Holiday Recap

I haven't posted since Thanksgiving! Shame on me. I hope yours was special...and I'll take a moment to tell you a little bit about mine.

The Yeiters met us over here around 10-ish to head to Foumban (a three hour trip from here). We switched people around so we could ride and caravan together. Ben and Matt captained the lead car. Their passengers were Drew, Autumn, Riah, and Kate. Susan and I captained the second car with Faith, Trinity, Emma and DJ. It was nice to switch around like that. The kids enjoyed the three hour trip a lot better with their friends! We arrived at the Mossman's house and helped put the last minute meal preparations together. It was a ridiculously hot day, and Foumban is even hotter than Bamenda, so I knew it would be a scorcher there. However, the Mossman's home is situated on top of a hill, and the breeze that blew through there made their home so comfortable! It was really refreshing!

Our meal was YUMMO! We had chicken (no turkey here for us), Mashed potatoes, two kinds of stuffing (all our stuff was home made!), carrot souffle, sweet potatoe casserole, Green bean casserole, corn and dinner rolls. We spent the afternoon visiting and did a lot of laughing. Susan and I split up familes...we got all the ladies to sit at one table and sent our hubby's to the next table! haha! So much for Thanksgiving being a family occasion. In reality though, we see our husbands every day...and love them VERY much! :D However, we do not get to have a group of ladies together often, so we took advantage of the situation. I know the men enjoyed their time of fellowship too!

We gathered again in the evening for a time of praise. Many of the families prepared something and the kids did choral readings, piano solos, and musical numbers of some kind. My kiddos sang "All that I Need" from one of Patch the Pirate music books, while I stumbled through the accompaniment. Excuse all the red eye in the picture. In fact, I tried to fix mine, but it turned my whole face to greyscale! Oh well! :D

They did a great job. You can see my poser, Emma. She was the only one who really made a mistake. She was so busy posing for the camera that she forgot to sing the chorus!

The next day was relaxing as well. I think they had a picnic and a hike planned, but I suggested that we just hang around and visit. Everyone was all for the idea! Many of the missionaries were leaving on Friday (Wrights and Ellen were headed to Zambia, and Rosemary was headed to the airport to start her trip to Greenville, SC), so with such a small group it was a nice plan. We stayed through lunch and then started our trip home. This time we caravaned with the Sanderlins, but we didn't switch up people.

So there you have it...our thanksgiving in a nutshell. We came home to no water. And we haven't had water since. So, that was a little depressing, but God has really given grace and I have learned to manage. My blog readers know that of all the challenges we face here, water shortage is my greatest. I don't know why that is the case...it just is. But I haven't had a choice and God has given me grace and peace of mind to deal with it. It does drain our time a lot more, but in the same token it gives us more opportunities. Ben has to make a daily water run, and in the process he stands in line with neighbors, all waiting to fill their buckets, and he has opportunities that we otherwise might not have with water flowing in our house. Here are a few girls he got a picture of one day. In fact they helped him fill all his buckets.Spunky little things, aren't they?
Since then he has been bringing the kids to help him fill the buckets. Here is Faith Ann helping out. I know they are working on the water and I would appreciate it if you all would pray for them to find the problem and for it to be fixed soon! It would be a big help to us...and also to my pile of laundry! haha!

Another ministry I've started is a one-on-one discipleship with the ladies in the church. Last school term we had a ladies Bible study, but with this year's school schedule it has been really difficult to find one time that is good for everyone. It is nearly impossible when they even hold classes on Saturdays. They have no free days here! There are some new believer's in the church, and I thought it would be good to have a discipleship class. If we can find a time to meet as a group...fine. Or if it is easier for me to meet with them individually, then I'll do that as I'm able, but I felt that this would be the best choice for this term. So,for now I've begun meeting with Ernestine. I had the privilege of meeting with her after a Sunday morning service several weeks ago and she trusted Christ as her Savior. Since then she has been attending church each Sunday and I approached her about going through the Spiritual Growth Series that my husband wrote, and she seemed very excited to learn more about the word of God.

My sewing ministry is progressing...haha! Just kidding! It isn't a ministry. It has turned into a "Me-time" activity. So, I guess it is my ministry to myself! :D Honestly though, I really enjoy it and love the challenge of tackling a project. My mom always asks me what my next sewing project is going to be. I made lot of bags and I wasn't sure what to try my hand at next until we started decorating for Christmas this past Saturday (which will be another post with pictures later). We were hanging all of our stockings and I realized that I'd forgotten to get Faith Ann her own. I keep meaning too, but once the decorations are away it is out of sight and therefore out of mind. Last year I stuffed my stocking with her goodies and she was fine with that, but this year I wanted her to have a stocking. So, I decided to make one. Or at least try to make one.

Mom had brought some christmas material with her when she visited. I'd asked her to slowly buy some on clearance b/c I thought it would be a good thing to wrap gifts with. It can be used over and over. So I took one of the pieces of material, along with some peices of felt that I have for the kids school projects and an old curtain and came up with this:It isn't perfect, but Faith Ann is thrilled. Now that I'm looking at it, it is the perfect stocking for Cameroon...it has all the colors of their flag! haha! I was going to omit the yellow, but that is Faith's favorite color (for now anyway) and she wanted it in there. The patterned fabric is candy canes and yellow stars. I'm pretty happy with the end result. I am wondering though...do most people who sew have to use their seam ripper as often as I do? Probably not!:D

Love You Sew!

I'm having "sew" much fun sewing! Since my last post I have made two more purses and a skort for Faith Ann. I just want to try out patterns to see if I can do them! The skort, as simple a pattern as that is, still had me scratching my head and maybe even fuming at some points. Not really fuming...just frustrated I guess. I don't know why I can't wrap my brain around the instructions sometimes, but I was determined to figure it out. And thank the Lord...I did! :D Here is Faith with her new skort...made out of recycled curtains.

It turned out alright. She won't be wearing it too much longer. Next time I'll play with adjusting the sizes, but she seemed pretty happy.

The project that I worked on today has to be my favorite of all of them so far. I found this purse pattern on www.youcanmakethis.com If you have never been to that site you should check it out. It is so cool. They sell downloadable pdf patterns, which is great for someone like me, who can't just go running to Joanne Fabrics or Wal-Mart. So, I found this cute purse pattern and bought it and it turned out SO adorable!! Check it out:I think the flower is my favorite part. I found a tutorial on you tube on how to make them and it was so easy. All I did was cut out different size circles from the same fabric that I used for the lining. It is a polyester fabric of some sort and with a candle I just singed the edges of the circle very carefully so as not to light the house on fire. :D As soon as the fabric melted it curled inward and once I layered and stitched them together...voila! I had an adorable fabric flower! Here is Emma, my poser, showing off the purse. Yep, you can already see the dry season hair style setting in. Of course someone should tell that girl's mother to brush her hair for crying out loud! haha!

Speaking of dry season, it is here, unfortunately, and to celebrate we already have no water. :D We are starting off with a bang I guess. I might as well settle in and get used to it, otherwise it will be a miserable 5 months. Supposedly they are hooking up a new water source which will add to the supply, so that might help. But I'm not holding my breath. I'd rather be mentally planning on not having water, and if I do have extra...I'll be super surprised!

We had a suprise guest tonight. Pastor Daniel from Benakuma came here to have his treadle sewing machine repaired. He shewed up around dinner, and we had enough to feed him. I cleaned out the guest room, which was a MESS b/c of all my sewing projects and he is staying the night with us. Tomorrow he should hopefully get his machine repaired. We learned that the amazing woman that gave birth to "Pastor Ben" the last time Ben was there, is his sister-in-law! Wow...small world. Well, really the village is small, so it wasn't a huge surprise that they were related. But it is still neat.

Tomorrow I'll be cooking up a storm for Thanksgiving, and on Thursday morning we will drive the three hours to Foumban to spend Thanksgiving with fellow missionaries. We always enjoy our time there and are greatly looking forward to it. I will come back with pictures and I'm sure stories to tell! I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving holiday as well!!

It's Me Again!

I bet you thought that I'd left and decided to never come back! Right? Well, you can't get rid of me that easy!

It has been almost an entire month since I last posted! But it was a very full month and I will try to give you a brief re-cap.

My Mom came to visit and the preparations before her arrival and all the hoop-lah that accompanied her visit took up most of my time. I really didn't even give my blog one thought while she was here.

We decided to go to Douala as a family and pick her and Gerald and Kathy Whitely up. The trip there was long, because we were anticipating seeing Mimi!! But the kids did great and we arrived early enough to grab a bite to eat and check in at the Baptist Guest House. We headed to the airport and stood outside on the big veranda that overlooked the tarmac. We heard and saw Mimi's plane come in and waited until we saw her disembark until we headed to the luggage area. Ben got special access and was able to meet them inside baggage claim, but the kids and I went to the second level of the airport where we stood on a balcony overlooking the baggage claim area. It was nice and breezy up there actually, and a great place to wait. Normally they kick you out of there and make you stand outside in the heat, but thankfully they were too busy to notice us.

I told the kids that as soon as they saw Mimi or Mr. Gerald or Miss Kathy to all whistle together. I gave them a little demo of the whistle and we all practiced it. It's actually the Whitely's special little "E-I-E" call that they made up. Those who know the Whitely's know exactly what I'm talking about. So, we finally saw them enter the baggage claim area. I told the kids to whistle as loud as they could and they finally looked up and saw us waiting up there. What was SO, so cute was when Kate saw them. I heard her trying to whistle, but she was so happy and excited, and fighting back tears that she just kept blowing and blowing with all her might, trying to get a whistle to come out of her mouth, but it just wouldn't come. Oh man, that girl melted my heart! When we finally met up with Mimi she just ran to her crying and said that she just couldn't help it...she was so happy. Goodness...I'm teary even typing it! She is just like me actually. I was teary b/c I was so happy to see Mimi too!

Praise God every piece of luggage arrived in tact! That really is almost a miracle here! One of these days I need to type out the Yeiters recent luggage story. Theirs was missing for a month! Anyway...we left the airport and headed to a restaurant called the Mediterranean.

Seriously...that has to be the yummiest pizza joint. It even rivals my pizza! haha! :) It is owned by a Greek family and their pizza is amazing. We got veggie and feta cheese pizza. MmmmMmmm! It is a good thing there isn't one located in Bamenda or we'd be broke!

We spent the night in Douala and headed home the next day. Our trip back was way more fun with Mimi and the Whitely's in the van. We did however have a breakdown. We kept overheating. The first time Gerald and Ben found a ruptured hose. They rigged it and got it repaired. But not long down the road it overheated again. We were in a purely french speaking area and this kid walks up to us and says in french that he is a mechanic. He was so young...I wouldn't even say he was 20 years old. But when all was said and done that kid flat knew what he was doing and God sent him directly to us! We lost a couple hours, but we finally arrived home safe and sound and very tired!

The next couple weeks were absolutely crazy for Ben and Gerald. Gerald was booked solid in all the area schools to share his creation/evolution lectures. Evolution is taught here in all the schools and nobody has ever been taught creationism. Gerald has several video presentations and replica fossils and he lectures on this issue with the ultimate goal of using it to share the gospel. He had 17 meetings and he probably averaged about 200 students in each meeting. Here is one picture of him teaching the smallest group of students during his visit.While the guys were out and about we were basically home a lot. The only downside to the entire visit was that the kids were sick. Really really sick. Drew came down with the virus first, but he ran a fever for so many days that I finally started treating him with an antibiotic and for malaria as well. The kids hadn't been this sick in a while. They wouldn't eat...all they would do was lay around and sleep. It was terrible. I was thankful to have a couple extra Mom's here to offer their advice and it was nice that we could all just be home together rather than running around.

We did venture out the first Saturday to a ladies meeting in Sabga. Mom and Kathy and I shared a plate of Fufu and Njamajama. Well...basically they tried it and I ate most of it. Then, on the next Saturday we hosted a missionary ladies luncheon. I reserved a spot at the new restaurant our family discovered and talked to the Chef. He planned a buffet meal to feed all of us and it turned out wonderfully! The ladies came from Foumban and all of us ladies here met together and had a great time of fellowship. The food was delish...and Kathy was our guest speaker. We had a great time!
Mom could never get over all the critters we constantly have here. We are always oohing and ahhhing over something. We found this huge beetle on our porch one morning. Drew and I will chase stuff down to have a better look. I got a good shot so you could see the perspective of size.
Mom also had a picnic with the kids one day and I got this great group shot of all of them.
On the last Monday that they were here, we decided to go into town as a family. Kate was still kinda down and out, and Emma and Faith were coming down with the nasty virus, but they weren't into the worst part of it yet, so we decided to go ahead and go. We ate at the same restaurant where we had the ladies luncheon and then went to the Pres-Craft store so they could pick up some souvenirs before leaving. The owner of the Pres-Craft is new and we actually couldn't determine his nationality. He was white and had some unique accent...I'll let you know if I find out. :D He told us to check out the coffee shop next door. So...we did! I'm not a coffee fan, but my Mom can't live without it. We bought a coffee pot just for her visits. Anyway, we went next door into this really adorable coffee shop. Mom got a cappucino! Can you believe it? And she said it was really good! They served it with sugar and this adorable little heartshaped biscuit. Wow...who would have thought we'd have a "hip" coffee shop in little 'Ol Bamenda?! Here's Mom enjoying her cappucino: I'm not sure how well it will catch on to the Africans...the shop was full of white people only! In fact, Mom and the Whitely's commented that they'd never seen so many white people in Cameroon before. We met a group of kids in the coffee shop that were from various parts of the states, and then on the other side of them was an older white couple. We never had time to speak to them. It will be interesting to see if that place can actually stay in business. There may be more white people than ever before, but I'm not sure there is enough to sustain an entire restaurant.

Our goodbyes were sad, but it really won't be long until we see them again. Less than a year before we head back to the states for our next furlough. We will start checking off dates on the calendar and looking forward to our visit to America (specifically Taco Bell)...Did I just think that out loud?? :D

Since their visit I have taken up a new hobby. :D Kathy mentioned my sewing machine that is in the guest room where they stayed and I told her I'd love to learn to sew. She said "Well, while we are here, I'll teach you!" I was pretty excited about that. I always tease my Mom that she failed in two areas. She never taught me to play piano or to sew. Both things I've had to learn in my adulthood. She knows I'm just kidding! Anyway, on the day that Mimi had a picnic with the kids, Kathy and I dragged out the sewing machine. We had spent a previous afternoon with the pattern and material and she taught me how to read the pattern and I'd already cut out all the pattern pieces. I was ready to sew it. So, in a few hours time, I made a skirt for Kate all by myself with Kathy's teaching! I have been her pupil since I was a freshman in high school...and she hasn't lost her touch. She is still a great teacher!

I dug out the sewing machine this week with plans on using it to make Christmas gifts. I found a pattern for a little girls purse and tried to make it. The first one turned out cute, though I didn't follow the pattern completely. I rigged it to make it work. I spent a lot of time just staring at the pattern instructions and the material. There was one part I couldn't wrap my head around, so I just took the basic pattern and made it work. I used our market bags from here as the lining and I'm content with the finished product. In the future I'd love to actually do it the correct way, but for now it works ok.
Here is a shot of the market bag that I cut up and used for the inside of the bag:
The part of the pattern instruction that I couldn't get was really bugging me. I spent some time reading and watching sewing tutorials on you tube until I finally figured it out. I actually found a helpful blog with pictures that helped me understand! So, today, with a little more knowledge under my belt, I tried purse number 2. I used a different pattern and did leave out the fusible interfacing (as I don't have that), but I'm SO happy with the results!
Isn't it cute?! I love how it turned out and the great thing is I used all scrap fabric. I used to have red curtains hanging in the kids toy room. I kept them when we changed them out and I'm glad I did. They make a cute little purse if I do say so myself! :D

Ok, so I hope I haven't bored you completely. I'll try to stay updated and please, please keep reading! And if you have time...leave me a comment! Cuz I love comments! :D

Catchin' Up

Ben came to me tonight and dropped the camera and cables in my lap and said, "This isn't a hint or anything." haha! But I knew what his hidden meaning was... "Make a blog post!" :D

I really do need to catch up. I Hope you've missed me!

First up...Our NEW car!! If you've been reading my blog, you know how I completely destroyed the driver's side passenger door. Well, Genesis came to my aid that night and picked up the car and took it to his body work guy. I finally got a hold of Ben in Benakuma and he decided to re-do the entire car. It was rusted out in so many places and in bad need of a makeover. The guy did a great job and our car looks brand new! He even took out all the seats and scrubbed them! I didn't even recognize our car!

The kids have been diligently working in school and we have a big chart that we made. We mark off the days as we do them. It is fun to see the days disappear. Though we do have a lot of boxes to check off, it still helps them as they work toward a goal. With our kitty and puppy, they usually spend their free time outside. On Saturdays kids usually come up and they play outside with them. We didn't have any kids come up this past Saturday except Louis. He is deathly afraid of our dog...almost ripped my arm off one day trying to hide from Penny! I thought he was gonna pee his pants he was so scared! So, when Louis comes we hook up the dog so he'll stay. It was kind of a rainy day on Saturday, so Drew went outside to just visit with him. Drew had been reading one of those chick tracts and thought he'd go through it with Louis. Ben snapped a picture of them. Drew was reading the tract and then looking up the verses and reading them. I thought it was so cute! Our little missionary in training!And speaking of Penny, Ben found a great treat for her this week. He went to the meat market and saw one of those big cow bones lying there. He asked the meat guy what he did with those. Well, they burn them and feed them to the pigs. Ben asked why they did that...and I don't think that he'd ever been asked that before. His answer was, "That's just what we do!" Well, Ben asked him to dash us (pidgin for 'give us') one of those bones. He gave Ben two of them and he gave them to Penny as a treat and she loved it! This picture cracks me up. Ben wanted to get in there and get a shot of Penny eating her bone...she obviously didn't want to be disturbed! And you can see that Penny and Cuddles are starting to get along better. She was even willing to share her bone with the cat! And here is another sweet picture of them getting along. They do fight like cats and dogs (lol! I kill myself) Seriously though, sometimes Cuddles sounds like she is getting her head ripped off, but she survives and I'm tired of locking her in the store room. She is holding her own now, and I just let her roam and I think she is enjoying her freedom. Plus, I have a mouse in my kitchen and I need her to start earning her keep!
The kids came up with this great strategy to draw perfect pictures. They lay a coloring paper over our big magnadoodle and trace it. They are so proud of their creations and we have had coloring papers scattered all over our floor for a week now!I know these pictures are completely out of order, but they are from the last couple of weeks, so you get the point. Here is a picture of our neighbor, Jude. He is a good friend and we were sad to say goodbye to him as he moved to Younde to go to school. He takes care of our mowing and yard work, and so on his last day of work, he wanted a picture of himself with the lawn mower. He didn't say why, but I just giggled at him and told him I'd be glad to take his picture. He wanted the kids in it too. We are sure going to miss him, but he'll be back over the holidays.

That is pretty much everything new. I've been working on gathering pictures for a series of posts I want to start doing. It will be entitled "Fashion Faux Pas Friday." So be looking forward to that. I think you will get a kick out of some of our African Fashion Faux Pas! :D

My Mom leaves tomorrow to come here!!! I'm so excited and hope to update on her visit from time to time while she is here. She is so nervous about checking in bags, so I'm asking you all to pray for a miracle! haha! We need to save some money, but the airlines aren't very helpful anymore. An international flight is allowed one bag. Do you have any idea how impossible that is for a missionary to be restricted to one bag! A second bag is $50, and any additional bag after that is $200! We used to....a loooong time ago, get two bags at 70 lbs each. Then it went to two bags at 50 lbs each. And now it is one bag at 50 lbs. Pretty soon we will have to pay for any luggage at all. Really frustrating, but that is our life. We just need to deal with it and do the best we can. So in order to get some of the things out here that we'd like to have we have to pay for them. The problem is that their tickets are broken up into two separate trips. So some airline personnel are telling us that we will have to pay for the extra bags in Atlanta...AND in Paris. ugh! Some are saying we don't have to. My mom has done everything she can possibly do to try and get our luggage through for free on the Paris end at least, but to no avail. It is going to be in the hands of whoever is at the check-in counter that day. So, pray with us that God will work that out and save us some money! We know that God will provide and it is always neat to anticipate how He is going to do that!

Benakuma and Beyond

Well, I mentioned in my last post that Ben was going to Benakuma for the weekend. He left Thursday and had plans to start his trip out in the small village of Benade (prounced BEN-uh-day) which is about an hour and a half beyond Benakuma...provided you can get a bike to take you there! :D

Well, the roads were SO bad that they made it to Benakuma after dark but couldn't continue on to Benade until the next morning. After a night's sleep in the Hotel Bonanza they began their journey to Benade. They got two motor bikes and the trip took just over an hour. They would frequently have to get out and walk so the bikes could make it through the thick mud. There were also no flat stretches of road either...it was all uphill and downhill, uphill and downhill. Here is one shot of the road.
They finally arrived in Benade and spent most of the day visiting. The village is quite small, so it didn't take them long to meet a lot of the people. They noticed a crowd at the health center and went there and met the family of a woman who was in labor. Well, the lady came out while they were there and Ben had a word of prayer with her and her family. She'd been in labor all that day, and all through the night. Ben found out the next morning that she still hadn't had the baby. He and TomMike began the trip back to Benakuma, only this time they didn't have a motorcycle taxi. They had to go on foot. Ben said the trip was exhausting! They had to treck 20 minutes to the main road, and then from there it was uphill and downhill once again through muck and mud taking them 4 hours to reach Benakuma! While they were trecking along, they heard a motorcycle coming from the the direction of Benade headed towards Benakuma as well. Ben recognized the lady immediately... Yep...the lady who has now been in labor for over 24 hours! Riding a motorcycle!! Mind you she also had to treck the 20 minutes to the main road, and an additional 20 minutes before the bike picked her up! And I thought I was doing good having a baby in my plush hospital bed, with cable television and no pain meds?? This woman wins the mother-of-the-year award!

Once she arrives in Benakuma, it is possible that she had to climb this hill to the hospital as well, as the motorcycles won't go up there, but I can't say that for certain. Considering all she'd done so far though, she might have! Here is a shot of the big fancy hospital she finally gave birth in sometime Saturday evening. Ben and TomMike heard about her delivery and made it a point to go and visit her Sunday before they had their church service and ultimately left to head back to Bamenda. In honor of Ben's visit out to her village, she named her baby after him. So, meet Pastor Ben and Pastor Ben: Here is a close up shot so you can see how adorable Pastor Ben is: Oh...Oops! I meant to post this Pastor Ben: haha!
And here is the Mom of the Year award winner herself: Oh, and to top it all off, this woman told Ben that she was going to TRECK back to Benade that day!! Ok...4 hours of exhausting up and down hill climbing?? She just had a baby??? She didn't have the money to pay for one extra night in the hospital (it would cost her the equivalent of 2 u.s. dollars), so she just planned on heading back home. Ben wouldn't even hear of it! He paid her hospital bill (which cost a total of $20 u.s. dollars) and gave her an extra 5,000 cfa to stay an extra night and pay for a motorcycle the next day to drive her back to Benade. I'm still shaking my head...

And that is the end of my version of Ben's trip to Benakuma! So many great things happened though...many people trusted Christ and Ben came back overflowing with things to share. So, in order to get the full view you'll definitely want to read his summary HERE.

As for the kids and I, we survived the remainder of his time away just fine. Thankfully after the car incident, there were no more blunders on our part and God kept us safe. We had a little bit of sickness over the weekend, but thankfully everyone is doing well now and we are all thrilled to back together as a family again!

Happy Birthday To You

Happy Birthday to Drew! You look like a monkey...and you smell like one too!! Haha! That is what Uncle Jay's card said for Drew's birthday and Drew sure got a kick out of it! My brother is really talented with computer and video stuff! He made a card for Drew on his computer with a special video message from his uncle Jay!

We are certainly thankful for the 10 years that God has given Drew. Especially when the doctor's said he only had two months to live after he was born. If you've never read Drew's story, you can check out www.cameroon4christ.com to find out about our miracle. This website hasn't been updated in quite some time, but you can at least click on the link to read Drew's story.

My mom is coming to visit in three weeks, and she is bringing all of Drew's birthday presents. But I did have a little something to give him on his actual birthday and told him I'd make him a cake. But then when Mimi comes we will have the big celebration. Ben was leaving for Benakuma at around 11, so we decided to do our happy birthday wishes at the breakfast table. Here is Drew with his gift.


I love this kid! It takes nearly nothing to excite him! He is SO easy to please! I got him a small spiderman figure and a spidey coloring/acitivity book. He was pretty pumped about it. I always love watching his reaction. He shows his emotions all over his face! Not all my kids are like that. :D

Ben left at 11 and I pushed the kids through school. They were so ready to be done and to play. I started working on the cake so that we could come home from church and eat it. I told the kids that was going to be supper! haha! They were pretty excited about that! So, I pulled the cake out of the oven, and herded the kids to the car. We were running a bit late. I pulled the car out and ... "Crunch!" I stopped...and looked back...only to realize that Faith hadn't shut the car door. This was my very first car accident. I know some of you know what it feels like in the moments after you make the dumbest mistake! You wish you'd turned around one more time! I heard a car door shut, and mentally thought all the doors were shut. Faith started crying immdiately b/c she just knew it was her fault. Poor girl. I told her it was all Mommy's fault. I should have double checked. So...there was no going to church. We were late as it was, it would take us 30 minutes at least to walk there. I tried calling Ben and couldn't get a hold of him. I finally called Genesis. I figured he could help me. He said he would come and get the car and get it repaired. So, he came after dark on a taxi, helped me tie the door b/c it wouldn't even shut and he took it to town. He has a friend who does body work. Thankfully this mistake took place in Cameroon...and not in the states! The repair work is a fraction of what it would cost me in America! And I learned a valuable lesson...To be more careful! The car is still in the shop because Ben decided to have the entire car repaired...new paint job and everything. Our car is rusting out in several places and it has needed a big repair on the body for a while...I just facilitated the process! lol!

So, once the car was finally taken care of...the kids and I enjoyed Drew's birthday cake! I felt I could relax a little knowing that the car was in good hands. I'm thankful for Genesis who came to help out so quickly!

All in all I think Drew's birthday was a good one for him. He is counting down the days til his big party though! Of course...we all are, because that means Mimi will be here!

Life in the Fast Lane

It has been a busy week here at the Sinclair house. Between bouts of mild sickness (fevers - sore throats), funerals, and just plain trying to keep up with school, we have been running at a fast pace. I'll try to update with pics and give you the rundown of what is new in our lives! :D

We are enjoying our new kitty. It is a battle of sorts...trying to keep the girls away from that cat long enough to do their school.

Whenever they get a break, it is off to our store room to play with her. I have to be very diligent to keep her away from Penny though. I tried to put them together, but Penny is just crazy rough with her! She picks her up around the neck and just shakes her for all she is worth! So, my new strategy is to chain the dog up during most of the day, and allowing the cat freedom to roam around. Then at night I unhook Penny and we shut the cat into the storeroom. Once she gets bigger, she will be able to hold her own, and Penny will learn to steer clear!

Penny is good for some things though...home clean-up in particular! :D I dropped an egg on the floor and called Penny in to clean it up. She was unsure about coming in at first, and kept flinching every time she saw me move. She's used to getting whalloped when she comes in the house! haha!

On Friday, Ben packed up the bus with generator, screen, water, tracts and other supplies and headed to town to pick up 7 guys to head out to the village of Nginikom. The wake keeping for Emmanuel was to be held that night, and the men were prepared to be up all night and to share the gospel with as many people as possible. Ben said it was such an encouragement to go out with these mature believers, who were so on fire to share the gospel. The family was quite divided about our church being involved in the funeral any way. They were so afraid of the Catholic priest finding out that baptists were there. When your eternal destiny lies in the hands of a man, I can understand their fear! But Emmanuel's mom allowed our church to take part, thank God! Late in the evening Ben showed the Jesus film in the Pidgin dialect. He said it was SO good for people to see that because they were able to compare the baptism of Jesus by John, with photos of Emmanuel's baptism by immersion. A lot of people were talking about it, and many people were once again afraid that the Catholic priest would find out! On Saturday I came to Nginikom with Matt Yeiter and a couple more people from our Bamenda church, Ezekiel and Genesis, and we piled my kiddos in the back boot of the car. The ride out there took Ben two hours in the bus and about half that time in the little red toyota that Matt drove. The view is absolutley amazing out that way. There is no point even posting photos, b/c they don't even begin to do it justice! We arrived to a mass of chaos in my opinion. There were different groups of music bands playing their traditional instruments and drums. A MASS of people arrived shortly after we did to come and view the body that was set up under an ornate canopy for the viewing area. I finally merged my way to where our church people were (it took me a while) and I found Emma who was white as a sheet! Poor girl! She had a rough time on the curvy hour and a half drive there, and then we arrive and are just stuck in this mass of people! Thankfully she bounced back once she was able to get a little bit of fresh air. All the men were standing to the side of the viewing canopy singing out of the hymn book. I joined them for a bit, and then Matt stood on a pile of mud bricks, and with the aid of a microphone he preached the gospel to those that were filing through the line to view Emmanuels body. There was a crowd gathered around listening intently to the message. I was surprised they could stay focused with all the racket going on around them, but they hung on every word that Matt preached! Off to the right was a traditional xylophone - a loud cacaphony of sounds that comes from men beating on different lenghths of wood planks that are balanced on the trunks of a banana tree. Beyond that, men were dancing to the music in a big hole. As a few men shoveled dirt into the hole, the group would continue to pack it down over the casket by dancing back and forth. It was very interesting.
You can't really see it, but the hole is directly behind the group of men in this picture. And that house was Emmanuels own house, so he was literally buried right outside his front door.

Here is a great shot of Matt preaching. There is one funny in the photo...I'm sure it won't take you long to point it out. :D As we say here..."TIA" ...This is Africa. You can also see Eugene holding the little speaker, that amazingly puts out quite a bit of sound!

We really weren't there for very long. After Matt preached, and we went over to the actual burial site, we went to one of the homes of the family members and they fed us some fufu, njamajama, fish, and jellof rice. The kids were pretty excited as they love African food. Kate enjoyed picking out the fish heads for herself out of the pile of fish that they served us. It started raining right before we left and we were a little afraid we wouldn't make it out of the village. The roads are steep and incredibly slippery! Wow...I could barely walk! It was like an ice rink! Matt's car had some trouble...swishing and slipping it's way out of the village. I couldn't believe the bus made it out. We decided some angels were pushing the back end! We have had that bus in the shop a few times in the last couple of week repairing the 4wheel drive, so, it really was a miracle we made it out! After all was said and done we know of 16 people on Friday that trusted in Christ, and 8 people on Saturday! The salvation of Emmanuel's family has been at the top of our prayer list for quite some time. He was very burdened for his staunchly catholic family members. Sometimes God uses a death to draw people to Him, but I know Emmanuel wouldn't have had it any other way. Praise God for what he did this past weekend in Nginikom!

Here are a few more family pictures from this week.

We measure the kids every few months. They didn't grow as much as they did the last measurement. Faith Ann had the biggest growth spurt. We didn't get an actual photo of Kate b/c she is the one under the weather now with a fever and sore throat.

Ben had a good laugh at Drew's bear, Barry, this morning: haha! Poor Drew and his glasses. Last time we were home we went to one of those discount eyeglass places...eyeglass world or something like that. We got a great deal on his glasses, but they have been nothing but trouble...we have those things wired and glued and rigged to stay together. The next time we are going to have to invest the big bucks and get some nice glasses. And we will just have to pray the ones we have through the next year until we can go home next.

and speaking of home...only 3 weeks until my Mom and the Whitely's come! Yipee!!! We are so excited!! Drew's next milestone is his birthday in two days. We will have a very small celebration Thursday night, and then when Mom comes, we will have the big party (basically b/c she is bringing all the presents lol!). So...I guess that is all for now!