Happy New Year!

Happy New Year?  In February? Yes, in February. This cultural phenomenon here in Cameroon has always amused us greatly; the practice of greeting friends, acquaintances and even strangers with 'Happy New Year' well into the middle of the second month of the year.

This is what the gentleman handed us

Last Sunday, we received a gift with this greeting. Shortly after our return to Yaounde last year, we discovered that a new restaurant in the center of town has great pizza, served with a delicious sour dough bread appetizer and a salad. So, of course we've gone there a few times :-). Well, after church this week, we decided to try their ice cream and while getting our order, one of the workers came over with a French pastry dessert, handed it to us and said, "Happy New Year". We repeated the greeting and expressed our thanks. Apparently, he had noticed that we were with Wycliffe (or SIL, as Wycliffe is known here), though why he thought we needed a pastry, we may never know.

I remember going into the city many years ago to get my shopping done and entering a store I'd been in occasionally. The clerk greeted me so enthusiastically with "Happy New Year" that you might have thought I was a long lost cousin come home. And, yes, it WAS February.

Our pastry gift. The nibbles in the top came from Caleb -
it looked so good he had to help himself in the car on our way home!

We don't get that greeting too often any more, certainly not like we used to. I guess the city has become too metropolitan. But it sure was refreshing and sweet this past Sunday to hear it again. And the pastry was delicious!

Sifted Wheat, Served Daily

SPOILER ALERT: This post is rather longer, rather more rambling and rather different from what we’ve posted before. You have been warned…

I’ve been thinking about wheat lately, probably because of a comment one of our friends made to my wife a while ago. Specifically, I’ve been pondering two occasions when Jesus mentions wheat in Scripture.

Our unpainted walls, with wires where lights
might one day be installed

The first is in the Lord’s Prayer, when He counsels us to pray for “our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11 and Luke 11:3). Pastors and commentators have long suggested that He is telling us, in this verse, to ask God for what we need. Since God promises in many other places in Scripture (like, for example, John 14: 13 – 14) to give us what we ask for, it makes sense that Jesus would teach us to ask God for the things we need.

But how do you deal with that truth when you are standing in the middle of the house that you went $28,000 into debt to be able to move in to and you are staring at all the things that still need to be finished? When you are looking at the unpainted walls, when you see the electrical wires sticking out

Our bedroom door (and the hole next to it)

in places where some lights still need to be installed, when you notice the unvarnished doors and the small gaps in the concrete around the woodwork, when you remember the wiring that needs to be re-done in most of the house (because it wasn’t done properly in the first place), when you think about the exterior security wall that stands unfinished and the yard that is mostly dirt (like a construction site), with no flowers or trees or landscaping of any kind; when you remember all of these things, and are then reminded of those things that have broken and desperately need to be repaired (like the plumbing that is leaking into the walls in all of the bathrooms or the roof that leaks in three of the four bedrooms or the two sections of the security wall that have fallen down or the well that constantly runs dry unless we
carefully limit our water usage); remembering all these
things, what can you possibly make of Jesus’ promise in Scripture that He will provide all of our needs?

Seems to me that you have three options. First, you can doubt God’s Word; maybe this promise is false and He really doesn’t always give us what we need. But that assertion basically means that all of Scripture is false; if God can’t be trusted to tell the truth in one Scriptural promise, that throws into doubt everything that He promises and teaches is trustworthy and faithful, that His promises are true, that He does provide us with what we need. So scratch option number one; there must be something else.

Part of the security wall that is still standing

throughout Scripture, doesn’t it? I’m not going there; I’m not ready to suggest that the short-term experience of one family negates all the lifetimes of experiences (including our own, in other seasons) that demonstrate God

So how about door number two: We don’t really need these things that we’re praying for. Well, I suppose that’s a possibility. I take another look around the house. That would mean God is saying we don’t need to get out from under this crushing debt, a debt which, if not taken care of, could ultimately lead to the end of our ministry in Cameroon. That would mean that we are meant to continue living with and enduring the countless little struggles and frustrations that come from living in an unfinished and unrepaired house, struggles that have already begun to wear us down physically and emotionally, pushing us all closer to the breaking point; even the dogs are getting stressed out! Surely that can’t be right. Maybe some of these things aren’t absolutely necessary; maybe we can live in a house without paint or adequate lighting. But a roof that doesn’t leak and is secure enough that the wind is not likely to tear it off? A security wall that is not in danger of collapsing at any moment? A well that gives enough water to wash more than one load of laundry without going dry? Surely these are not simply desires, simply wants. I mean, we’re not asking for a mansion with a filled four car garage, king-sized water beds for everyone and caviar to snack on; we’d just like to lay down at night under a dry roof without having to wonder if that roof will still be there when the morning comes. That just doesn’t seem like a luxury to me. Don’t we actually need these things?

And the two sections of wall that have fallen down

So I come to option three: We don’t need these things now. I think this option is the one that troubles me the most, probably because it seems to be the only viable option left. It means that these things we’re missing in our lives are genuine needs and God’s promise is true: He will supply what we need. Just not yet. For His good purpose (and no doubt for our ultimate good), He is calling us to live, for this season, in need. To live without financial security and to live with the frustrations of staying in a poorly constructed, partially damaged, half finished home. The flippant, in some ways easy answer is to say, “Okay, God knows better than I do; If He thinks this is what we need right now, then I should just buckle down and learn to endure until this season passes.” And that’s pretty much the attitude I’ve been striving for over the past few months. But another part of my mind just won’t stop protesting. Why do we need to go through this? How is it good for us to have to scrimp and save every penny of our already low support so we can start to pay back this debt, especially when the necessity of paying off that debt means throwing into doubt several future plans (like the hope of our last family vacation here in Cameroon before Daniel graduates, as well as the question of how many of us can accompany Daniel back to the States in June after he graduates)? How can it be good for us to not sleep soundly for the last four months because we’re worried about leaking roofs, falling sections of walls and wind storms that could rip our roof completely off? I know, you can cue the verses about suffering teaching us perseverance (Romans 5:3) and rejoicing in suffering (James 1:2), but that really doesn’t answer the basic question: How is enduring these seemingly unendurable trials good?

The view of our side yard - nice landscaping, don't you think?

Which brings me to the next statement about wheat that Jesus makes. In Luke 22: 31 – 32, Jesus says, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

This is the verse our friend mentioned, and my first reaction was, “That doesn’t really fit.” In my mind, Jesus ought to have said, “Satan has asked to thresh you as wheat.” Because that seems like it would be the more painful part of the process. You take the newly harvested wheat, lay it out on a flat surface and beat it vigorously and thoroughly with a heavy stick until the protective covering, the chaff, is knocked away from the kernels of wheat. That doesn’t sound like fun to me at all. If we’re going to put ourselves in the position of wheat, it’s the threshing that I would want to avoid.

One of our leaky walls, and the holes we've made trying to
find and fix the leaks

But rather unsurprisingly, when you think about it more carefully, Jesus seems to have gotten the metaphor right. Though threshing is probably more traumatic for the wheat, it is the sifting that is the important part of the process. After the wheat has been threshed, it is still contaminated; the chaff is still there, separated from each kernel but mixed up with them. If you tried to grind threshed wheat into flour, you’d have some pretty nasty flour because the chaff is hard and inedible; your flour would be worthless. The process of sifting fixes this. In sifting, you take the threshed wheat and either throw it into the air or shake it around in a short, round basket with a mesh bottom. In both cases, the wheat is thrown around so that the chaff is separated, blown away, leaving only the valuable, edible kernels of wheat behind.

So it seems to me Jesus is saying that Satan wanted to test the disciples, especially Peter, to see if they were kernels or chaff, to see if they would blow away when faced with trials and difficulties or if they would stand firm and endure. And that sounds exactly like it fits where we are right now. I can see, in the trials and stress that we are facing, the hand of God allowing Satan to  test us with great tribulations, to see if we will be blown away or if we will endure.

I  get to this point and have to pause, because I’m not sure if that idea is encouraging or discouraging. On the one hand, it means these trials could be a good thing, a time that God has allowed for the purpose of purifying us and helping us to be more free of habits and attitudes and stuff that might be holding us back from serving Him more fully and effectively. But on the other hand, as I look around at our lives right now, there seems to be an awful lot of chaff blowing away; I’m having trouble imagining what will be left when this storm finally blows over.

And that’s where I got stuck for some time: torn between the discouragement of our current circumstances and the hope that God had something good planned for all of us in all of this, assuming we made it through in one piece. But eventually it hit me: the important part is not the sifting. Satan asks to sift us like wheat, and Jesus responds, “But I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail.”

Wow. The incarnate Son of God, my Lord and my Savior, is praying for me. Not only in the midst of this trial, but because of this trial, He is praying for me. That, in itself, just blows me away. I’ve always had trouble wrapping my mind around the idea that someone as powerful and wonderful and glorious, someone as important as Jesus not only knows me, but loves me and cares for me. And prays for me.

But as amazing as that concept is, I think the more important point is not that He is praying for me, but rather what He is praying for me. Not (as I have been) that our circumstances would improve, that the storm would pass and we would be comfortable again. Rather, that our faith would endure in the midst of this storm.

Does it really all come down to faith? I have to admit, I didn’t want that to be the conclusion. In fact, I stopped writing at this point for more than a month, hoping to find some other conclusion. But I don’t think there is one. All of my questions and doubts, my stress and anxiety, my frustration and depression, my jealousy at others whose walk seems much more smooth than ours; all of these things boil down to one common factor: at some point, I stopped trusting God. Not that I stopped believing in Him. I know that He doesn’t lie, that His Word is true, that He is faithful and powerful and is working for my good and His glory; I know all of those things, at least in my head. But my heart looked at the wind and the waves of the storm surrounding us and my faith faltered. I know that He is able to save us from these circumstances, that He can reach out his hand and do us good by pulling us back into the boat. But fear whispered to my heart that maybe He won’t, maybe He will leave us here. And of course, my head responds to fear with the assurance that, if He leaves us here, it is for a good reason, for His glory and our good. But my heart just can’t see it; my heart sees the waves closing over us and absolutely knows that we can’t endure this trial any longer, which makes His decision to leave us here feel like a broken promise.

My heart isn’t too bright sometimes. Or, to be a bit more generous, my heart is kind of forgetful; it needs to be reminded that God does keep His promises, that His perspective is different from mine and that He has my ultimate good in mind rather than my immediate comfort. It needs to remember that sometimes God asks us to wait on Him, and that making us wait isn’t the same as forsaking us. In other words, my heart needs more faith.

So, I guess in the end it does all come down to faith, to being able to rest contentedly in God’s promises and God’s faithfulness and God’s wisdom, even when my immediate difficult circumstances remain. Being able to trust that He is working for our good and His glory, even when I can’t  see His hand moving.

Well, I’m certainly not there yet, which makes it rather comforting to know that Jesus is praying for me. Maybe that needs to be my prayer as well, turning my cries from “How long, o Lord?” to “I believe; help my unbelief.”

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!