Coup in Mali: Baptist family waits for calm

Caught by a coup in Mali, Christian workers Cliff and Rachel Blunt (names changed) hunker down with their two young daughters, enduring the sound of nearly constant weapons fire since the coup began March 22. The fighting came especially close Thursday night when the Blunts witnessed a group of men firing guns immediately outside the gate of their home. The Blunts’ guard suspects the men were robbing a store. For Rachel, it was too close for comfort. “We could hear everything the guys with the guns were saying. They were close enough to us that we could have carried on a conversation with them. … I could actually smell gunpowder,” Rachel said in an interview via Skype.