Anna and other things

I was at the hospital all Wednesday morning with Anna for her first prenatal check up. All went well, praise the Lord, it just took FOR-EV-ER! (7 to 11am). There was a lot of waiting around on hard wooden benches with no backrests (glad I'm not the one pregnant!). But everything seems to be fine with the baby, we go back on Tuesday to get the results of all the tests Anna had and also for her to have an ultra sound so they can determine a due date. Please continue to keep Anna in your prayers.

We had a children workers' meeting this afternoon. It was a little bit sad as my best friend in our church (Jocelyne) told me that her husband has found a job in the Extreme North of Cameroon and they will be leaving next month. We always have had a lot of fun together, our kids are the same age and she's trying to learn English and me French so we've both helped each other out a lot. I am going to miss her so much. But hopefully we will get to go visit them sometime at the end of the year.

There's also another family leaving next month, a missionary family that is heading back to the States after being here for 18 years with Wycliff Translators. They've been such a great help with children's church and they will really be missed. Please pray that the Lord raises up more people to help us with the work of 90+ kids, especially men as the family contained the only two male teachers we had.

Other than the sad news, the meeting went great as we prayed and prepared for our five day children's camp in August. Everyone had terrific ideas of things that we should do and I think that it's going to be an awesome camp. We put out the registration forms next week at church with a limit of a hundred kids, I'm sure it'll fill up fast. It'll be our church's first children's camp, so it's very exciting!

Children's workers from our church. Jocelyne is the one in blue crouched down by me.

To Love is to Forgive

We spent all Saturday afternoon at the orphanage with a group from our church. Our theme for them this year is "to love is to forgive". We're preparing for the Day of the African Child (June 16th) on which we'll have a big celebration with the 3 orphanages that we work with. The previous week we talked with the kids on the importance of forgiving other. We encouraged the older kids to write out letters to Jesus saying who they need to forgive. Some of the letters were extremely sad as they explained why they needed to forgive different people. They were very heartfelt. So this Saturday we taught them the story of Joseph and then spent time talking and praying with each child individually. At the end of our time we burned all the letters and we could see the joy in the children faces as many of them let their unforgivness go.

I really feel a burden for one 15 year old girl in particular. Anna just came to the orphanage with her small brother. She is from the village in the NW and only speaks pidgin English. Her parents sent her to Yaoundé a year ago to live with some relatives so she could go to school (very normal here). When she arrived the relatives put her and her brother to work instead of school. They beat her often and then told her she has to marry an uncle. She refused (she was only 14) and one day when everyone was out of the house, the uncle raped her. When the family found out she was pregnant she was sent off to social services and put into the orphanage. She is about 2 months pregnant right now. She says her parents don't know what has happened to her and we are trying to contact them now. Needless to say she has a lot of unforgivness. I asked her is she has accepted Jesus into her heart and she yes but I'm not too sure. She is very open to listen and a really sweet girl.

Anyway, I am taking her to the hospital this week as she hasn't been for a check up yet. She also has small amounts of blood come out of her ears and eyes (possibly from the beatings). So please pray for Anna that as I befriend and witness to her she will grasp the love of Jesus and allow Him to make a difference in her life. She is completely illiterate and doesn't speak French so she is sort of cut off from the other kids. Also pray that she has a healthy and safe pregnancy.

On a lighter note, we had singing and dancing with the children too, check out our new "Ski Videos" page and see Josh dancing African style :-)

(Talking with Anna)

Two new members of the family...

We had a visit from a couple in our church the other night and in the Cameroon tradition, they brought a little gift with them. It just happened to be two live chickens, more specifically, a rooster and hen! When she handed me the bag I was expecting some yams or bananas (much more common) but imagine my surprise when the present squawked at me :). It was very sweet as the family are extremely poor and it really shows the generosity of our brothers and sisters over here.

Our two dogs have been getting used to "Rocky and Ginger" (10 points for anyone who can guess what movie that's from), everything good so far. We're really hoping they can keep the bugs down in our yard, lots of ticks and cockroaches, (yucky I know). Josh and Seth have been having a blast with them and maybe we'll get an egg sometime soon too, who knows...

My First Entry...

Here's my first "blog" entry on our website; well actually it's my first entry ever, very exciting! It's just to keep anyone who's interested up-to-date on what's going on here in Cameroon from a Home schooling mum's point of view. Please feel free to comment or ask questions about anything I write. I don't keep a journal so this will be really helpful for me to keep track of what is going on in our lives and record all the awesome things we see God do on the mission field. So, we'll see what becomes of this blog…. I hope to post a blog at least once a week if not more… but no promises J.

Well, we just got back from a three day trip out to the East. It usually takes about 9-12 hours to get out there but due to no rain, no police checks points, no road blocks (all usual occurrences), repairs being done on the mud roads, and my husbands speedy but great driving we made it in a record 6 hours! Still a long trip for our 4 and 5 year olds but we kept busy with "I spy" (trees, clouds, and grass were very popular), "In my suitcase" and "paper, rocks, scissors." We saw some really beautiful scenery and lots of bush rats for sale on the side of the road (don't ask!).

The purpose of going was to check on a School that Bread For life is building for the Baka (Pygmy) tribe. Work is going really well and the roof is now on. We were hoping the walls would have been plastered but they had problems with the water well (gas leaking out of it?) so it had to be closed, thus leaving no water for cement. We paid for another one to get dug, 20 meters by hand, sure glad that's not me down the hole! Hopefully the school will be finished by July. We'll head out there again mid June to check on the progress. As absolutely no one speaks English out there it is always great for our French even though they have a very different accent from here in Yaoundé. Josh and Seth enjoyed playing football (soccer for all you Americans) with the local kids in the evening with parents coming out to watch. They are both getting really good at the game as they have lots of practice.

We also got to meet with the Baka Chief who, as always, was really friendly. His wife has had another baby since we were there last and looks very health beside some ringworm on his head. We encouraged the tribe to help out with the school building as much as possible and told them the good news of a Teen Missions team that is coming this summer to build them a Clinic. All in all, it was a great time and things are moving a long nicely out there. Can't want to get back out there again soon!

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