10 years!!!

Tomorrow will be the 10th, yes the 10th, anniversary of when we moved to Cameroon full time.  Just a few months before Jake had quit his job, we sold our house and pretty much all our earthly possessions that we couldn't fit into 8 suitcases, and made the plunge of moving to Cameroon. The first year was by no means easy; adjusting to a different culture and language, living on very limited funds with two little ones definitely had its share of challenges. But it was all a growing experience and the Lord's hand was evident from the onset. We were working with Bread For Life in Yaoundé when we first arrived (a ministry we still partner with). Our main focus was assisting them with their church plants, primarily working with the youth and children. We also helped out at various orphanages in town. It's amazing to think how much we have matured and developed a deeper and more intimate relationship with the Jesus since then. I can honestly say that in the last 10 years there has never been a time when I've wanted to pack up and go back "home" (wherever that is). The Lord has given us such a love for this country and its people that we can't imagine not being here. 

We say this a lot, but we truly mean it, we could not be here without such a great support system back home. We are so grateful for those whose partner with us through their prayers, encouragement, and finances. Since Jake quit his job, we have been living the life of "faith-based" missionaries as they say. This basically means that no one pays us a salary or wage, we rely on churches and individuals to support us. As I write this, I sit in a beautiful rented house, my fridge is full to bursting, my kids are strong and healthy, we have a reliable vehicle, we have EVERYTHING that we could possibly need. The Lord has blessed us abundantly. We serve a wonderful and mighty God who has been incredibly faithful. 

Jake and I are by no means the most educated, qualified, or experienced people to do the work the Lord has called us to do. During the hard times we remember Colossians 3:2 where we are instructed to keep our eyes on things above. We are grateful that God has chosen to use us, to play a small part in the expansion of His kingdom.

Here are some pictures from our first year here:

The Ehabe Family were a massive blessing to us when we first arrived. They allowed us to stay rent free in their apartment for the first few months till we found a place of our own.

I think this is like our second day in Cameroon, the heat and jet lag took a toll on the kids!

This was out first truck we shipped to Cameroon, what a happy day it was when we finally got it out of the port. We had been misinformed about how much taxes would cost at the port and it took every penny we had. Thankfully we had packed a bunch of brownie mixes in the car, because that is what we ate till the end of the month!

Josh and Seth quickly made friends wherever they went.

We did a lot of traveling around Cameroon that first year.

We had lots of opportunities to share in churches and pray for people.

Josh and Seth's first bedroom in Cameroon, I had a lot of fun painting this!

This was our bath for the first year. We also used a rubbermaid tub for our coffee table and another as our bookshelf.

Our first Christmas in Cameroon, my dad and mum came out. It was very special.... and they bought me a washing machine, the best Christmas present EVER!

Our first Christmas tree

We soon fell in love with Cameroonian food

Bread For Life would hold various crusades all around the country. We would help with a lot of the setup. This is the stage for one.

The one and only Ernest Ehabe!

Yes, even back then, Jake was arm wrestling anyone that was willing (even two handed). 

Kids at the crusade 

Being introduced at church

This was the planning meeting for one of the churches we helped plant: Yaounde International Chapel. Praise the Lord, it is still going strong.

First church service

Picking up visitors at the airport

Sharing at a Full Gospel Church in Kribi

Magnus was a MASSIVE help to us the first few months, showing us the way to do things in Cameroon. 

I know this much have been early on; my hair is highlighted, straightened, and I'm wearing jewelry. Those days are long gone!

The Shu Family was also an immense help to us that first year.

Birthday party at the Bread For Life Guest House.

So young!!

At the beach in Limbe. 

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Pastoral Care, Super Bowl, and the Mount Cameroon Race

This week we were blessed to be visited by the Pastoral Care Team from Commission To Every Nation, our sending organization. We spent an encouraging three days with Bob and Barb Nesbitt, as they make their way across West Africa, visiting, uplifting, and supporting missionaries. It was nice to take a few days off and just hang out, and show them all the work that is going on here. They were a true blessing and inspiration as well as keeping our kids entertained. It is always beneficial to have some outside eyes observe the work that is going on, and to be encouraged and guided from their past experience  (such as reminding us how important it is to go out on dates ever so often :D ).

Bob and Barb

Fun at the Children's Home

Bob spend a lot of time playing Uno, Guess Who, and Cribbage with the kiddos. 

At Faith Bible College

On Tuesday we had our annual Super Bowl Party, I think this was our biggest one yet. There was well over 30 people squeezed into our front room. I'm glad we decided to borrow a projector so everyone could see the game well... and no electric cuts during the game, a miracle! The food and fellowship were awesome.

Next week we head to Buea, a city located on the side of Mount Cameroon. Norbert and I are competing in the annual Race of Hope which will give us the opportunity to scramble up the graveling, steep face of the 13,250ft volcano (hopefully it will stay quiet while we are there). It is 12 miles up, 12 miles down. I have no aspirations of making it all the way to the summit before they start turning people around at the 4 hours mark, but I'm going to give it all I've got and have a great time while I do it.  

There is a documentary out about the race, here is a link to the trailer to give you a little taste of what it will be like:

 http://www.volcanicsprint.com/trailer/

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WON Staff

Friday afternoon the entire WON staff went out for a Christmas meal. It was a fun, relaxing time just to hang out together (and God bless the lady that babysat the 30 kids at HHCH!). 

 Here's a picture of our awesome co-labourers. All this year the Lord has been impressing on us the need to raise up additional Cameroonians to play a more vital part of the ministry. At the end of the day, they know their culture better, can relate to Cameroonians better, and this is their country. In 2013 we added five more people to staff. So let me introduce you to them, starting from the top left. 

Goodness: She is the secretary of Faith Bible College. She is also a student there, she'll will be graduating this summer. Goodness lives at the school (which is in a house), keeps everything spick and span, keeps track of the FBC bibles school, and makes a LOT of photocopies. She is such a sweet girl who loves the Lord with all her heart.

Charlotte: She is the main cook for the orphanage. It is no easy feat to feed 36 people three times a day, but she does it. She is still young in the Lord but we have seen a real growth in her these last two years. We do bible studies together once a week and I'm also teaching her how to drive (hopefully she'll be taking her test soon!).

Rejoice: A lovely Christian lady that joined us this year as the manager of the new Helping Hands Car Wash (which brings in funds for the orphanage). She is still learning the ropes but trying hard. 

Victorine: She also joined us this year. She is the manager of the new Helping Hands Meat Market that opened this month. She has been working VERY hard and is learning the butchery business well. We praise the Lord for directing us to her. She talks about the Lord all the time and uses every opportunity to share the Good News of Jesus to those around her. 

Odette: She is our manager of our second car wash that opened last year. She is our star manager, she is an extremely hard worker and brings in the biggest profit of any of the car washes. She is a true blessing to have working for us. 

Bridgette: She is the wife of Pastor Bennet who will be introduced in a sec. Since meeting her 4 years, she has become a true friend to me. Sometimes in Cameroon it is hard to have deep relationships as we are just so different (in every sense of the word) that everyone else. And sad to say, people often put us up on a pedestal because we're from the West. Refreshingly, Bridgette treats me just like she treats everyone else and we get along great. In fact we just got back from a delicious meal at her house.

Next is me and then Mami Elizabeth and Pa Genesis: They join the Children's Home staff this year after Mami Anna had to rest due to health problems. They are still in training but are doing a great job. All the kids love them and they are trying hard to build a relationship with each and everyone of them. Pa had been a pastor for many years so it is great to have someone that knows the Word so well at the orphanage.

Antoinette: She joined us when Baby Willie joined our family. She was his main care giver. Now that Willie is bigger, Antoinette helps out in the kitchen, gives out meds to Blessed, and does the stretches and exercises with Sandrine. She is also a young Christian but is excited to learn about the Lord. I'm also doing a weekly bible study with her and teaching her to drive too. It was pretty scary to start with, but she is doing awesome now. (Video games must have some advantageous purposes, as no one had to teach me how to steer a car. With Antoinette, she just could not keep the truck out of the ditch for like a month!). I keep telling her, one of these days she'll be driving the bus.

Pastor Bennet: He also joined the Won Staff this year as the Coordinator of Faith Bible College. This has been a HUGE blessing to Jake as it was getting to be too overwhelming for Him at the start of the year. Bennet has been a pastor for a number of years and is also a teacher by profession so he a great asset to have on our team. Currently he is working on how to get the Bible School accredited in country.

And on to the left of the front row...

Norbert: Norbert joined us a teenager looking for work about 5 years ago. Since that time he has really matured in the Lord, become a responsible young man, and is the dorm parent of the boys side of the house at HHCH. Jake taught him how to drive and he is now our main bus driver. He is our fixer upper and in charge of overseeing the animals at HHCH. He is also going to school to be an accountant. Norbert's nick name at the orphanage is Emperor for some strange reason. 

Pa Patrick: Pa Patrick has been the father to the children from the very start with his wife Anna. He is a quiet, gentle-spirited man that is a rock at HHCH. He is such a hard worker and we are constantly telling him to stop sweeping the house, or to stop mixing cement or something. Often Jake will come in to the orphanage with a heavy bag of something, he'll rush to take it out of Jake's hands. He is such a sweet man and loves the Lord deeply.

Saidou: Many of you already know Saidou story. He was a young muslim man who was a washer at the first car wash. He has always been very diligent and when we needed someone to fill in the place of manager, Jake thought he would do good. Jake built a strong relationship with him, and about 2 years ago he surrounded his life to Christ. He has been sold out ever since, despite some persecution from friends and family. This year he started attending Faith Bible College, we are just so proud of him. Also this year we made him the "business manager" of the WON. Keeping an eye on the three car washes was a taking a lot of Jake's time. Since Saidou has taken over, things have been flowing smoothly and it has taken a lot of pressure off of Jake. Saidou is also living at the new Meat Market which is big help.

Linda: She is the manager of the first car wash. You may notice we have women managers for all the business. We've discovered that they are much more trustworthy and hard working that most of the men around. 

I praise the Lord for the team that he has blessed us with here in Cameroon!!!

HHCH Christmas Outreach

I'm back! We finally took the plunge and decided to pay a bit more for faster internet. Ours has steadily been getting worse to where it has been hard to Skype or upload photos. Jake is the one that does the ministry website so it has been frustrating in many ways. The new router was hooked up last week and it has been amazing! I can get so much more done on the internet now (or not get so much more done: I can watch all those videos ya'll post of Facebook now!). I'm hoping this will motivate me to get more blogs up as I shouldn't have to spend anymore grueling hours to upload a couple of photos.

Each school break, Helping Hands Children's Home does some type of outreach.  Our main goal in doing this is to teach our children the importance of reaching out to to those around them, to show them the love of Jesus. So often our kids are on the receiving end of things, we don't want them to take their blessings for granted, or to think that the ball stops there. This year we decided to visit CEFED, a home for mentally and physically handicapped children, which is about 45 minutes away from Bamenda.  Ours girls got busy crocheting hats for everyone (yes, people love woolly hats here even though it is Africa). The boys made a bunch of wordless books, and we all worked on baking and decorating Christmas cookies. What an amazing morning it was! The children were so happy to see us and many became excited with the singing and drama. The hats were a hit as were the cookies. HHCH was able to bless them with clothes and toys too as they have been so blessed this past year.

It was a eye opening experience to our children to see how blessed they are to have a body that works correctly, that we really have nothing to complain about it. The disabilities at the home range from severe mental disabilities, children with no arms, blindness, and polio to name a few. I feel it was good for our staff to see how much easier they have it compared to the staff of CEFED. Most of the children there could not wash, dress, or feed themselves: it is a huge amount of work every single day, 365 days a year.

It was a blessing to me to see how well the children are being looked after at CEFED. I once spend a few nights at a hospital with Sandrine when she was getting her legs straightened out. This was a hospital/home for handicapped children as well. It made me sick to my stomach to see some of the ways the kids were treated/neglected. But at CEFED all the kids were clean, happy, and you could just tell they are well cared for. 

Decorating Christmas cookies

Singing some songs

These kids danced the whole time we sang!

Loving their hats

The boys doing their drama

Heading to India

For those of you that don't know, on Wednesday I'm flying to India for two weeks. Win Our Nations has a Florida based team heading there to visit the WON Orphanage and Bible School. It's going to be pretty amazing, my parents are leading the team so I will get to hang out with them (which doesn't happen very often). A close friend that visited us for a month last year is also on the team. So it is going to be totally awesome!! Can you tell I'm excited?! I have never been away from all my kids for that long before, in fact Jordan's current separation time is just one night... so that is going to be hard. I am also really going to miss Jake.... I fly on our on our 14th anniversary.  But I am excited about flying by myself, who knows I might actually get to watch a whole movie, read a book, finish a sudoko puzzle, have a meaningful conversation with my neighbor (something I haven't done since having kids). I also have a six hour layover in Johannesburg. I told Jake last week that I could be eating a Big Mac in less then 7 days!!.  It will be nice to experience a little bit of "development" (and by this I mean meandering around Duty Free trying out free perfume samples and thumbing through magazine at the kiosks) even if just for a few hours. 

But most of all I am looking forward to experiencing India; the smells, sights, and tastes. I'm excited about meeting the WON staff that I have heard so much about, and communicated with only through emails. I look forward to hugging Praveen, an orphan that we have sponsored for the past seven years (plus the other 40+ children). I hope to observe how they are running the Children's Home and see if we can't improve on how things are running here. WON India bought land a few years back and is already building on it: they have a coconut farm plus a Water Buffalo venture. It will be great to see where WON Cameroon could be in a few years time too. 

I am very grateful that Geri, the itinerant teacher with our home schooling co-op, will be teaching the boys school for the two weeks I'm gone. I won't feel like I have to catch up on anything when I get back. It is also a nice change for the boys.

I know Jake is going to do awesome while I'm gone. I'm sure the kids won't even miss me as they'll probably be able to play Wii without time limits, throw footballs in the house, eat as much chocolate on their bread as they like, and in general, have an awesome time with their Dad. While the cat's away.... :D

Scams and Scammers

Over the last few months it has become obvious that someone is using Helping Hands Children's Home's name as a way to scam people out of their hard earned money. In July we started getting emails and messages from people in the States who had seen advertisements in Craig's List about a child that was up for adoption at our orphanage (who advertises for adoption on Craig's List?!). Since that time we have had a constant supply of emails, people desperate to find out if it was legit. Basically these scammers were saying that they could adopt a child through us, the contact name being Father Christopher. They are told to Western Union $500 to start the process, then another $3,900 after that to cover all the costs. You would not believe how many people have already given the down payment, and some even the final payment. And what is crazy is that the pictures the scammners are sending are of white kids... I'm not quite sure how people fall for this. If anyone did a second of research on Cameroon they would know it is pretty much impossible for a foreigner to adopt unless they are actually living in country and willing to give up months if not years to the process. But scamming is on the rise in West Africa (all those Nigerian princesses!). We've know quite a few people who have had some pretty crazy stings happen to them. 

It got really bad when we realized that these con men had copied our exact website, except for the mailing address and the donate button (it went to their own money website). Thankfully my internet-savvy-brother was able to get that shut down in a few hours but, at the end of the day, they could just make another one again. Their email address is helpinghandchildrenhome@gmail.com.... frustrating! Jake has emailed them a few times but to no great success. We have contacted the American Embassy to let them know too. Our biggest concern is that someone will think that we are the scammers and assume that there really is no orphanage. 

For a few nights I was furious: how could someone be so base to scam vulnerable people wanting to adopt children in need (and using our name to do it!)? But I've let it go now. It is only by the saving grace of Jesus and His mercies, that I am not in the same pit.  For now, we just cast our cares on the Lord and pray that these people will come into His marvelous light.

So, if there is anyone out there that has been contacted by these people, DO NOT SEND THEM MONEY. Helping Hands Children's Home DOES NOT adopt out children. Cameroon, in general, does not allow children to be adopted out of country. 

More Schooling Stuff

This year, all but one of the kids at the orphanage headed to school. School in Cameroon is not compulsory or free. Students are responsible for providing uniforms, dress uniforms, sports wear, black shoes, white socks, pens, pencils, exercise books, and text books (plus, if they are taking a special exam they have to pay for that too). It can all really add up, most families can't afford to send all their kids to school, and rarely do children have all the textbooks that they need. The government schools are the cheapest so they are packed full, classes often have over 80 children with only one teacher (can you imagine teaching 80 five-year-olds!). Needless to say, the standards are pretty low. For that reason we send all our primary age children to a private school (it only has 30 to 50 pupils to a class) so that they can get a good foundation before heading to a government secondary school (equivalent of middle school). Now when you hear private school, don't think American private school, it still has a lot of room for improvement but they are better than most schools around. We are thankful for the three Helping Hands Car Washes in town whose income allows us to send the children to a better school. The last week of August was crazy busy making sure that all 29 children had everything they needed. I let out a great sigh of relief once they were all off to school!

Gamboh excited about seeing all her friends at school again (Nursery 2)

Blessed's first day of school (Nursery 1)! He is just too adorable stomping off to school each morning in his little uniform. It is amazing to see how much he has improved in the last year. He was so weak and malnourished when he came just over a year ago. He is now on meds for the HIV in his body and is strong and healthy. Such a cutey!

I'm just so proud of these seven children (Nestor, Joel, Ocilia, Mirander, Kari, Tahirih, and Francis). They started Secondary School this year. They have come so far in the last four years. Most of them could barely speak a word of English let a lone read and write when they came to HHCH. 

We've completed week three of homeschooling (33 left!). It has just been going so well, I am really thrilled, I have a lot of peace in my heart about it. Last year was not easy being six months in the States, for most of which we were on the road. I am grateful that our kids got to see so much of the States plus tons of national parks and museums but once I got back to Cameroon it was all work and no play.  So far this school year we have managed to finished by Thursday afternoon and then have fun on Fridays. Seth is studying about the Eastern hemisphere in history this year. Each week he focuses on a different region and then has to do a special project about it. The first week it was on the Pacific Island and he had to cook a meal from there. He went with a Hawaiian chicken-pineapple recipe and tropical fruit smoothies that were pretty yummy.

Our Hawaiian night!

 He had fun making the leis too. 

Delicious

Josh made us up a special menu

Last week Seth was focusing on Australia. He had to draw an Aboriginal piece of art which I decided to make into everybody's art project for the week. After studying different pieces on the web, we had a go at it, it was a lot of fun. 

Seth went with a Kangaroo

Josh's duckbill platypus (he's such a perfectionist, he still hasn't finished it!)

Jude painted a lizard

For Jordan I traced out a snake and she painted it, not bad for a three-year-old!

Seth's finished masterpiece

Jude's is pretty cute

And I had to try my hand at it too, pretty fun.