Kamabougou Trip

On February 1, 2011 a team from Grace Point Church in Bentonville, AR came to Mali to work and serve in the village of Kamabougou. GPC has been sending teams to this village for four years and has developed a great relationship with the local church. Mike MacDaniel is the pastor of GPC and a friend of mine from Bentonville. He led the team of seven from the States and met me in Bamako where we bought supplies and medicines for our week in Kamabougou. We had a great week. Here are some of the photos of our week.

The team from Grace Point Church.

We drove about five hours from Bamako to get to Kamabougou. Most of the road was dirt but still passable by van this time of year.

The building on the left is where we kept our belongings and where some slept. The building on the right is the kitchen. In between is a grass roof shelter to give us shade in the heat of the day.

This was home-sweet-home for the week we spent in Kamabougou. Every morning we'd meet as a team, pray, and plan the day. This pic is taken with my back to the two buildings in the previous pic. The building in this photo is the Kamabougou church. Several of us slept in there at night to try to escape the dust and wind.

These are pics of some of the children in Kamabougou. They were at our campsite every morning and stayed all day. They were tons of fun.

Joshua and Nonjohn were two of our English/Bambara translators. We had two lady translators too, Mastan and Montané. We couldn't have done this week without them. Very few people out in the village speak French either so they were indispensable to us.

Clinic in the church

Three days of clinic where we treated illnesses, did wound care and screened children for malnutrition. We weighed babies from a hanging scale made to hang from a tree limb. We used a rafter in the church. We had a dental clinic going on at the same time and over 40 teeth were pulled in three days.

Dancing during the worship service each night. Drums and singing rang through the whole village. We then had a time of story telling from the Bible. This is an oral culture and storying is one of the best ways to present the gospel.

Umaro(yellow shirt) and Brama were my buddies all week. Brama had a severe infection in his right leg about a year ago which caused it to stop growing as quickly as his left leg. So he has about a 4cm leg length discrepancy that causes him to use a stick as a crutch. We're going to try to get a shoe made with a 4cm sole. Hopefully it will allow him to walk normally.

Village elder with a huge goiter. Probably iodine deficiency.

The village chief. When we arrived we had to present ourselves to him, exchange greetings (which took thirty minutes), and ask permission to have clinic in his village. He gave his permission gladly. On the last day we went back to say our formal farewells. The elderly are highly valued and respected in Mali. He laughed and smiled constantly.