A Special Birthday

We always try to make birthdays really special here in Mali! This one was great....my 24th included hotdogs and hamburgers (with real buns!), coconut cake, special friends, my mom, a stack of birthday cards, and a swimming pool. It doesn't get any better than that!

Me and Johanna with my coconut birthday cake!

Aquatic Birthday Events

Me and My Trio...thanks for a great birthday, ladies!

Mo's first hamburger!

Grilling hamburgers and hotdogs African style!

Yummm!

Jessica starting the fire. We've all learned a lot of new skills since we came.

Island

And our last stop on the One Love Toga Tour 2009 was Santorini Island. It was more gorgeous than the pictures can even show!

Jessica, Alyson, and me on our way to go watch the famous sunset of Oia.
Special OPS team at the volcano

We rented a little Barbie Jeep to cruise around the island in!

And what fun is a Barbie Jeep if you can't climb in it???

We're a little excited after watching the amazing sunset!

See, how could you not get excited after watching this. Everyone was quiet as they watched the sun set. There were hundreds of people gathered at one spot to watch. After the sun had completely fallen, everyone broke out into applause. Now we were giving praise to our Almighty God. Was everyone praising Him? No. But they were still recognizing His mighty work!

Our whole crew having dinner one last time!

Me and Reaiah chillin out on the boat...do you see those long sleeves???

Me and Aly on our way to the volcano

The Blue and White City

Our hotel view. No sand. Only rocks.

Athens, Greece...Not Athens, Alabama

And then we were off to Athens Greece for two nights.

In front of the Parthenon. I studied Greece heavily in the 5th grade. Ever since we learned about the Parthenon I've been fascinated - that's one more thing I can cross off the bucket list!

All dressed up for the Opera! We went to see Ainta..in Italian, with Greek translation screens. So you know what that means - we made up our own story line!

Mars Hill where Paul addressed the Athenians in Acts. We just traced Paul's footsteps on this vacation!

I Heart Roma

We had the great opportunity to go on a European vacation. My teammates and I, along with two of our teammates here in Mali, and other friends from around the world, found our way to Greece and Italy. We started our trip with three nights in Rome...

Me and Reaiah mailing postcards from the Vatican

Timbuktu Trio checking out Roman architecture

The prison where Peter and Paul were held. We had a cool little time of worship here! It was so humbling to be in a cell where these men of God had been.

Trevi Fountain

Chasing Dumbo

On our way into Bamako, we had the opportunity to go searching for desert elephants! It was incredible to find them in their environment! We saw three different herds...probably about 80-100 of them! Out of our crew we could speak 5 different languages, and only had 1 common language with our guide....Songhai!

There's elephants behind us somewhere!!! This is our guide beside us wanting to get in the picture, but he's being very African and will stand beside us...rather awkwardly.
Look, we found some!

Everyone wants a good look! But be careful, Alyson...the driver must ALWAYS be ready!!!

He has to be the king of the desert!

A Little Lost

On our way back from the new village...we got a little "lost." So we had to take a new road, one that went right by the river. It happened to be the first day that they opened the dams, so EVERYONE came to fish and buy fish. While we were there we were interviewed by the local television/radio station. Then they heard a Story. Later in the convo we learned that this was one of the "head honchos" of the radio station, so we talked to him a little about getting our Stories on the radio. So what we thought was an unfortunate event, turned out to be a divine appointment!

Moving Day

This is the day we helped move our friend to her new village. She is the one on the right. While we were driving we reminisced a little about places we had been with her and langauge that she had helped us learn! She got our phone number and has called us since we have been out of town! We can't wait to go back to visit her. We hope that her living there will allow us to work there as well!