Helping orphans, reaching the lost and needy

Monday, April 22, 2013

French Hostages


For those of you who may not have heard, on February 19th, a French family that worked in Yaoundé (the political capital city of Cameroon) were vacationing in northern Cameroon. They were visiting the Waza National Park; a dad, mum, 4 kids (ages 5-12), plus an uncle. Early one morning their vehicle was stopped at gunpoint and they were kidnapped. Later Boko Haram, an Islamist group, claimed they had taken them and were making demands for prisoners to be released in Cameroon among other things. This family is friends with two of our good friends in Yaounde; their kids went to the same school, hung out together, run races together, etc. So this was the closest I had ever been to something like this, where it was personally effecting people that I know and love. Cameroon is a relatively safe country (compared to our neighbors) but we still have to take precautions. We have bars on our windows, we have guards dogs, we try not to travel after dark, etc. In the North were Islam is stronger, people have to be even more careful. Personally, we have never felt threaten or in danger in all our nine years here. 

For the "white" community, hearing things like this does stirs up worries and fears.  We were actually discussing going to the precise spot next year for our family vacation. The French children were almost the exact ages of our kids and it is hard not to picture yourself in the same situation... how would I be feeling? how would Jude and the rest of our children handle those sort of circumstances? what are they going through at this exact moment? Through it all we just decided not to be led by fear (worry wasn't going to help anyone anyway, right?) and just lean and trust on Jesus for their safety. We lifted them up in prayer every night and encouraged our kids to do the same whenever they thought of them. I know that hundreds/thousands of other people were praying for them too.

During the first few weeks after their capture, a couple of youtube videos appeared of the family surrounded by mask men with machine guns. They were increasingly looking more thin, drawn, and worn.  For the last month there had been no new news of them and I must admit I was starting to wonder what was going to happen to them. How were their faring? The North of Cameroon is extremely hot and they had mentioned in a video that they were suffering from the heat and they didn't know how much longer they could hold out.  France had declared (and rightly so) that they would not negotiate or pay a ransom for the family.

Then on Friday, exactly 2 months since they were taken, we got news that they had been released!! I told the boys and everyone in the house at the time and we all hooped and hollered and offered up thanks to the Lord ( I also shed a tear or two). Aside from being extremely thin, they had been unharmed. They flew home on Saturday and we are just so thrilled that this story had a happy ending. I know they will have a lot of recovering and healing to do, but still, I get a skip in my heart every time I think of their release. We do serve a mighty God!


I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord make me dwell in safety. Psalm 4:8


If you want to read more about it all, click below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22213125

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

The little things (or not so little things)

Since we shipped a 40' container this time we had plenty of room to bring things back with us. Normally when we're back in the States we have to be concerned about every ounce as we are so tight on space. Walking around garage sales was torture as things were so cheap yet we had no way of getting them over here. Well, this time we didn't hold back, we went garage-sale-crazy and people gave us a ton of stuff too. Here's a list of some things I'm really happy and grateful that we brought back to Cameroon.

20ft step ladder: Jake had made us a wooden ladder which I couldn't use as I could hardly pick it off the ground let alone get it upright as it was so heavy. In the States we found the step ladder at a yard sale and toted it across the country on top of our RV which was highly embarrassing but totally worth it. I can now trim all my bushes, change light bulbs, and paint the ceiling without the risk of breaking my neck by standing on piled up chairs.

American size refrigerator: My fridge here in Cameroon was on its last legs as we bought it secondhand over eight years ago. The thermostat was gone and it couldn't get fixed so it was on timer which never really worked; everything inside was either frozen or spoiling. We weren't planning on shipping another one but a few days before the trailer was shipped we still had extra space. We ran around for a morning looking at different appliances on sale and finally found this one at Best Buy of all places. It was super cheap as it has a scratch on the front and it was a display model. I stilled hummed and harred about spending the money but Jake insisted that we get it. I am sooooo pleased we did, it has been such a massive blessing. We have lots of people over all the time so I need to stay well stocked with food. It is also awesome to have a top freezer (my last fridge didn't); we can have cubed ice now (if we make ice in our deep freezer it tastes like the dog's fish in there). Little things like ice make life much more pleasant! I thank the Lord for the fridge each time I open it. If we had bought it here it would have been at least triple the price (if you look closely you might see your picture on it :D)



Chainsaw: Someone blessed us with their chainsaw. Jake has had his eye on one for a while now and he's enjoying choppping unwanted trees and limbs down in our yard. I have to watch him or we'll be treeless in a moment! This is proving HHCH with plenty of extra firewood too. 



Larger generator: Someone also gave us a much bigger generator than what we had before. Our last one would either run the fridge or freezer and a couple of lights. The new one can run both appliances, the washer, hot water heater and my tea kettle (makes this English women happy!) without any difficulties. This is truly helpful for when we have those long power cuts of a few days at a time. Our old one is heading down to the bible school so they can have lights and the projector on nights that the electric goes out.

Popcorn seasoning: Jake's cousin bought us a ton of popcorn seasoning. Popcorn is probably one of our top snacks here as corn is cheap and abundant. We generally sprinkle sugar or salt on it. Well, life has become a little brighter with the discovery of these little shakers bursting with flavour. I thought ranch was may favourite till we popped open the jalspeño one the other night. Only downside is that we're eating popcorn most nights now!

Flossers: need I say more?!

Cooking supplies: Jake's mum took us Christmas shopping and I picked out nuts and different chocolate chips (toffee, white, dark, light, mint, etc) as my pressie. So nice to be able to make yummy chocolate chip cookies or throw a couple of handfuls into homemade ice-cream. Also lovely to have almonds to toss on top of our salads or into our granola. 

Grinder and sausage stuffer: this was donated by our butcher friends along with lots of other butchering supplies. We plan to open up a butchers by the summer as another WON business to provide steady jobs and bring in extra income for the orphanage. Of course we wanted to test out the new grinder and sausage stuffer before we train someone on them. The grinder was so quiet and fast (15lb a minute!) and the sausage stuffer made the whole process incredibly quick. I think back to 4 years ago when we did 80lb of sausage meat by a hand grinder, now that was a workout!