March Post #9--Wow, right?!

Today I debated back and forth whether or not I should go to Foumbot for church. Foumbot is a town about 30 minutes away from the town that we live in. We have a young church plant over there, and I’ve often gone there on Wednesday nights to help out in various Bible studies. I had been going weekly, but during the height of dry season, I began getting migraines every Wednesday night after coming home from Foumbot. I’ve taken a month break from Foumbot and decided it was time to start going again. Unfortunately, I just came down with a cold yesterday. I’ve been loading up on zinc tablets, apple cider vinegar, and peppermint tea, but those remedies aren’t completely eradicating the effects of the cold. (I’m mainly hoping to reduce the duration of my cold.)

Finally, I decided to go to Foumbot despite how I was feeling. We decided to visit a lady whose husband has been coming pretty faithfully to church. This lady has been struggling as to whether she should continue going to the full gospel church that she’s been going to or if she should come to our church with her husband. We were able to walk through the Bridge tract in detail with her. After my friend presented the gospel to her, this lady did decide to place her trust in Christ. What a blessing it was to hear her state her new assurance in Christ! Please pray with me that this lady would have a genuine understanding of the Gospel and that she would continue to grow in her salvation.

March Post #8

This weekend, I got to spend some time with a sweet Christian lady named Vivian. I first met Vivian on the medical missions trip I went on to the bush. Vivian freely offered of her time and services to help cook all of our meals for us while we were there. The cooks had a grueling schedule, getting up before dawn and going to bed after dark, just to provide us with nutritious meals. The entire week, Vivian always had a smile on her face and tried to serve us in any way possible.

 

Vivian always demonstrated a servant’s heart. After the week in the bush, Ellen needed to stop by the local hospital to pay our bills before we could head out of town. When Vivian found out we were passing by the hospital on our way out of town, she asked to catch a ride with us. She wanted to visit a lady from Manko (the village we held the medical clinic in) who was in the hospital. Vivian had never met this lady before that week, and she couldn’t have spent much time getting to know her because she had been flown to the hospital before the clinic even began. But Vivian went to visit this lady, sharing the Gospel with her, and really just showing Christ to her by her actions.

 

On the way home from the trip, the ladies in my car were talking about Vivian and her sweet spirit. Vivian’s life has not been an easy one. Her husband moved their family to Sabga, a village several hours away from their families. Shortly after, he passed away. Within a year of his death, Vivian also lost one of her children. But, despite all the trials she has faced, she has remained faithful to God.

 

None of her family is saved, so this weekend, Vivian stopped by our house on her way to her mother’s. Planting season has just started, so Vivian was going to help her mother plant their crops. She was also hoping for many opportunities to plant the seed of the Gospel in her family members’ hearts. I pray that the Lord will continue to use this lady for his glory and that her family would be won to Christ as well.

March Post #7

Praise the Lord for Fridays!! This week has flown by and dragged by at the same time. It has been quite an unusual week, which is saying a lot for Africa.

 

We’ve experienced a variety of challenges this week. From hot, humid weather (without the rain) to knife injuries to a lice break-out, it’s been an unusual week to say the least! Now, I don’t want to scare you by that mention of a knife. One of the kids was showing off his switch-blade knife and ended up cutting himself instead of the cup he was aiming for. Thankfully, there was a nurse on scene, and the doctor was just seconds away. We’re so blessed with the medical personnel on our team!

 

Unfortunately, like I mentioned, we’ve had some lice manifest themselves on some heads. We had one student out on Thursday due to lice, and today two more victims were discovered. Thankfully, to this point, our house is lice-free. We’re praying that it stays that way! In the midst of life’s craziness, isn’t it reassuring to have a constant God?!

March Post #6

Last week, one of our fellow missionaries returned to Cameroon from a short trip to the States. She brought with her all kinds of goodies, including some spring roll wrappers that she found while cleaning out her mother’s house. She gave those to our household. As a result, Ellen and I were inspired to have a Chinese-themed cooking class tonight.

 

I decided to make lo-mein to go with our spring rolls. I sifted through several recipes online until I found one that I was interested in. Obviously, there are many ingredients that we can’t get out here. Thankfully, there is a wonderful tool called the internet. I was able to find all of the substitution recipes I needed to make the recipe work. After making barbeque sauce and Chinese 5 spice from scratch to go into my homemade hoisin sauce, I felt quite accomplished. I’ve come to realize that I love the challenge of finding a good substitute for hard-to-get ingredients. It is such a satisfying feeling when a dish turns out despite not having the proper ingredients.

 

The spring rolls were a different story, however. Forgive my ignorance, but I didn’t realize the vast difference between egg roll wrappers and spring roll skins. In case you fall into the ignorance category with me, let me clarify—there is a HUGE difference between the two. In my mind, spring rolls were just made with a different filling. However, the big difference comes in the consistency of the wrappers. Egg roll wrappers are those golden crispy wrappers; spring roll skins are the gummy, chewy wrappers. Spring rolls, while they can be fried, do not have to be. That fact was quite a redeeming factor for us. Our spring rolls did not want to stay together in the hot oil, so after frying just a few, we gave up. The result wasn’t quite what either Ellen or I had imagined, but our cooking crew seemed to enjoy the results.

 

All in all, while the food didn’t turn out quite the way we pictured it would, we had a great time at cooking class. We definitely all learned something new tonight too.

March Post #5

A few nights ago, the Barillas had quite an interesting visitor in their yard. When the kids told me about it at school, they had me guess what the visitor was. I first guessed a scorpion, but they told me it was worse than a scorpion. So, then I guessed a snake. They told me the visitor was even worse than a snake! I couldn’t think of anything worse. So, one of the kids pulled out a book on African wildlife to show me a picture. My mind raced to all kinds of possibilities—was it some sort of wildcat or monkey? Well, the picture the kids turned to was of a giant pouched rat. That’s right—a giant rat!! The night before, the Barillas’ dogs had cornered and killed this giant rat. The rat was about a foot long, with a tail just as long! I’m so glad I didn’t see that one.

 

Tonight, we went over to the Loeschers’ to watch The Hobbit. Walter had purchased it and worked on downloading it this week. Finally, after about three days of downloading, the movie was ready for viewing. We all settled in to enjoy the film. I made it through about 2 hours of the movie before I started getting a headache. Once I have a headache, watching a movie in a dark room is not the best idea unless I want a full-blown migraine. I decided, instead, to head to a spare room and lay down.

 

I was nearly asleep when I heard a pitter-patter of small feet scurry across the floor. Naturally, my mind flashed to the incident at the Barillas. All I could think about was that a rat was in the room with me. I looked down at the end of the bed where my feet lay, and I spotted a gray furry creature on the bed next to me. I did the only natural thing to do in such a situation and screamed. Then, I realized that the animal was not a rat but was simply the Loeschers’ cat. I was relieved beyond words but felt foolish for having screamed. In this case, I was very thankful that no one came running to my rescue.

March Post #4

When I arrived at school today, the younger girls rushed to greet me and share the excitement from the morning. When the 11^th graders walked into our classroom this morning, they were met with quite a shock. Two bats were flying around in the room, swooping from corner to corner. Our ceiling is partially exposed to the roof, with a few of the ceiling boards loosely hanging in place. This has not been a problem to this point, but after today, we’re all quite determined to fix the ceiling.

Since one family were the only ones at school at that point, the mom was left to deal with the bat problem on her own. Thankfully, Ellen arrived just in time to help. Between the two of them, the ladies shooed the bats back up to their hiding place. I can only envision the scene as it took place: two ladies armed with brooms and dustpans, swatting at the bats, shrieking as they flew nearer. I’m sure it was quite a way to begin the morning!

When I walked into my room, my girls had attempted to secure the ceiling boards on their own. All over the room, long sticks were propped up on container lids and desks to hold the ceiling boards in place. In fact, they had used my desk as a prop. In the middle of my desk, balancing on a trash cans and multiple teacher books, a long stick stood bravely at its post, doing its part to keep the bats out of the room.

Because I do not relish the thought of bats invading my classroom, I kept the sticks where the girls had placed them. Thankfully, we neither saw nor heard any evidence of the bats. I do fear that they’re still up there, haunting us. Who knows what horrors we may walk into tomorrow!

March Post #3

Last night, my housemates and I were in the kitchen preparing dinner when we heard a large boom. Seconds later, our guard was knocking at our door. Apparently, down at the main road, there had been a big accident. He wanted to go down and see if he could help any. We could already hear sounds of wailing and yelling, so we knew the accident had to have been a big one.

 

We ate dinner while we waited for Richard to come back. The background noise to this meal was sounds of sorrow. It was an almost eerie experience. About 45 minutes later, Richard came back with a report. A large logger truck and a big cargo truck were passing each other on the road. There wasn’t enough room for both vehicles, and one of the giant logs on the truck swiped the side of the cargo truck. Neither driver was injured, but the cargo truck was loaded with about 30 people who were returning from a wedding. The cage on the truck was destroyed by the log, and all of the passengers were knocked out of the bed. Three people were dead on impact; several others were rushed to the hospital. What a drastic ending to a day of celebration for those people.

 

Incidents such as this one are handled much differently in Cameroon than in the States. The injured were not rushed to the hospital via ambulances and paramedics. Instead, taxi drivers offered their services to bring the wounded to the help they needed. The driver of the logger truck instantly fled the scene. To the American, a hit-and-run is a big “no-no.” In Cameroon, hit-and-runs are actually recommended. If the person responsible for the accident does not flee the scene, he will probably face mob justice. Instead, it is recommended in such situations that one flee the scene and turn himself in to the police. There, he will experience a more legal form of justice.

 

When our guard arrived back home with the update, the police had not yet appeared on scene. Richard had taken pictures of the accident in case they were needed in the investigation. What a reminder of the brevity of life. We don’t know the number of days that God has allotted to us. But, with each day that God has given me, I want to use it for his glory.

March Post #2

I didn’t mention this in my last post, but I have set a goal for number of blog posts for this month. I am planning on posting a total of 8 posts this month, an average of one a week. I’ve been slacking off in the area of posts, so I decided I needed an extra boost. And because April is looking to be a busy month, I don’t think I’ll be able to get many posts in. So, there you have it with more explanation than you cared for.

 

School has been going very well with all of the students. The Barilla kids and I are plowing through subjects. We finished our Reading class at the beginning of February, and we’re hoping to finish English and Heritage Studies at the end of this week. There’s always a sense of accomplishment in completing a class. I’m especially excited because I’m hoping to move back the starting time of school with two less subjects to complete each day. I’m all about an extra thirty minutes of sleep!

 

I’m continuing to teach 7^th grade and 11^th grade literature. This year is the first year that the 7^th graders are doing videos for nearly all of their classes. I’m enjoying teaching them, and I think they’re enjoying have a real teacher in literature. 7^th grade literature is an enjoyable class. It’s designed as a transition year from elementary reading to high school literature. We’ve been able to read several interesting stories. In fact, I don’t know if we’ve yet read a “boring” story in our opinion. I’m enjoying whetting the kids’ appetites for future literature classes. Hopefully, they’ll continue enjoying literature after I leave. I’ve always been enjoying teaching American Literature to the 11^th graders. At the beginning of the year, both 11^th graders expressed their dread of the coming literature class. I loved American lit in high school and college, so I was determined to help my students enjoy the class too. And I think so far, I’ve succeeded in that goal. I am faced with a deadline, though, for teaching the class. There are seven weeks of school left before I head home. We’re about half-way through the literature book, and I’m hoping to squeeze in a research paper on The Scarlet Letter. I fear my goals may be a bit too lofty, but I’m going to plow ahead as long as I can.

March Post #1

March is off to quite a bang. Thursday night, as we ushered in the new month, Ellen had cooking class for the older girls at our house. We were all getting quite into the class—we were in the midst of three different recipes—when all of a sudden, our stove lit on fire. It was quite dramatic, let me tell you. I had gone outside to dump the trash and had just walked in the door. Before I could fully walk into the house, I noticed fire traveling from the stove top down the front of the stove. Then, fire gushed out of one of the stove knobs. Picture in your mind water gushing out of a fire hydrant. Now mentally change the water to fire and the hydrant to a stove. That’s what the kitchen looked like. The girls started screaming and ran out of the room. Ellen, who had been trying to put an oven knob back in place, couldn’t reach the gas bottle to turn off the gas. She started sputtering, “Turn off the! Turn off the!” Unfortunately, she couldn’t get the whole sentence out, so the girls were clueless as to what they should do. I was too far away to do anything. Ellen managed to safely scoot around the flame and saved the day by turning off the source of the gas. Needless to say, everyone learned a valuable lesson: know how to turn off the gas bottle.

 

The men and boys went out of town this weekend for a guys’ retreat, so we left behind decided to have a celebration of our own. Friday after school, the girls crowded into two cars and headed off to our water park, a nearby river, to spend the afternoon. It was the perfect day to go swimming—oddly enough, it was hot and muggy. Muggy is not a common weather description during dry season. We had a glorious time swimming in the creek. Nearly everyone got in the water, and each of us definitely soaked in the sun. We ended our day by feasting on chicken and French fries at a local restaurant. Our enjoyment of the meal was slightly affected by a huge rat we saw crawling around in the ceiling of the dining room. While I didn’t allow the rat’s presence to ruin my meal, I’m reconsidering eating there again. For some reason, the rat just affected the atmosphere of the restaurant and meal. The highlight of the night, though, was definitely the short rain storm that we experienced. Finally!—a break in the doldrums of dry season.

 

Tonight, we enjoyed another short rainstorm, this one lasting about 10 minutes or so. I’m so excited for rainy season to come. Words really can’t describe my excitement! Until then, however, we’ll have hot, humid weather to endure. Friday, the thermometer crawled past the 90s on its way up during the day. Hopefully, rainy season will come quickly to cool us all down!