July 28th

The bugs have been pretty bad lately my arms are covered in bites. Praise God it’s not mosquitoes but these sort of horse flies. I was cleaning Seth’s feet the other day and notice a hard dark bump and though it might be a corn or calluse. Then that night Jake said his foot was hurting and he had the same thing, so we realized it was a worm or a chigoe. I cut it open with our letherman and out popped a little sack with a worm inside, soooooo disgusting. Jake actually had a total of 9! We got Seth’s one out when he was sleeping and Josh had one too. I came in second with 3 J. The team also had a bunch, some in their hands too. The pastor told they are in the dirt… so we’ve been making sure we have clean socks on every day and wash our hands a lot.

The Baka came over last night and taught us a song. It was so great as we got to learn a little of their language. It was also difficult as they are very soft spoken and the language has very soft sound so trying to get them to emphasize a word was hard but I think we did pretty good. Here’s a few words in Baka (I have no idea if the spelling is right).

Komba – God,

Kombanga – our God

Djoko - good

Jesu – Jesus

We had a camp fire again tonight and the Baka came to practice the song with us again. We roasted marshmallows and they joined in and seem to really enjoy them. The chief liked his extra crispy! It is so wonderful to build a relationship with this tribe, they are so friendly and open. We really praise God for the opportunity to be out here for a more extended amount of time as the longest we had been out here before was only 5 days.

July 24th

The Baka chief brought a baby called Carlos to the property yesterday. Carlos is 2 but extremely tiny and looks under the age of 1. He isn’t actually a Baka but lives close to them. He had fallen into the fire and burned he foot, leg and his private area severely. It was really awful… they said it happen 4 days ago. Most of his skin was gone and it was absolutely filthy. I helped one of the leaders clean the wounds, the water was steaming of his leg as we put it on. We decided that Jake would take them into town to the clinic there. It’s only 5 miles away but they don’t have the money to pay for the bills and also they don’t speak French so it’s really hard for them (hospitals will not treat anyone here without payment first). So Jake took the boy and mother down and the doctors cut all the dead skin of and cleaned it up, they also put him on a drip. (it cost a total of about $30.00) They wanted to keep the baby over night so we explain that to the mother and thought she understood. But that night she was back here with the baby again, we will take her back today to get the dressing changed. It is amazing how they don’t understand the basics of keeping a wound clean as the mother tried to set the baby down in the dirt. I told she must keep the baby clean, that it is a serious wound. So once again there is a huge need for this clinic that will be providing help and also classes on basic hygiene. Please keep little Carlos in your prayers

July 21st

We had church on the property today as elections are going on and most churches were closed. About 30 Baka joined us and Jake and another leader preached. I translated into French and then a Baka Lady who understood French translated into Baka, it was pretty funny and took quite a while but I think/hope the message got across.

The Baka Chief came and told us that his 3 year old niece had died in the night and wanted to borrow a shovel to bury her. Jake went back to the village with them. It was really strange, the child was here the night before playing with the team and wasn’t sick at all. But in the night she started coughing and crying and by the morning she was dead, so sad. Everyone was mourning, it just emphasizes what a huge need there is for the clinic (and the spreading of the Gospel amongst these people of course), we’ve no idea what killed her. They buried her right beside their hut.

July 18th

Praise God we made it back to Yaoundé on Friday after being out in the bush for just over 3 weeks. I’ve been trying to keep track of all that has been going on whenever the laptop got charged up. Now I just need to sort thru it all and post it when it’s readable, hopefully I can have it all done in the next few days. Unfortunately we had our camera stolen when we were out there so I don’t have any pictures right now:(. The TMI team is coming into Yaoundé on Tuesday and I will get some from them and then post them.

We’ve got a really great team, 21 teenagers from all over N. America plus 4 leaders. One of the leaders was in Iceland with me in ’99 when I was leading a team there (he was on a different team though). Sure is a small world even though we didn’t remember each other:). They’re all really hard working and haven’t heard them complaining about the difficult living conditions. It’s been great to have some “American fellowship.” Each night we have devotions together, I’ve really been enjoying hearing some of the songs we are more familiar with. The stars are so amazingling bright out here, they just cover the whole sky, millions of them. We sing “God of Wonders” almost every night, it truly brings the words to life when you are staring up at God’s awesome creation.

Work on the clinic is going fantastic despite some delays because of rain. The foundations all dug and the rebar’s put in. We’ll be starting to lay blocks today. We were trying to make the blocks ourselves but after 3 days of trying and failing miserably we’ve finally hired a builder to do it and he is almost finished, a huge blessing!