I made pepperoni!!

You can't buy pepperoni in Cameroon and since the Skis LOVE it, it is always something we bring back with us and ration out. Or if someone asks what they can send, pepperoni is usually on the list. It's so good on pizza, in a sandwich, or in a breakfast burrito. Well, my cousin, on her blog,  recommended a recipe for pepperoni (http://tammysrecipes.com/tammys_spicy_pepperoni). Now, we have been making our own pork sausages for quite some time (breakfast, bratz, and italian) but I have never thought of making pepperoni  before. I've always assumed that it would be a huge, long process with lots of ingredients that I couldn't get. But it's actually pretty simple. I had all the ingredients beside the mustard seed. I ground my own beef and crushed my own spices and it turned out great! I didn't having curing salt, which apparently is what gives the pepperoni it's red color, but regular salt worked fine. The sausage tastes amazing and the texture is great too. This is definitely something I will be making monthly. Yes, one less thing we need to ship over here now! Now if I can just master mozzarella chesse I will be able to make a "true" home-made pizza.

Bible School class

For the mid-terms of my Children and Youth Ministry class, I got each of my students to give a 5 minutes presentation of a bible story as if the class was a children's sunday school class. Children's ministry is often the least thought about and planned part of a church here. Even when new church buildings are put up, rarely are classrooms put in for the kids, and they end up out back sitting in the sun or in some small room. They are given a tiny budget and usually don't have enough benches to sit all the kids (which is usually a lot as familes are generally big here). I have really being stressing the importance of children in the Kingdom and also the importance of being well prepared when teaching them. One of my focuses this term has been on getting creative when teaching children. It is very rare for Children's churches to have even a picture of a story that is being taught let alone some sort of object lesson. Of course it is hard to get Bible curriculum and pictures that are so easy accessible to us in the West. So I was trying to show them to use things around them. A few weeks back I presented the lesson of Jesus feeding the five thousand, and I brought a basket with some bread and fried fish (something everyone has in their house). I also taught The Good Samaritan and brought some bandages, plasters (band-aids) and an empty wine bottle. I was showing them that with a little planning and thought, despite the fact that we have limited resources in Cameroon, one can make Bible stories come alive to children.  I also encouraged them to not always just narrate the story but tell it from a different perspectives of one of the characters in the story. And of course, to teach a lesson, not just a story. They all did amazing well and each one came up with a unique way of presenting the story, I was very happy. We also had a lot of laughs!

Cynthia teaching the story of Abraham and Isaac

Justine teaching on the Good Shepherd. She also brought in a keyboard and we all sang a song of rejoicing at the end. 

Matthias got our attention by doing a puzzle at the start

Emmerencia got her class mates to help her act out Jesus healing the blind man

Sister Agnes taught on Jesus changing the water into wine and brought along yummy juice for all to taste

Mable brought a Picture bible with a drawing of Zacchaeus in it. 

Goodness assuming the role of David

George brought in some of his own helpers!

Goodness was really nervous but did an AMAZING job

And Jacob was very creative as he made a tomb and when he pulled a string,  up popped Lazarus!

Currently there are two children's workers in the class. I am really hope this will encourage many of the students to get involved in their churches, neighborhoods, and schools, to start reaching out to the youth of this nation. 

Dance night

If you told me when I came to Cameroon that I would one day learn to line dance here, I would have thought you daft, but that's exactly what I did last week. There is a missionary girl who is in town for a couple of months that is really into dance. She decided to put on a Family Dance Evening with the help of some friends. Missionaries from all over came plus lots of Cameroonians. We started with swing, later on we lined danced, next a Scottish lass taught us some Ceilidh dances (my favourite), and then we even did some waltzing. The boys really enjoyed themselves too and were all hot and sweaty by the end of the night. One of my favourite things of the night was to watch a Cameroonian married couple do the Scottish dancing. PDA is not a norm here between couples, in fact I can say I have never seen a couple even holding hands in public. But it was so sweet to see them twirling around together, laughing, and having a good time. 

Breanna and I doing the Swing (couldn't get Jake to do this one)

Some Scottish dancing

Dosey Doeing with Josh

Driving Licence

Since being in Cameroon I have always driven on my American licence. It has never been a problem but I have always intended to go get my Cameroonian one at some point. When Jake got his a few years back, he just went into the office, showed his US one, paid the fee, and had his license in a week or two (same with every other missionary I know). Well, Norbert who works at the children's home needed to get his too, so we went in together. I think that was my mistake as Norbert has never had a license before and would need to take the test. So they said I had to take a test too. I explained I've been driving for like 15 years, but no they insisted I had to take a theory test. They only do a test once a month (for the whole city of Bamenda's 350,000 residents). So we paid our fee and put our names down for the test. We were told to show up prompt at 7:30 in the morning on the particular day. So a few weeks back that day came and Norbert and I headed up. As normal nothing was set up and we waited and waited with the throng of people. Finally at about 10 the people showed up and started taking down our names. It wasn't until 11 that we finally sat down to take the test. We had two hours to complete a 30 question, multi answer test. I hadn't study at all as I didn't have a book and I figured I knew everything already. But some of the questions were really bizarre such as, "What is a sign on internal bleeding?" and, "What should you do to someone who is breathing but unconscious?" I didn't think I was taking a medical exam. Anyway for the most part it was very simple and I was done in 10 minutes. They they said we had to come back on Monday for the practical test. So we went back that afternoon, and once again I thought, how hard can it be? There was literally hundreds of people there, waiting to take the test. We had to wait and watch while every person parallel parked. Seriously I think the last time I parallel parked was when I took my test in the states in '97, maybe once in Chicago.... and it was a bit nerve racking with all the people watching you but thankfully I had no problems. Norbert did pretty good too even though he was really nervous and had only practiced it once before. A few people did knock the poles over and everyone cheered, pretty funny. Then after everyone had finished (hours!) we went out in groups in a car with an instructor (I had two nuns in my car). The lady that started could hardly get the car to move forward and then almost killed us as she popped the clutch and went whizzing into the road then stalled it. The instructor told her to get out. I went next and had no issues except he told me to slow down :D. Then we went back to the office to find out how we did. There they said our results would be announced in the next month, ahhh! Why does everthing have to be sooo complicated? Anyway, I am sure that I passed, Norbert wasn't so sure.  I guess we'll find out in a week or two.

Team

Last week we were very blessed to have a team from California visit Helping Hands Children's Home. They came from a church of one of our good missionary friends that live in Yaounde (the Young family). They were in Cameroon for just a week but managed to get a lot done. They were all I.T. guys who work at Microsoft, Facebook, Ebay, Yahoo, Cisco etc.,  so they were very techie to say the least. They came to help set up different security and internet systems for different missionary groups. They came to Bamenda just for one day but it was great to get to know them. They blessed the orphanage with two laptops! It is so wonderful, we have always wanted to be doing some sort of computer training with the kids (especially the older ones) as it is so important in this day and age, but never really had the opportunity. We were also blessed with a desktop recently too so we now have 3 computers. This month we will be switching one of storage rooms into a "Learning Center." We're still working on a system that is fair allowing all the kids to have a chance. It will also be a good incentive to get chores and homework done! Thanks so much to this generous team!!