The Do-It-Yourself Christmas Tree Kit (Cameroon version)

Step One: 

Take your machete and walk about half a kilometer to where there are several cedar trees growing on the side of the road. Cut several large branches from the trees with your machete and carry them home in a basket (Note - a true Cameroonian would have carried the basket on his head; apparently after 21 years, I am still an amateur).

Step Two:

Arrange the branches and tie the stems together at the bottom and about halfway up with a thin, green wire. Place the tied branches together in a plastic bucket, then fill the bucket with broken cement blocks to help stabilize them. Finally, fill the bucket with dirt (Note - this operation should be done on the front porch, to avoid spreading pine needles all over the house; to be accomplished properly, this operation also requires at least five hands and one curious dog).

Step Three:

Carry the bucket into the house and place it in a corner, so that the "tree" can have the support of two walls to lean against. Once the family has all gathered, decorate the "tree" with all of the light, durable wooden ornaments found in your Christmas ornament box. Place the homemade popsicle-stick star on the top to finish the decorating (Note - using any heavy or breakable ornaments would just be silly, as they would risk pulling over the tree).

Step Four:

Fill the space under the tree with presents and enjoy it with the family for the rest of the holiday season (Note - frequent and persistent prayers that the whole thing will not fall over at some point would not be unwise).

Step Five:

Remember that the point of the season is not how big or beautifully decorated your tree is; the point is the love of God that sent His only Son down to earth, to be born as a tiny baby, that we might have abundant life as sons and daughters of the King of Kings.

May all of you enjoy the wonderful presence and joy of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, during this holiday season and for all the year!

Speaking of fruit...

One of our watermelons - perfect for Christmas dinner!

This is a little late for Thanksgiving, but we wanted to share one of the things we are thankful for in our life over here.

One of the joys, or perks, of living in Cameroon is the access we have to tropical fruits. YUM YUM. It has been our joy since we first came here to be able to get watermelon all year round. Can you imagine how much fun it is to serve fresh watermelon with Christmas dinner? Among our other favorites are fresh pineapples, guavas, bananas (of course - do you know how many things you can make with bananas?) soursop, and avocados, papayas...and so many more. Oh, and how could I forget mangoes?!

One of my favorite places to stop and get some delicious, refreshing fruit is not far away at a small fruit stand on the side of the road (places like this are everywhere along the roads here, and represent a major source of income for many Cameroonians; most of our fresh fruits and vegetables are bought at stands like this one). The man who is usually there selling is debilitated in his legs, probably from polio or possibly from a birth defect. His arms are quite sound, though. He rips the top of pineapples off with no trouble at all. He sells only a few kinds of fruit but he has plenty of them and they are not too expensive. The pineapples are best if I'm ready to make fruit juice out of them because they are usually very ripe. The oranges I got last week were perfect!

This is a soursop (picture from Wikipedia)

All these tasty things, however, don't take away my longing for fresh cantaloupes, blueberries and strawberries. Charis misses the variety of apples available in the States and Daniel's favorite from our other home is peaches.

Our other home.... It is hard to stand, as we do, between two worlds, loving and missing the people and places and things from two continents at the same time; it doesn't matter where we are, we're still missing someone! But, I've always said that this constant missing of people and things helps us to remember that we aren't at home anywhere here on earth. We are citizens of Heaven, and one day we'll really be Home. And when that day comes, we won't have to miss anyone or anything ever again!

But until that day, you all have an open invitation to come on over to Cameroon for a visit so you can taste the wonderful variety of fruits that the Lord has made. Just make sure you bring me some freeze dried berries in your bags!

Justina's Joys

We need water. We all do. It is the source of life. My children are thrilled with the ice water that I bring them when they are doing their sports and I'm thrilled to have running water in the house today. For a variety of reasons that's not always a given here. People here in the grand city of Yaounde routinely say "there is no water in Yaounde". What they mean by that is that, in many neighborhoods, there is no running water because the water company can't keep up with the needed repairs. Many people go for miles to carry their water. My friend Emelda lives in a little corner of a neighborhood where the pipes had been broken for a long time. Eventually, one wealthier man who lived nearby decided he'd had enough and he dug a well. Now he shares that water with the others, charging less than what the city charges.

Here in our new house, we had to have a well dug. There are no city pipes out here and we are generally happy with that arrangement. We didn't like having the water cut off as it did regularly in our last two houses, often for days at a time. Many of our friends still live in that area we left and are still dealing with this regular situation of having no water. So we're very thankful to now have our own well. BUT, it needs to be deeper! There isn't enough water in it at its current depth, so it runs dry after a little laundry.

Even with our well, we still can't drink the water; we still need a water filter to clean it. If you can get your well deep enough, past all the contaminants,  to get pure water, then you could drink it straight from the tap, but that is a WHOLE lot deeper than our well will ever be. While living in our previous house we needed a new water filter and decided to try a standing filter (see picture). We've had these kinds of filters in the past, and generally have found that they don't produce enough clean water quickly enough to keep up with the needs of our large  family, and that, unfortunately proved to be the case with the new filter that we bought. So, when we moved to our new house, we got another kind, what we call an on demand filter which connects directly to the tap and filters as much water as necessary. Now that we have the new one installed in out new house, we've got as much drinkable water as we need. But, we still had this extra filter.

Justina's daughter, Casandra, with the new water filter

I decided to ask my new househelp, Justina, if she had a filter. She did not and the happiness that came over her when I offered her our old one was truly my joy to watch. She and her husband are so thankful for this clean water source for their family.

Water and Jesus, the true source of life. Next I need to find out if Justina has heard or read any of the Bible in her own language and see how her face lights up for that one.

Joys and Troubles

Our friend Cici

A friend just encouraged me. She came over to help us sort out some of our junk and simply asked how I was spending my time. Cici works at RFIS in the technology department and I don't know her that well but she's super sweet and runs a Bible club in her neighborhood. Kevin thought she'd be a good person to help us separate the trash from the 'maybe someone can use this' stuff. That is just what we did for about a half an hour this afternoon and she walked away with a few treasures for her 'kids' and told me to share what's left in the box with some neighbors. But in the midst of our sorting, I mentioned that I'm quite busy here in the house sorting through the accumulated junk from a family of nine and settling into a new home that has more than its share of challenges. I told her that I also need to find time to write to people, family and supporters. She replied with "of course, they need to know your joys and your troubles".

And it struck me that we don't often do a good job of sharing these things, especially our joys, with all of you. I often have a hard time writing our newletters and blog entries because everything is just, well, my life. I don't think you want to hear about how my roof leaks or how Daniel feels with a boil on his knee. I don't think it's important to tell you how I love to hear the birds sing out over the valley as I hang my laundry and how I stand there remembering that my parents did exactly what I did when they were raising my brother and I....moved out to the country.

Then again, maybe you do want to hear about my joys and struggles. After all, I remember that you care about our lives but you can't know how to pray and support Kevin and me unless one of us tells you. So here is a bit of our joy and struggle from yesterday.

I had already planned to drive across the city to the U.S. embassy (a long and very difficult drive in this city!) to pick up Kaiah's new passport. And I had already planned to try to visit my previous house helper, Emma, who lives in that area. What I didn't plan was a detour to visit Charis at her school because she'd "had a little accident" as the nurse put it. The nurse, Tirza, is one of the joys in my story. She grew up here and Kevin taught both her and her husband, Jordan, when they attended RFIS some years back. Tirza is now a mom of two and one of the most kind, gentle people I know. She "happened" to be there when Charis injured her finger while trying to get at a ball which had gone in a rain gutter. She and a classmate tried to move a large, rather heavy concrete gutter cover and it slipped. Don't worry, here is another joy. It did NOT crush her tiny finger! However, it did slide along her finger, giving her a nasty gash. Two steri-strips and some ibuprofen later, and she is good to go. We are giving her a strong antibiotic to kill those tropical germs and we gave her the tetanus shot because we hadn't gotten the booster yet. (One of my jobs for today is checking the dates on everyone else's vaccines!) Today she is ready for soccer tryouts.

I did succeed in picking up the passport and I did succeed in visiting Emma, which was a great blessing to her. And on the way home I even succeeded in buying some crackers that the children enjoy for snacks without making myself late for the end of quarter teacher conference meeting I had scheduled after school. However traffic was really hard to get through to get those crackers. I'm really glad they were in stock!

So that is a small picture of one of our days (admittedly a rather busy one). Nothing earth shattering or monumental; just us, living life here where God has called us to be. But it is good for us to remember (and to share) that, even in the midst of struggles, God is still faithful, and He provides moments of joy. The trick is being willing to look for them.

News of Our Move and an Updated Financial Report

The beautiful view of the valley from our back porch

  We praise God for the beautiful setting and nice new home that is not quite finished, but is finished enough for us to have moved in three weeks ago. We are also grateful for a seemingly nice landlord. (We haven't know him for very long yet. He's friendly though.)

We have always depended on God for all our needs. And we struggle to just tell people when we are lacking something. However, we've been told that supporters and interested people want to know exactly what we need so here it is. Please pray that God would lead those able to give to do so rapidly as we have the money listed below has already been spent; if we hadn’t paid for these things we would have had to stay in a house that was too expensive and too full of irksome quirks for us to stay in for a long time.

 These are all rounded numbers for simplicity.

Front view of our new house

  $300 – Pump and pipes to get water from the well into the house

  $200.00 – screens

  $1,000 – kitchen cabinets

  $600 – water heaters and other plumbing fixtures

  $4,000 for an extra room so we have sufficient space

  Future needs – closet shelves, exterior washing sink,

  Hopes for the far future – water chateau, generator

 $14,300 – basic expenses to finish this house (this includes things such as tile for the floors, blocks and cement for the security wall, wood for the ceilings, windows, bathroom fixtures, electrical fixtures and labor costs)

the well in the corner of the front yard

  The things listed at the top are those things that we have chosen to add and are therefore being paid for by us. They are not standard in a Cameroonian home. They are terribly important for us to be comfortable but the people here manage without them and therefore don't build their houses with these things included. The final figure is large and is the amount, roughly, that will be applied toward our rent for about two years. But we had to pay that money up front in order to have the house finished because owners generally don't have the money in hand. (It is normal practice to start a building and just leave it for years while getting money bit by bit to finish it.)

  Unexpected costs of life: medical costs for Kaiah – $4500

  * MRI in Cameroon

   * probable surgery in Kenya

   * airfare for two (couldn't very well send her alone now, could I?)

   * Although she didn't need surgery after all to our surprise

   lodging, food and transportation in Kenya nearly totaled the estimated amount for surgery.

  

Since we didn't need to stay at the hospital for treatment but we did need to see a physical therapist we took the opportunity to go to Tenwek hospital on the other side of the Rift Valley where Steve and Theresa Manchester (Kevin's cousin) work and live. That was a refreshing visit. 

Thanks for joining us in prayer that the Lord would quickly supply the money we need to cover all of these expenses!

The location of our house on Google maps - search for "Rain Forest School, Yaounde" to  look us up!

Meet the Dogs

We are so delighted with our dogs! And generally they seem delighted with us; at least, they are delighted with the the twins, largely because the twins let them sleep on their comfy beds. Check out the pictures below, and then you can decide who is allowing whom to use the bed.

Charis and Ziva

Meet Ziva.
She is about two years old. We got her as a puppy not too long after thieves attacked at our home, in the hope that when she grew up, she would be a help to our home security. She wasn't very big when we left for furlough but she was very well cared for by our friends in our absence. Their teenage daughter loves animals almost as much as our Channah and she did a lot of training with Ziva during the time we were gone; we were so pleased with her obedience when we took her back. She did, however, cause some trouble with our friend's own dog as she got bigger. At times, they got into some pretty serious spats, which made us concerned that she might also be overly aggressive with our first dog once they were both together in our house again; thus, we were a bit reluctant to bring our first dog back home from RFIS where she was cared for by many during our stay in the U.S.

  

Channah with Dorea

Meet Dorea.
Her name means 'gift' because she was given to us as a gift after our previous dog died unexpectedly. She is a bit more than three years old and was timid as could be before we left her. Well, we left her at RFIS as a second watch dog, so she was loved and cared for by many employees, teachers and students; not only that, she was fed by many during school; she rather quickly learned to get over her fear of people so that she could hang around the lunch area and help the students finish their lunches! She's quite tolerant of our visitors now, especially when they are holding food. When the school year ended we decided we'd better try to put the two dogs together to see what would happen. Besides, Dorea was pretty fat after all of the care the students had given her and she needed a diet that did not include leftover school lunches.




Both the "girls" have been together in our house for more than a month now, and we are so happy that, so far, they are acting quite like the girls they love, getting along great but for the occasional enthusiastic roughhousing or sibling fighting. And we have so enjoyed having them both back in the house with us!

Please pray that they adjust well again as we move to our new home later this month.

The Houses We've Lived In

So, Charis, our curious little girl, asked one day, “Why do so many people in Cameroon live in unfinished houses?” Think about that while I tell you briefly about the houses we’ve lived in during the past six months or so. 

The Candy Cane House

We started in the Mission House at Liberty Church, affectionately named the Candy Cane House many years ago by Bradley and Josiah, because the first time we moved in (back in 1993), it had just been remodeled as a missions house; before that, it was used as a preschool classroom and still had a big candy cane painted on the outside wall right next to the front door. We first lived there back when there were only five of us in the family (though technically, we were only four when we first moved in, as Daniel was born while we were living there). It is a pleasant, welcoming house, a great blessing to us and many others, but a permanent home for none.

Our apartment at CTC

Next came Apartment 111, situated on the grounds of the Cameroonian Training Center (CTC). A safe place for kids and adults passing through Yaoundé for a brief period of time. For us, it was the landing place in January when we returned to Cameroon, our first new “home” here while we searched for a more permanent home for this season of our life in Cameroon. We stayed there for three months, feeling secure but enduring a lot of ambient noise since the Center also functions as a conference center and gathering place for many others.

The Hamrick House

The Hamrick House temporarily became our home in late March because we had to leave CTC to make room for another family coming in from the village. Quite a palace, this one. Multi-level, with four bedrooms, six bathrooms and way more space than we need (at least inside; there is practically no yard in the compound at all), it is a relatively safe place to stay, but for many reasons, not to our liking as a permanent place to live.

our new home (still under construction)

Home! Well, soon we hope to call this house our home. Situated about a four minute walk from the entrance to RFIS (where Kevin teaches and three of the children attend school), we love the quiet, peaceful setting and the price is affordable. We’ve had to add an additional bedroom to accommodate our numbers, but we are really pleased with God’s provision of this place. We hope to move in later this month, before school starts up again. Please pray that all the construction will be finished in time for us to do that!

All of this house hopping has really brought into focus for us, once again, that we Christians are not at home here – no matter how comfortable our house may seem, we are still living in enemy territory and won’t be home until the Lord calls us there at the end of this life.

Charis’ question… unfinished houses. The practical answer is easy. It’s warm here and so you don’t need nearly as much protection from the elements as you would in a less equatorial climate. Also, in this culture a common method of protecting the money that people have saved up is to “invest” it in a building project, even though they don’t have enough to finish the house. So they start building and finish what they can, leaving unfinished houses everywhere. Then, often a relative or family friend will occupy the unfinished home to protect it for the owner.

The people here aren’t nearly as attached to their houses as they are to the people in their lives or to the God they serve. We Westerners could learn from their attitude; this was a good reminder for us that it doesn’t matter how fancy or lavish or large a house is; it is the Lord of the house and the hearts of those that live there that make it into a home.