Over the last three years, CCC has partnered with the Malian national church’s humanitarian organization (called ODES) to purchase, pack, ship, and distribute nearly 250,000 meals to Malian women and children in poverty. Here are just three of the thousands of stories of how these meals have changed the lives of the Malian people.

My name is Maimouna Poudiougo. I’m 23 years old and I am married. I’m the mother of two boys. My one son, Dramane, is 21 months old. At the age of one he began to lose weight and his arms and legs seemed to be getting thinner. My husband would often yell at me. He would accuse me of not giving our son enough milk, but I was doing all that I could. This conflict over my son’s health led to unhappiness in our home. It was at this time in our lives when Mr. Bakary Koita, an agent for ODES-Mali started intervening in our village. He helped to organize a small group where we had the opportunity to discuss some of our problems. He then introduced us to a program that they wanted to start in our village.

He explained how our children would be weighed and how that weight would be compared to others kids the same age to see if the child was within their weight range. When they weighed my son he was 5 kilograms (11 pounds). At that time he was 19 months old. My son and I were admitted into the program. After starting to eat the rice meals I could tell there was a difference in my son. He was finally growing and he looked healthy again. He really liked the rice meals and ate well. After one month he was weighed again and this time he weighed in at 10 kilograms (22 pds). I rejoice for my son’s health and I can now live at peace knowing that my husband will not be able to accuse me any longer. I take this opportunity to thank you, all the partners of Mr. Bakary.

My name is Salimata Poudiougo. I’m 32 years old and am married. I have 6 children, 2 of which are girls. ODES allowed me to weigh my little children. In this picture I’m holding Fatoumata who is 21 months old. At the initial weigh in she was 5 kilograms (11 pds) and I was told that she was very behind developmentally. She was admitted into the food program and after just a few days of eating the rice packets there was a huge change in her appearance and demeanor. This continued on progressively throughout the month and I watched my child transform in front of me. She regained her appetite and after one month she had gained 3 kilograms (6.6 pds). I want to thank ODES and all those that contributed to the wellness of my daughter. You have done well. My prayer is that God will repay you with the goodness you have shown me. Thank you.

The child in this picture is Ousmane Saye. His father is Amagana Saya. Ousmane is 12 months old and it was about 6 months ago that we started to notice that he was depressed. From morning to night he was not happy. He seemed to be sick, but he had no fever or other symptoms. It was in this state the he was weighed by ODES along with the other children in the village. I was told that he was mal-nourished and that he was being entered into a program that would help him. He went from weighing 6.5 kilograms (14 pds) to 7.5 kilograms (16 pds) after just one month of eating the rice meals. He is now a happy little boy and I’m so thankful for all that ODES has done in helping our children.

The first of three short-term teams that will be heading to Mali over the next four weeks just left today (Friday, January 22nd). This team is being led by Pastor Dusty White and includes the following guys:

Dusty White
Glen Beed
DJ Hornacek
Mervin Johnson
Chuck Rezac
Chad Swanson
Robert Williams

They will be doing some construction and remodeling of the ODES headquarters in the capital city of Bamako. ODES is an organization that is run by the C&MA; national church in Mali. ODES provides compassionate and humanitarian aid to the Malian people. For instance, when CCC sent food to Mali in the Meals for Mali project over the last few years, it was the people in ODES that distributed those meals.

Be praying for these guys that they will be healthy, safe, and have real Kingdom impact while they are in Mali. Dusty will be sending some updates via email and they will be posted on this blog, so keep reading.

Every Thursday morning our staff here at CCC gets together for prayer. This last week one of the items we of course prayed for is the situation in Haiti.

As we sat there in our small groups praying, I realized that I was struggling to know just how to pray for them. Their situation is so overwhelming and big that my prayers seemed trite.

In the end, I realized that it doesn’t matter how big or tragic something is from our perspective, it never catches God by surprise. He knew exactly what would happen and he cares deeply about each and every person affected.

So this brought me back to my original question, how should I pray for Haiti?

There isn’t just one right answer, but in my case I prayed that God would use this in amazing ways to bring an amazing number of people into the Kingdom. It is one of the ironic realities of humanity that it is often pain, suffering, and tragedy that draws us to God, so my prayer is that this tragedy would do just that.

I firmly believe that lost people matter to God and He wants them found.

Missional people are people who live a lifestyle of adopting the posture, thinking, behaviors, and practices of a missionary in order to engage others with the gospel message.

In short, they are constantly aware of the needs and lostness of the people around them and they strive to impact those people towards Christ. Let me give you a real example by telling you a story about my friend Dee.

Dee has attended CCC for a couple of years. Before Christmas she was ringing bells outside an Omaha Wal-Mart when she saw a couple with two children coming out with several cart loads of groceries. There was a cab waiting but the cab refused to take the couple because they had too much stuff. As they sat there pondering what to do, Dee immediately recognized an opportunity to share Christ’s love.

Dee gave them a ride home in her car, groceries and all, and even told the wife to call her every two weeks and she will give her a ride to Wal-Mart so they could save the cab money to buy a car at some point. After helping them carry their groceries inside their apartment, Dee realized this family had very little and almost nothing under the tree for Christmas. So Dee and her husband came back later in the week, bringing a few presents for their girls and a gift card to Wal-Mart for mom and dad. A relationship has been built that will allow Dee and her husband great opportunity to tell them about Jesus.

This story says it all. What a great example of missional living!

Since this is the time of year when we are supposed to be thinking about big, harry, audacious goals for the next year, I’m taking some time here in early January to do just that for missions at CCC.

There are a lot of great questions that I want to think through.

• What does it mean to be a missional church?
• What big things can we accomplish with short-term missions?
• How can we be excellent partners with our missionaries to help them reach the world for Christ?
• How can we come along side of the people here at CCC to help them become great commission radicals?
• How can we be even more effective with some of our key partnership countries like Mali, China, and Jordan?

I have to admit, it’s a lot of fun to have a job where I get to think about and pray about such things. I am excited to serve along side you in 2010 and if you get a chance, maybe you can be praying about these questions as well.

Blessings and Happy New Year!