Not sure if I will get a chance to blog again before we leave so I'm just going to put that last month in one huge blog. Make sure you've got a few minutes spare before you sit down to read this one!
So, it has been a frustrating month electronically, thus I haven't posted any blogs. So let me complain for just a few minutes and then we're get to the good stuff :D. Our internet line went down so we were out of the web for over a week, which is hard when I am doing last minute confirmations with family and friends in England, etc. Then our printer went out, not good either when we have all our e-tickets to print out and itineraries, plus a bunch of reports and schedules for the children's church. Then our computer hard drive crashed (serves us right for always bragging about Macs to everyone we meet :D). We managed to find another hard drive in town but seems that the laptop still has issues. We were able to rescue just about everything after a week of Jake spending ALL day on it. These last few weeks were set aside to get our presentation ready and for Jake to prepare his messages for while we're back. It was really frustrating to be spending so much time on this. In the end we have given up and are going to show an older presentation while in England. Then when we get to the States, we'll get another Mac and make a new presentation. So praise the Lord we did managed to get it all sorted out in the end. Internet is back up and we can do basic things on the laptop. Ok, enough whinning!
So what else has been going on this month? We have two volunteers here right now; Erin who is staying with the Borns for 3 months, and Megan, who is saying with us for a month (she flies out a day before us). It has been a lot of fun to have them around plus to have some extra hands to help with the workload. It's wonderful to see young people giving up their time, money, etc. to come and be a blessing as well as get blessed. We have been trying to do fun things with them on the weekends so we have been doing lots of hiking this month.
Megan, myself, and Erin
One way to get your cow to market
Well worth the two hour hike!
Cameroon, the beautiful!
I've been spending a lot of time in the kitchen with the girls. Here I'm teaching them how to make mozzarella cheese. We also made yogurt, granola, ice cream, and sorbet this same afternoon :D
Erin and Megan and been adding another mural to the HHCH wall, they did an amazing job!
Delanee, our last intern, did the first one.... we still have 4 wall spaces left for future, artsy, volunteers (any takers?)
We also received 3 new girls into the orphanage this month; Nkeh, Mali (identical twins), and little Gamboh. Gamboh had a tough time the first week as she was very sad and withdrawn. But now she is "one of the kids" running around everywhere, giving big hugs and full of smiles. It is wonderful to see how quickly these children adapt to their new lives at the Children's Home. At kids' club on Monday both of the older girls were answering questions!
Some kids in the village that the 3 sisters came from
Random picture of Nestor and Kinsgley and the kittens at HHCH (we currently have 4 there)
And then we have a HUGE praise. As some of you may know, we have been looking for an RV for while we're on our 3 month plus road trip around the States. A lot of people can't host a family of 6, plus it will save us money from not having to stay at motels and eating out all the time. It will also give the kids (and us) a bit of a home away from home, we won't quite be living out of a suitcase for 3 months, which is incredibly difficult by the way. Since no one had one available to lend us, we decided that we would buy one and then planned to resell it when we leave. We have been looking at some of craigslist and other sites, and my Dad has even gone and look at a few. Every time we went to put an offer down, it would already be sold. So we just have been hanging back, reminding ourselves that the Lord knows what He is doing. Then we came across the one below. It was very close to my folks so they went and checked it out. They didn't get to test drive it but they looked it over and said it had been well taken care off and seemed great. They were asking $5,500 for it. We wrote back and said test drive it, and offer them $4,500 (we have sold our vehicle here and will be buying one at the end of our furlough to ship back here). So my dad went to test drive it but it wasn't running very well, didn't seem to be getting enough power. They lady said she didn't know why, and that it run perfectly before. My dad advised us to not to go for it. We kinda had our hopes up but decided to not get down about it. A fews day back, my dad wrote and said he had heard from them again. The husband had found the problem, it was the fuel pump or something, but it is all fixed now. The wife mentioned that why they were fixing it she told her husband that maybe God was trying to tell them something (my parents had explained about us to them) and that she felt she should help us out. She said that if we wanted to pay $1000 to cover the cost they had recently put into it, then we could take it! My Dad went and test drove it again and it is running great. Also our Ministry, WON, said that they would really like it for the ministry, so when other missionaries come back, they can use it also. So instead of reselling it, the ministry will pay half and keep it at the end (we'll have it for future furloughs!). So at the end of the day it will be $500 (plus tax, title, and license) out of our pockets. It is amazing how the Lord uses people to be such a blessing, they are complete strangers, yet the Lord has been working in their hearts about us. The Lord's arm is certainly not too short! So we are getting SUPER excited about our road trip now, it is going to be a lot of fun.
We are leaving Bamenda on Monday to go to the capital, Douala, then we fly out on Tuesday morning to England via Ethiopia. It is hard to believe that we have less than a week here. Friday evening will be our last Missionary bible study, so will be saying goodbye to all of our good friends there. On Saturday all the church leadership is coming over for a farewell afternoon (our last authentic Cameroonian food!). Jake is preaching at church on Sunday, then they will pray for us, it will be sad to say goodbye to everyone. Then Sunday evening we are having dinner at the Children's Home to spend our last evening with the kid. It is going to be really hard to say good-bye to all of them! So our weekend is full of goodbyes, which is never easy, so please keep us in your prayers. Seth especially is having a hard time with it. We said goodbye to Comfort, the lady that helps me in the kitchen, a couple of days ago and Seth had a little melt down. He is really going to miss everyone so much, especially at HHCH. He had a sleepover there last night so that was good for him. Anyway, my next post will be from my lovely home country of England (provided we can get on the web there).
