired a painter, a mason, and a carpenter to work alongside of us as we lay tile, paint, finish a ceiling, and do a lot of other things. Wait a minute here, we're working alongside of them because the Malians can work circles around us! We're mixin cement by hand, "sizing" all of our ceiling lumber because measurements won't do (can't explain).

Tomorrow we'll finish the ceiling, visit a pig/hog project somewhere in the bush, and then speak at a new church plant in Bamako. Three of our seven team members are farmers so Shawn McCabe (CAMA/ODES) is hoping that our team can bring some hope to the hog project.

As we move ahead we have about 800ish square feet to tile, and lots of stairs and hallway not included. Painting and finish work to follow that.

Please continue to pray for our team-the health, the project, the spiritual transformation, and everything in between. So far so good.

dwhite