2 O’clock Prayer Time
As you may well know, here the big prayer time is the pm prayer time on Fri. afternoon. That is like our Sunday morning, although usually better attended. Today, on my way to school to teach, I was driving by several Msq on the way and they all were surrounded by hundreds of devout M.s. At first I was struck by their level of devotion and commitment….. then I became rather sad to see it all. I was asked recently what was the good and the bad about living here, and seeing this sort of thing is among the worst.
Let me explain. You see, as a Chrstn, I am ASSURED of where I am going when I die. I know that because of the cost of Jesus, I am going to enter into Heaven when I die. My friends and neighbors here DO NOT know these things. They are almost all afraid of death, in part because they never know if they have done enough good to balance out their bad. I watch them go through so many things and try to follow so many set rituals to try to get better, all along never knowing if it is enough. They could literally miss Paradise by one missed prayer!! This is VERY heartbreaking to me. This is the worst thing about living here, seeing your friends and neighbors starve them selves for a month each year and live in fear of God all their lives. Especially knowing all along if they would just allow me too, I could help point them in the right direction; to a personal relationship with God.
Unfortunately, most here, as in other parts of the M. world, do not realize they have a choice!!! Will you pray with us that God will give dreams and visions and soften hearts of our neighbors and friends? Pray that they will begin to understand that they have a choice, and that they do not have to fear death. Pray also that we will be the examples that we need to be. Pray that in our relationships with each other that they will see God’s love through us as a family as well as in our relations with them. Let me hear from you about your willingness to help lift us up in this.
This is Pink Lake, so called because of the salt content turns the lake a pink color. The foam you see is actually salt foam that has collected on the surface of the water.
We went there with a group of local Missy friends and a Senegalise friend of theirs named Aminata. The other Senegalise are actually Nars/Pulaar, they were our camel drivers.
These guys took good care of us, and the children. William was excited about seeing the camels....but REFUSED to get close to them. So he stayed back with Granpa Dave,as did Mariama, and played with their children. He had a BLAST!!
This is William on Granpa Dave's sholders. This made William happy, finding out he did not have to get too close to the camels!! They LOVE each other!!
Lisa getting on her camel. As you can see there was no room for Mariam, so she stayed behind as well. Thats uncle Carl in front of Lisa, he helps keep things operating machanically for the missys here.
Me riding on my camel. They are not NEAR as smooth of a ride as a horse!! It was fun though none the less. That is Aaron, another ISC-journeyman, on the right. 
Part of the group riding along the beach. That is Carrie on the left (another ISC-journeygirl), Aminata, Lisa and then uncle Carl again.
