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Eli (11) fled home with his brother when his father forced him to work. Abandoned on the street by his brother, he's now found a loving home with us, and can go to school again.

For $50 or 40€ a month all his needs will be met.
Will you adopt Eli?

SCABIES is a transmissible parasite skin infection characterized by superficial burrows, intense itching and secondary infection.

Scabies is caused by the mite Sarcoptes scabiei (picture). It produces intense, itchy skin rashes when the impregnated female tunnels into the stratum corneum of the skin and deposits eggs in the burrow. The larvae, which hatch in 3-10 days, move about on the skin, molt into a "nymphal" stage, and then mature into adult mites. The adult mites live 3-4 weeks in the host's skin. The motion of the mite in and on the skin produces an intense itch.

Scabies is transmitted readily, often throughout an entire household, by skin-to-skin contact with an infected person (e.g. bed partners, schoolmates, daycare). Spread by clothing, bedding, or towels is a less significant risk, though possible.

[from Wikipedia - more information here]

The doctor left us a few hours ago with his diagnosis, that was confirmed by the information we found on the internet - scabies (French: gale, German: Krätze). It's a parasitical illness all soldiers in World War I were infected with, but I haven't heard of it in Europe since (which doesn't mean it doesn't exist any more).

The incubation time is several weeks, and the parasite is extremely resistant, surviving up to two days outside a human body, therefore waiting in clothes and on sheets before entering a human again, where it lives off the blood of its host.

Many street children have this parasite, and it was Solomani - who moved in two months ago - who brought us this gift and has generously passed it on. They are 8 people sleeping in the same room - 5 boys and 3 adults - and all boys are infected now, plus Paul who is maybe the most vulnerable because it's the most advanced. Why nobody has said anything earlier, is a mystery to me. When I read all the info on Wikipedia to them, Paul said that's exactly what he's experiencing, and then he showed us the affected areas that look just like in the pictures. Paul is discouraged, though we all encouraged him to keep praising God and thanking him in all circumstances.

The doctor had to go look up what medication to prescribe, and we're waiting for the information. Also, we well have to wash all clothes and sheets at the same time with hot water, and bathe every person in our household (all 13 of us) at the same time, then covering our whole body with a certain lotion, and maybe also taking medication. This is not gonna be a little or easy thing - we don't even have hot water, and will have to boil it; and who knows whether the clothes will survive that. But we don't have a choice. I also don't know yet what that medication is gonna cost for 13 people, and we're out of money right now.

What an interesting situation - there I am, preaching hugging and physical affection, and now we're all infected! I know it will make a great testimony in the future. If the enemy thinks he can stop this cultural revolution of showing affection, he will be disappointed.

As we go through a physical cleansing, I believe it will also be an outward picture of what God is doing in the inside of us. Hallelujah!

MINISTRY IN DIO

Scabies or not, tomorrow (Wednesday) four of us are going to the village of Dio together with Enoch, who came today for Bible School, and always stays overnight on Tuesdays.

Enoch just officially came under my covering, and is the first pastor to join our baby network of apostolic centers in Mali. This is huge in a culture where women have no value or rights, and where hierarchy, age and gender plays a vital role in the Christian community, that an older pastor would submit to a woman, and a younger woman, and a single younger woman. I now have a son that is older than me :-)

One of the upcoming Sundays I'm going to Dio to preach in his church and to anoint him with oil and officially set him in place, which I believe is gonna be powerful.

Tomorrow will also be a powerful day. We are baptizing two of the people that came to the Lord during our visit at Christmas, followed by communion. In the evening we are showing the MATTHEW film (the best Jesus-film there is) in Bambara (I myself added a Bambara audio track to the English movie, which was a lot of work), and we are believing for more people to come to the Lord, as well as God to confirm His word with signs and wonders.

This time I'm better equipped for the night in the village, thanks to purchases I made in the US (last time it was really bad), and on Thursday morning we're returning to Bamako.

LOTS OF REPAIRS

We've had a lot of repairs recently.

My all-in-one printer gave up its life (hopefully the scanner still works).

The hot season has already started (early this year), and my air condition wasn't working. It's been fixed, praise God, so that I can sleep at night.

All our voltage regulators broke down, and we have yet to see whether they are repairable.

Then the DC/DC converter that allows us to use our sound system with a battery stopped working - we got it back repaired today, praise God, so that we can show the movie in the village.

In the past few weeks we've had to have our car repaired five times already, last time today because I wouldn't have dared to drive to the village the way it was running. The mechanic told us that we will have to do this same repair every other week now, unless we wanted to repair the cause of the problem, which would be very expensive.

Please pray we'll make it to the village with our 20-year-old vehicle, and especially that we'll make it back to Bamako. Breaking down somewhere in the middle of nowhere would be quite disastrous....

Pray also that the Lord would give us a new vehicle.

THEOPHOSTIC SESSIONS

Since my return a week ago, we've done quite a few theophostic sessions both with adults as well as with our kids. It's been wonderful to see them find truth and freedom from horrific childhood experiences (testimonies are often included in my blog). I have also started to teach TPM in seminar form to train more people and introduce it to a wider circle of believers.

QUICK NEWS

•    Today I read an article that led me to look at the current rating from the UN of the human development index. Mali has dropped down one place and is now 3rd-poorest nation of the world, followed by Sierra Leone and Niger as poorest (both are in the neighborhood of Mali). It aches my heart to see that, but I believe in the God who chooses the weak and the least likely, and who will make Mali a wonder to the world, for the glory of His name.  

•     Pray for our legal advisor Daniel who will help us get all our legal papers together. He is a very busy man, but promised to have some time next week. We need to start two more organizations for everything to be in order. Please pray for favor with the government, and quick resolution, as well as wisdom as we write by-laws and bring required structure to what God is doing.

•   We have two significant visitors coming in a few weeks, for a few days each. First the director of the German NGO who manages our kids' sponsorships in Europe; it will be her first time to see everything with her own eyes. And right after that our American architect is coming to finalize the blueprints for the first building phase, as well as look at the construction site and meet our contractor/construction manager.

•   We're hoping to start construction in April, if the governement truly finishes its preliminary work in March, as they've said. So far only the money for the well is there, which is the first thing to build anyway. The Lord has opened several possibilities for financing this half-a-million-dollar project, and it will take prayer for the "transfer of wealth" to happen. Check the construction page on my website for updates.

•    I've been back for a week, and am rejoicing at my new daily schedule that allows me uninterrupted extended time with the Lord. However, please pray for my health. Pray also I won't be infected with scabies (if I'm not already).

Pray Psalm 91 over us - that no pestilence will come near us, and that His angels will have charge over us as we drive to the village.

All HIS,

Claudia

our team and seven sponsored kids
(Nov 2006)