Baby news

Jude had his two month check-up and shots yesterday. We found a great pediatrician who actually comes to our house and does everything here. It is such a blessing as at any other place you have to line up and wait for hours sometimes (not much fun with a screaming baby sitting on a crowded hard bench). The Pediatrician travels to the States a lot and uses the Maryland plan for immuniazations (plus the nessercery ones for here ie. yellow fever, typhoid). We were wondering what we would do when we go to Bamenda, and I was talking with her about it. Praise the Lord that she travels to Bamenda once a month so we can continue to use her. The Lord continues to provide for all my needs (and whims:-)
Jude is doing great even though his still on the slight side for American Standards. But he is growing well and all he reflexes and measurements are perfect. He wasn't very happy about having his shots but he soon got over it. Oh and he starting cooing this morning when I was holding him, so cute!

FES

Wow, I'm going crazy, 4 posts in one day! It's just that Jude's sleeping as is Seth and Josh is helping Jake wash the car... I'm all alone, which doesn't happen too often :-D.
Anyway, Josh is in FES (Field Educational System) right now. It's a program that Wycliffe Translators has organized where all the homeschooled missionary kids come together for 3 weeks and have classes and even have swimming lessons. Josh absaloutly loves it as he gets to see lots of friends and of course go to the pool, always a plus. The theme this year is the Medievil Times, so he is learning about knights and castles and wars, every little boy's dream :). They also test the kids to see how they are doing, which is always nice to know, we'll find out where Josh is at next week.
I went to a workshop this morning on how to teach art to kids. It was really interesting, all about using the right side of your brain when you draw. Also learned how kids often just draw symbols (of an eye or tree) and not what they really see, something Josh does, so it was very enlightening. So hopefully next school year I'll have a couple of Van Goghs running around! OK, think I'm done for today, just heard Jude crying...

Frodo

Our dog had puppies 2 months ago, 9 of them! We were planning to get rid of all of them but when we saw how big our new yard in Bamenda was, we decided to keep one of them (they are great for security), so we now have 3 dog! Our latest addition is called Frodo (his dad's called Strider, can you guess what movies we like?). He's so adorable and a fast learner.

Spreading the Word!

Last week I start teaching Sunday School again since Jude was born. It was good to be back with "mes enfants." This month we are teaching on the ascension and return of Jesus. I taught the kids about the great commission and how it is our responsibility to share Christ with other. I gave them the homework of showing the love of Jesus to their friends either by word or action. It was great to hear their testimonies this Sunday of how the Lord open doors for them to share their faith with others. One boy, Peter, said that he shared the Gospel with a classmate and he accepted Jesus into his heart! So cool, this is the 9 to 12 year old class.
Saturday we are taking them on a picnic to the local zoo, we are thinking about 100 children will come, most of who have never been. At the end, Sister Hortence will do a short lesson on how we can see the power of God through nature. Should be a lot of fun and I'm sure I'll sleep really well that night :-D

Catching up

Ok, I've really been slacking in my blog, lots has been going on these past few weeks. Jake's mum came out to visit us 2 weeks ago. When we were living in Iowa and Josh was born, she took the Greyhound bus from Florida to visit us as she didn't want to fly. So this was a HUGE thing for her to fly all the way here, having a day's layover in Paris (if any one has been to Charles De Gualle airport before, you'll know how confusing it can be). She'd never really been out of the States before so it was a completely new experience for her. Kathy did really awesome and it was such a blessing to have her here for a week (that just whizzed by). With Josh and Seth my mum and other family members came to stay for a bit to help out with the baby and cook. I really missed that when Jude was born. So it was great to have Kathy here to spoil me and cook and look after Jude, it was a great time. Of course the boys loved having Grammie around and each of them got to have a "sleep-over" in Grammie's room where they stayed up late reading stories, eating snacks and just having a fun time.
It was great to kinda relive our first experiences of Cameroon again through Kathy and her questions. They culture was so new and different to her. We went for a walk around the back of our neighbourhood one night. We went past a small wooden house (shack) that was housing a family with a bunch of kids. Kathy said it was incredible that people could live like that... we walk that way all the time and I hardly even noticed it before, I guess I can get hardened to the needs and problems around me, so it helped me to open my eyes again to what is going on around me.
I think Jake added some pictures of our time together to our site so check them out. Love you Kathy!

ahhhhhhhh

Here's that smile I was talking about!

Children's church

Since '05 I have been the children's church director at our church. At the start of the year I handed it over to one lady, Hortence, as the baby was coming and we knew we would be leaving Yaounde. Praise the Lord, Hortence has been doing a fantastic job of leading. We had a retreat this weekend for all the children's workers. I didn't organize anything for it, it went really well, things started on time, and most everyone was there. They had all night prayer last night and had a great time. It is a real blessing to see how they are continuing the work on and even preparing for another Camp this summer. I also got to speak at the retreat today on how to teach young children (3-6 yrs). I really empahsised on using visual aid which is very uncommon here. Also shared on keeping each activity with them no longer than 10 minutes. Praying it all sank in. It was the first time I taught since having Jude, but he was really good and let me do my thing. He was passed around the workers all day, he enjoyed all the attention :-)

Jude

Jude finally hit the 8 pound mark! And we had our first smile last week, ohhhhh so sweet, life doesn't get much better than this!

Bamenda Trip

New Home in Bamenda

Praise the Lord we had a great time in Bamenda. The house that we thought we would be renting fell thru… the landlord decided he didn’t want to rent for long term. At first we were disappointed as we really liked the house. So we searched all over town for 3 days and finally found one we LOVE. God knew exactly want wanted and gave it to us… it is a nice house with enough room to even have a school room (no more homeschooling in the living room, yeah!) Jude will also get his own room, Jake will have a small tool shed and I even get a laundry room! But wait, there’s more, the yard is HUMONGOUS, it is so big and is full of trees, flowers, and birds singing in them. We have about 4 Guava trees, a couple of mango trees and even an avocado tree (which is loaded, yum!). The family that lived there before even built a little tree house, great for the boys… it's also very secure which is a necessity in Bamenda. There’s a large area in front of the house that is paved so it will be perfect to do a Bible club with the neighborhood kids. God is so good, he always provides for our every need. And since this is out of the city, we will actually be paying less rent for it than we are right now for our small house and tiny yard…

We got to visit some other missionary friends while we were up there. They have horses so I got to go riding with the boys (minus Jude :-) It was a lot of fun and Josh and Seth had a blast. We’re thinking our yard might be big enough for horses too…. we’ll see. June will be here before we know it.