Four Months in Cameroon...

We will hit the 4 month mark just after Thanksgiving next week-

The questions I get about Cameroon now are mostly about how we like it and can we really call it home yet. 

What makes a place home? Ponder that.  Is it the neighborhood?  Access to Target or Wal-mart?  Being able to call whoever whenever?  Drinking water from the tap? If being home is those things, then no, this will never be home.

But it is home now.  My family is here and it’s been too long to be vacation. 

Beautiful skies-

My husband is working in an office or traveling to villages to work.

I get to volunteer different places and occasionally substitute at the kids’ schools (okay, just once so far!).

Kristin's class learning body parts

They were all labeled!

I know my neighbors by name and all the grounds keepers and repairmen and mechanics. 

Silas showing his summer sausages

We have a vehicle. 

I can walk to the ‘boutique’ and get flour and a coke and talk to the owner. 

Kristin and Ben with Mr. Kato at Silas' store

The vegie lady, Mama Lucy, is helping my son with his humanities project. I know who to get to buy me a radio and a choir shirt for my son. 

I can talk to our house help in French and get her laughing.  She brought her 3-year-old son to our home the day he was sick and I had the pleasure of playing with him in between my housework and laundry while she cleaned my house. 

The guard coaches me on my French and tells me stories.  He also kills snakes and catches thieves! And I found out that he is my birthday twin: same day, same year.  How cool is that?

I know which grocery store has the best meat, the cheapest chocolate, and the occasional bottle of Log Cabin syrup.

I can direct someone places, or catch a taxi.

8 in the taxi that day...

I have friends.  And 4 months is long enough for several of them to have moved away already- back to the Netherlands, to Switzerland, or the States. Some are short timers and I will only have this year to know, others leave for furlough soon and then who knows?  The missionary community is very fluid almost like a college town, but with goodbyes and hellos more often it seems as people leave for 3 months, six months, a year, and then return from furlough. 

I know I would rather have water than electricity and drink filtered or bottled water every day.  I know internet will always be finicky here.

Our kitchen with gas stove and water filter.

I know where the lab is for medical tests and a good dentist.

This lovely selfie was taken at the dentist office. She was awesome. 

I can buy a grilled chicken down the street and reheat it well before eating. Or buy my own, feet and all, and cook it myself.

I’ve learned to make substitutions in recipes (that started in France and is even more important here).  I can make all my favorite recipes here.  I choose to eat meat and cheese, and other western foods that make my shopping bill MUCH higher than your average Cameroonian.  I can cook my own big batch of cinnamon rolls and my moms' Sourdough English Muffin recipe!

MMmmmmm…..

I remember worrying when my kids were little and wanted to listen to music to sleep to if that was a good idea.  But now as the music from the neighborhood churches and bars comes in at all hours, I am thankful they are used to music and not just white noise. (It is ALL kinds of music!  Some I really like and some, well, you don’t close the windows.  It’s too hot!)

I have a prayer group to go to and friends I can pray with anytime. 

Kay Watts the Elementary Librarian

I know who to borrow movies from to watch on my computer.  J

I know all the librarians by name and we are friends.

Stacey Cawley the RFIS librarian with her daughter

We have been to the pool, been to festivals and seen amazing rainbows.

Noah

Kristin and Anna at the pool

Piñata at fiesta night

We have celebrated birthdays and watched new plants grow.

Birthday hat

The neighbor's 'farm' and the preschool class

Being silly-

So, is Cameroon home? For now, yes, Cameroon is home. This is where we live, play, work, and love right now.

David would be 10

Our downstairs neighbor brought these- just because

Only had shrimp once here, but we made it count!

Lots of studying in 8th grade!

Stuffed animal toss...

And do I feel safe? Yes.  Safe in God’s will.  No less safe than in Lynchburg, but I don’t go out at night either.

It is not easy here, but neither is it truly difficult.  I told my house help that in the States I would be considered almost poor.  Can’t afford a TV or my own washer and dryer; I buy clothes and shoes second hand; rely on the generosity of others; old fridge; terrible bed; ants I can’t get rid of; no budget to eat out very often.  But no, I am wealthy here.  I have an oven, a hand mixer, a blender, running water, and a vehicle.  I am rich. And I have SO much.  Even with just 2 suitcases each and a carry on, we have SO much more than the average Cameroonian! 

Sometimes I start to feel guilty because I have so much and my Cameroonian friends have so little, but then I try to remember to just be thankful and share what I can. 

And so, keep praying.  Pray for us to help spread the good news through the arts.  Pray for village leaders who don’t have the bible in their own language and for those in the congregations who don’t want it because it would allow everyone to know truth and they might have to change.  Because we all know that going to church and calling yourself Christian does not change your heart or your actions. Only God can do that with his living word.

Pray for the churches in the States who have the Word and don’t want to hear it for the same reasons, because people are people all over the world.

Continue to pray for our house to rent in Virginia.  We have changed realtors, but the weather is COLD right now and that is not a good time for moving!  You can find it on Lynchburgrenting.com. 

Pray for our kids in school who deal with all the normal growing up things in another country.  Thankfully their teachers are awesome and classmates generally nice, but there are always those mean kids who make life difficult because they are unhappy themselves.

Pray for good health. So far, so good. No malaria, just minor colds, and stomach things so far.  And Ebola is far away, not in this country.  Yes Wycliffe/SIL has contingency plans just in case and yes, if it we were afraid we could leave. But we are not. 

Thanks for reading and for praying!

This is typical Cameroon

Soccer! GO Kristin!

Brokenness

It’s true I am content.  SO glad to finally be here and to be ‘in the midst of God’s will for me.’  Glad to have time to put my thoughts on paper, time to watch the amazing birds play in the trees and eat the fruit in my yard and listen to them sing. Glad to begin to know the community here.

Pied Crows in a tree at sunset

A hymn sing goodbye for our
Swiss friend (left)

The easiest people to know first is of course the ones who look and sound like me: other missionaries, here to serve, called to serve in this place now.  There is depth here.  Wisdom. Age. Youth.  Naivety. Hope. Despair.  These Saints are not Super Christians. They are broken, hurting, loving, kind saints making their way like you and me. There was last week a woman who has served here for over 40 years and was leaving to return to her ‘homeland’ Switzerland.  She is leaving her work, her friends, her heart here in Cameroon.  Yesterday another missionary woman lost her young cousin back in the states to cancer, just after they took her 2 ½ lb. preemie by emergency C-section, their 4^th child, but my friend can not go home to help or comfort her family. My neighbor’s oldest child has mild autism.  This teenaged girl and her family deal with all the stresses of high school without the autism support found in the states. A husband leaves for two-week trips often, leaving his wife at home with several children, while they do the next step on the project.  

MKs watching a movie with my kids-
giving a mom a break
while her husband was out of town.

A wife makes a ‘quick’ trip home to the states with some of the kids because of a death in the family, while the husband holds down the fort.  There are displaced people who were supposed to serve in now war-torn countries.  A man who wants desperately to do his job well but is working through red tape and change of job description.  A pilot waits for the governmental okay for the developing aviation program.  A former MK with 2 small children has a stress fracture in her foot and no way to get a boot. 

But this community has something truly special.  People pray.  People practice hospitality.  People share what they have- food, rides, water, information. People love well.  It is not easy.  But it is good to see God’s glory and faithfulness in the brokenness of his saints.

Silas shows the kids and a parent
the summer sausage he is making on
their walk home from school

The second set of folks we’ve gotten to know are the Cameroonians who work nearby.  There are many who work at the SIL offices (Wycliffe’s sister organization that we report to here), and at CABTAL (Cameroonian Association for Bible Translation and Literacy) next door, but also the guards, vegetable salesmen, small boutique workers, gardeners, house help, and babysitters. It is hard to explain the language and cultural barriers, but they are real.  Again there is so much brokenness.  Everyone is struggling to make ends meet and to care for their children. Everyone has brokenness that needs a BIG God to fill and heal.  This time of year the stories are everywhere of the children who are not in school because of the school fees, or that they can go, but there is not enough money for books.  The guard whose wife lost a baby at birth but the insurance found a loophole and didn’t pay so the family has crippling hospital bills to pay as well as the grief of losing a child.  There are so many stories.  And I believe them.  But these Saints are persevering, praying, believing.  And God continues to provide help where there should be not help.  There is love and compassion and prayers for people and problems that we have never met.  What a blessing to serve alongside these Saints!

I just finished reading the book ‘Kisses for Katie’ about a young missionary woman serving in Uganda.  She has way less than I do in many physical ways.  She serves radically and while I do not feel called to serve the same way she does, I do feel called to love well right where I am, wherever I am.  I believe that is the will of God for all of us.

Please pray for the people of Cameroon, for our work here, and for the ability to love well.   The expat church does not have a regular pastor.  It has elders and people who take turns doing the jobs.  Missionaries need shepherding too!  Pray for you missionaries, for your pastors, for those in leadership.  They need it!  We all need it.  We are all dealing with brokenness and the need for a savior to make us whole.

A woman walking down our street
holding a baby the tradtional way.

This worm (10 inches) crawled up our shower drain!

Tonight's sunset from my porch

Please continue to pray for our house in Lynchburg to rent, and for us to find a good, used, four-wheel drive vehicle that we can afford.  Pray for a solution to Chris’s malfunctioning iPhone- it works except you can’t hear him talk.