Christmas day

Christmas was busy to say the least. Up at 5am to get things going for breakfast at the Children's Home. Opened presents with the the boys. Headed to the Home at 7:30, we all had breakfast together. One of my good missionary friends in Yaounde gave us a bag of small gifts for each of the children. Each bag had a new toothbrush and toothpaste; plus pens, pencils, candy, hair clips for the girls, cars for the boys and little McDonald toys. (A church back in the States put them together). They were a huge blessing and to see the kids faces opening up their presents almost made me cry. They were so overjoyed, it was a first for most of them to get Christmas presents.

Then back home to prepare lunch... We ate about 3pm... super delicious even if I do say so myself! Then we all played Wii for a while. Also got to speak to most of my family (thank you Skype!). By 8pm I was ready to crash! Boxing day was awesome, we just hung around the house, watched UP (one of Sethy's presents), played rummikub (one of Josh's presents), ate leftovers... nice and relaxing. Anyway here a some pics of the day, it took me seriously 2 hours to upload these!

Christmas morning at the Ski House. It was 56 degrees, nice and chilly!

Seth jumping for joy over his new lego

Jude loving his legos too

Cooking breakfast at HHCH

Dorcas and Meranda, how cute are they!

Christmas tree that the kids decorated. We put all the pressies under there before breakfast

Bena enjoying her Christmas breakfast; eggs, fried potatoes, bread and jam, and hot chocolate

Tim reading the Christmas story to the children

The kids opening their pressies

What a smile! Aruna enjoying his Christmas gifts

Christmas Dinner at our house: Our co-workers, the Born Family, plus Becky and James (volunteers for WON) and then Maxwell, the Car Wash manager and his family (kids table didn't get in the shot)

A fun day

Yesterday we had out first Christmas party at the Children Home. It was a LOT of fun. Someone donated some bouncy castles to Bread For Life (who we used to work with) and they gave one to Win our Nations. So we blew that up yesterday, the kids loved it! It was defiantly a hit. Then we did a slideshow of photos from the past year, the children all had a good laugh at seeing themselves projected up on the wall. It was great to see how much they and the Home has changed in the last year. Then we watch "The Nativity Story." We (or Jake should I say) made a bunch of popcorn, plus some groundnuts (peanuts) and a bunch of Kool Aid for snack. All in all, we had a blast and it won't be a day the kids forget anytime soon.

Christmas morning Sara and I are going to make breakfast for everyone at HHCH... we have some little pressies to hand out to all the children... it will be nice to spend the morning with the kids. Then back to home as we've got about 15 people for Christmas dinner. Couldn't find a turkey this year so 2 chickens and a pork roast will have to do. Will post pics.

Jake making his "delicious" Popcorn (better than any microwave popcorn!)

Should be enough popcorn for everyone

Josh helping to make our 15 litres of Koolaid

First time bouncing for all the kids

Group picture (it was super hot!)

Our wonderful Pa and Ma, they are such a blessing! (and so cute!)

Jake manage to get Pa to bounce... and he even did a flip. We all had a good laugh :)

Christma goodies!

Jake came back from town today and look what he found! A 3lb bag of Hersey's kisses and another 3lb of Hersey's nuggets (every pregnant woman's dream! :). Amazingly the kisses are still in date and the nuggets are only two months out... it seems the little shops that sell stuff from America, buy it on sale in the States (going out of date) and then ship it here; which takes a couple of months.... so when we find some US food it is usually at least 3 months out of date. Missionary life 101: Sell by date, more of a suggestion that a rule. So these will make Christmas a little more special.

Couldn't resist posting this pic, look at those blue, blues eyes... a little chip off the ol' block! Still trying to teach Jude to be gentle with the puppies, he likes to hug them VERY tightly :)

RETRACTION: Last post I wrote that all the children at HHCH passed their end of term exams. We got their report cards back this week and a few of them did fail... a couple of them will be moving back a class, this term really was to see where they are at and place them correctly in the school. Even so, they have all done sooooo well and we're so proud of them.

Puppies and other news

Jude said his first words in Pidgin today all by himself. He heard the doorbell ring and shouted "Na who!" This is what we always shout out too, it means, who is it? It was really cute and we all cracked up and then he wouldn't stop saying it. Ahhh, less than 2 years old and already bilingual.

We put up a Christmas tree at the Children's Home on Saturday, the kids had so much fun, a first for all of them besides one. Also been practicing Christmas carols with them, they're learning very quickly. The had their end of term exams last week and praise the Lord, all of the children passed, they have improved so much since starting school 3 months ago.

Brindie had her puppies on Wednesday, 3 males, 3 females. They are all so sweet. One will go to the Children's Home, one is going to a local Bible school that need a dog for security and the rest we will sell. The boys just love them.

First Doctor Visit

Finally made it to the hospital today for my first prenatal appointment. We've decided to have the baby at the Catholic hospital here in town, it is small, super clean and well run. There are a lot of Spanish nuns everywhere who are super helpful. They also use midwives to deliver the babies, doctors only come in if there is any complications. The simpler the better for me so it is a perfect fit.

It was an extremely long morning though, left the house at 7:30am, got there at 8am and didn't leave the hospital till 1pm! There is a group of us that was there for the first time and you go through all these "stations" one at a time. First I went to register at reception, then headed to prenatal room. Waited about an hour, they got all my info... waited another hour... went back to reception to pay for lab work, go to pharmacy to pick up vitamins, Go to lab, get blood taken, back to prenatal room. Wait for midwife to come, another hour, get checked, all is good, PTL! (I'm 14 weeks along). Back to the waiting room... wait for lab results and for all the other women to see the midwife. Listen to midwife give 40 minute lecture about pregnancy. It was actually really good, all in pidgin (very proud of myself, understood everything). Got some more insight into Cameroonians and pregnancy. Lots of superstitions in different villages, such a women shouldn't eat eggs or sugar cane when pregnant... witch doctors cutting women to make them better... very interesting. The midwife was great and really let them know what was what.

After this, got a Tetnus shot, saw lab results, and was finally out of there. Praise God Jake was with me (the only husband there, poor thing) or I would have died of boredom. Next appointment shouldn't be so long, since this was the first one it is very thorough.

Land Rover on the Way,

Check out the photo, this is a Discovery Land Rover that someone donated to the ministry, what a blessing! Our church in Florida (E.C.C.C.) is paying for all shipping and customs costs, another huge blessing! It got shipped out on Wednesday and will be here early January. It is packed full (as you can see) with things for the orphanage; clothes, tools, blankets, toys, etc. plus some goodies for us and Borns.

The Land Rover will be used when Jake and Tim go out to access a child's situations, for picking up orphans, projects, taking teams out to the village, etc. This will help save our truck a bit which bares the grunt of all of this right now. It will also be great to have a vehicle at the orphanage for when they do their food shopping, pick up stuff, etc. Also for church on Sunday it will be a such a help.... right now we squeeze all 24 (plus Jake) into our car to get them to church in one trip (Taxi's work out to be too expensive). So that will help out shocks a bit that's for sure. So we just rejoice in how the Lord always provides for the needs that we have, He is good!

Well Praise God I have been feeling a lot better the last week or two, I've got my energy back, not so sick anymore. I'm just entering my second trimester so I guess that has a lot to do with it. Maybe I will be able to keep up with the laundry now :-)

So all is going well here, I'm a third of the way through Homeschooling and everyone is still enjoying it (including me). The children's home is going great, they are all doing wonderful in school, growing leaps and bounds. Below are a couple of pics from a couple of months ago that I came across, they are just too sweet.



Dorcas and Jude (couldn't get them both to smile at the same time)


BTW, Dorcas is just doing fantastic, she is running all over the place now and talking a lot (She called me Mami yesterday :). It's great to see her so happy and full of life. All the other kids really dote on her and baby Benadette as well.

Also below are a couple of pics of our chickens (I don't think I've posted pics of them before). They've just started laying in the last 2 months, well worth the wait. The eggs are just soo good and also saves us money as we use a lot of eggs (we plan on starting one at the orphanage too). The boys love going in the coop and just petting them. They are so tame everytime you open a door they litrally push through your legs to get out, no fear whatsoever. The other day we had Breakfast burritos. The tortillas and salsa were home made, the eggs were from our chickens and the sausage was from the pig we slaughtered and processed, and boy, were they good!. Jake says we're turing Armish!

Catching up...

This weekend was the first time in a month that we've had electric for 24 hours.... there's been a problem with the transformer here in town and we've been averaging about 6 hours a day. But praise God all seems to be fixed now.

We had all the kids over for the afternoon a couple of weeks ago, they got to bounce on the trampoline, raid our guava trees, play with toys, just have fun. It was also a goodbye to ther interns as they left on the 19th, we were sad to see them go, but really thank God for all that they got accomplised.

Kids having fun jumping, me having fun hanging out with our babies

Kingsley and Jude

Baby Dorcas who just turned two... she is finally walking, PTL!!

Climbing our Guava tree (they are great climbers)

Jake dishing out hot sauce during dinner (they love it!)

Baby Bena eating birthday cake, we celebrated Joel's birthday as well

Saying goodbye to Jenee and Shanel, last group photo with them

We have been really blessed lately at the home. People have been coming and dropping food off. One person brought a 50Kg bag of rice, our church brought another 50Kg of rice, oil, biscuits, and then we just had a neighbour bring by 3 huge boxes of sugar. It is awesome to see Cameroonians helping Cameroonians!

Feeling lazy....

Hey all, I know, I haven't posted in a while but I do have an excuse.... for those of you who haven't heard I'm pregnant (yet again :-). We are super excited and our little bundle of joy should be here around June 1st. But now I do remember why I don't enjoy being pregnant, I've been feeling nauseous for the last month, absolutely no energy, feeling very lazy. It was exactly the same when I was pregnant with Josh and Seth, where as with Jude I had hardly any morning sickness and was mixing cement about this far along :-). Anyway... this week has been a lot better and I even got out in my garden for an hour or so this morning, something I haven't done for a few weeks. So I think my body is adjusting. So now we have to find somewhere to have the baby, we're leaning towards the Catholic hospital here in town, it is very nice and clean and they have some spanish doctors... but we'll see, please keep it all in your prayers.

School Uniforms

Finally all of the children's uniforms are made. Pa is a retired tailor for the Nigerian Army and sowed all the unifroms, a huge blessing that saved us a lot of money. The kids were so excited to all head to school with their new clothes, backpacks, and shoes. This week I went down to the second hand market to get their black shoes that they needed for school, it defiantly improved my bartering skill, praise God we got some great deals. Also was able to get them some of their text books for school, we'll continue to get more as funds come in. You have to pay for School here and they don't even provide any books, no wonder it is such a struggle for people to send their kids to school.

T-shirts, get your t-shirts!!

Our co-workers, the Born family, headed back to the States this month till December for a bit of deputation. Jake designed some great t-shirts for them to sell when they speak at different churches. 100% of sales goes to the orphanage. We took hand prints from kids at the Home to put on the back. They cost $20 dollars and are in three color, gray, beige, and dark brown. If you interested in one, email me and I'll try to work out a way for one to get to you.

This is me doing my best "catalogue" pose :0)


.... and on the back, the kid's hand prints

Lots of rain!

Our flooded front yard

Jake going to save the chickens!

Rainy season is starting to come to an end, which means it's not rainy all day long but when it does rain, it is in a huge turrent, it feels a bit like being in a hurricane. The other day the wind started blowing and the rain fell so hard. After about 20 mins the road in front of our house filled up and water started pouring into our yard, pushing our gates open and rushing in (this doesn't happen very often, only a few times before). After this kept up for 10 minutes we go worried about our chickens, who aren't the smartest chickens in the world, they like to stay out in the rain for some reason. So me and Jake waded out to them and sure enough they were up to their chest in rushing water. So I had the fun of chasing them around the coop and handing them to Jake to put up on their nesting boxes to stay dry, quiet the adventure let me tell you! We were both total drenched afterwards..... we need to build our driveway up some more so this doesn't keep happening... The water level comes pretty close to our front door too.

Also, Bible class is going great at the Children's Home, we have it on Tuesday and Fridays. We had 34 children last week, the most so far, we are starting to get a lot more neighborhood kids which is awesome. We just got new benches made, just in time as kids were starting to sit on the concrete floor.

Great News on Dorcas!

We took Dorcas to the clinic yesterday. She had some very nasty stuff coming out of her ear and she has rashes on her body. We also thought it would be a good chance to get her tested for HIV (both her parents died of AIDS). We praise God that the the results came back negative, such a huge blessing! God is so extremly faithful.

So as always it was a long morning, hospitals are never simple here. Here is how the morning went.

1. Got in line to see the receptionist,

2. Went to cashier to pay to register at the clinic,

3. Stood in line to see the one doctor on duty. There was at least 50 people waiting, praise God we got in pretty quick as I know some people there... (it's not what you know... :-)

4. Back to cashier to pay for the tests,

5. Go to see chaplain because it is the policy at the Baptist clinic to send anyone there that has an HIV test (even a two year old).

6. Stood in line at the lab, Dorcas got her blood taken, then we waited outside for the results of white blood count in the sea of people.

7. When back to chaplain again have the AIDS test done there. We praise God that it came back negative!

8. Back to the doctor's office who said that Dorcas has an ear infection and she believes the rash is from malnutrition. She prescribed antibiotics, pain reliever, and some Soybean based cereal,

9. For the third time, go to the cashier to pay for prescriptions

10 Go to the pharmacy hand the book in and waited for them to give the prescription, (about another 40 mins).

All together about an 3 hour ordeal but we came out rejoicing for the good news of Dorcas. She has really changed in the past few weeks, she's gained about 3 pounds, starting to crawl with her feet on the ground, and saying quite a few words. She is just such a happy baby now.

I did find out some interesting HIV information, that 1 out of every 4 babies will contract HIV if their mother is infected, and 1 out of every 8 babies will contract the disease if their infected mother is taking preventive medicine.

Not sure how well you can see this but this is mural that Jenee and Shanel have been working on at the Children's Home. It is just about done and looks amazing. It has Mark 10:14 written on the side, "Let the little Children...." And yes, Jesus is black :-). You should be able to click on it to see it a bit bigger.

Ok, and one last pic of Josh with Dereck and Kingsley. Jake took it today before Bible class, they were all playing out in the grass.

Some pics of the boys

Jude catching a ride from Joseph

Seth catching a ride from Norbert

Josh getting some air on our trampoline

Interesting Photo

We went for a walk a few weeks back in the beautiful, rolling hills of Bamenda. Look what we found in a puddle on the rocky path, very cool!

Then here's the picture of us at the waterfall, as promised. This was our very rainy hike, but so beautiful non the less!

New Kid's Profile

This is Dereck, a lovely, very smiley boy. He came to us with a wound on his head (you can still see it) that his relatives told us came from a stone (that's all the info we got). He has settled right in despite the fact he hardly speaks a word of English.

This is beautiful Aruna. He is our only child that still has his mother alive. As a rule we don't except children with a parent still alive but in Aruna's case we made an exception. He comes from a Muslim family, his father had two wives. He father died and so did his step mum, leaving his mother with all of the children, needless to say it was a real struggle for her. Recently she converted to Christianity and has been completely ostracized from the family, receiving absolutely no help. It has been very difficult for all of them. Join us in prayer that she will continue to stay strong in the faith despite all of the persecution she is facing. 

This is Joel, who's parents died when, he was very little. He lived with his uncle, who has struggled to look after him. His English is very good and he is doing great at school, a very smart boy!

This is Sakina, she is of royal blood. Her uncle is the chief of her village. Her parents died a few years back and she has been living with an aunty. The family already has so many other children to look after, it's been very difficult for them to provide for Sakina. She also doesn't speak a word of English and has never been to school before. Godwill, who we first thought was her brother, we have now found out is her second cousin. 

 This is Noel, Meranda's brother, he is very sweet and speaks no English. He loves to play football (soccer for all you Americans) and is fitting in with the other boys really well.

This is Tahirih, she is such a lovely girl. Both her parents died when she was young. The second she came into the home she was already friends with everyone and is right at home already. She is also doing very well at school.

All these Children still need sponsors!