Loving Bamenda

Really enjoying Bamenda, it's been so cool and raining a lot, very different than Yaounde. We've been busy cleaning up the yard, chopping down lots of plaintain trees and other overgrown bushes. We have an enourmous avocado tree in the garden that has the best tasting avocados ever, we have been eating tons of them. We also have a bunch of guava trees that have real tasty fruit too. The boys just love our big yard and have been playing outside all the time. Couple of pictures of them below having a good time.

Back tracking

OK, let me catch you up with what's been going on the last few weeks. We had our last Sunday at our church in Yaounde on the 1st of June. It was Jude's baby dedication plus our sending off. It was a lovely time as the pastor blessed Jude and the elders prayed for our family. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but I have to remind myself that we aren't that far away. The following week was an emotional one with lots of people having us over for meals, and many people visiting, such as the youth, women's group, and all the childrens workers from church. The last night we were in our house, we had no furniture as it was all packed in the moving truck, some close friends came over who are actually from Bamenda and we sat up late (on the floor) laughing and telling stories. I know that God will bless us with great friends here too but Ill sure miss all our buddies in Yaounde.

We made it!

Praise the Lord we're finally in Bamenda (and on the Net!). We've been here just over a week now and loving it. It was a long 6 hour drive up here with 3 boys, 3 dogs and a cat all in our truck but we survived! This last week we've been busy cleaning house, painting, unpacking boxes, setting up the school room, cleaning up the yard and garden, plus a million other little things, so it's been a little hectic to say the least. But we're starting to feel settled in now and at least have our kitchen all put together. We've got a great internet connection so we'll be able to keep up on our website a lot better than in Yaounde. I will be trying to blog at least every other day, I have soooo much news to catch up on. But for now I am going to reply to all the emails that have been piling up... but had to put one picture of Jude up, this was taken 2 weeks ago so he has changed a lot since then even. He is loving Bamenda and has been sleeping so much better here, I think it is the cooler weather.

Amazing Grace

Borrowed a great movie from a missionary friend, Amazing Grace. It was about William Wilberforce and all that he did to abolish slavery in the British Empire, I absolutely loved it! So well done and very powerful. You should try to see it if you haven't already. I've read his biography before and he really was a mighty man of God. Also loved all the beautiful countryside of England in the film, made me a little homesick. On special features it had Chris Tomlin's (one of my favourites) music video singing Amazing Grace. He wrote a bridge to it, I've had the words going in my head all this week, they're just soooooooo good:

My chains are gone, I've been set free.

My God, my Saviour, has ransom me.

And like a flood, His mercies reign,

Unending love, Amazing Grace

 

 

 

 

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Crazy night!

OK, had the craziest night last night. About midnight Jake woke up and said that a rat had bit him and climbed on the closet. Now Jake talks a lot in his sleep and only two nights ago he woke up saying that someone was on our roof and was trying to get in, proceeding to then run out of the room with the flash light (of course he'd been dreaming). So when he told me about the rat I told him to go back to sleep. He said that he finger still hurt and I told him (if I remember correctly) that he was insane (very lovingly of course :). Anyway he turned the flash light on, and there on top of the closest was the most enormous rat! Aaaaaahhhhh, usually rodents don't bother me but the thing was humongous and I couldn't get rid of the nagging thought that he had just been in bed with us!

 

Jake ran to get Lassie, our trusty cat. She's usually a great catcher (usually being the key work), but when Jake threw her on top of the closet, she took one look at the rat and jumped off. Fortunately this scared the rat enough too also jump off the closet, straight at Jake, who dropped the flashlight and did a little scream (as did I still sitting in bed). The whole time I telling Jake not to be so loud because the baby's crib is in our room. Now we have no idea where the rat is, we tried to get Lassie back in the room but she wouldn't have any such thing. After searching all over, Jake finally found the critter on top of the water heater in our bathroom. Jake got a broom and rug beater and handed me a shoe and told me to stand guard at the doorway (we have no door there). So Jake gives it a big poke with the pole and of course it runs straight for the door, so I start banging the floor with the shoe just to keep it away from me, screaming the whole time of course, Jake is up on the bath trying to whack it with the rug beater shouting at me to get it. About the 20th time he finally hits it and smashes it till he breaks the rug beater and bloodies his knuckles he hit on the washing machine. But it is finally dead! By now we were laughing so hard we can hardly take a breath, what a night! And I'm not ashamed to say that we slept with the bathroom light on as we were both a bit freaked out :). And praise God, Jude slept through it all!

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Get trade secrets for amazing burgers. Watch "Cooking with Tyler Florence" on AOL Food.

Internet down

Well, our Internet has been down for over three weeks now, ahhhhhh!!! So we have to use our cell phone for which is super slow and super expensive, so I can't upload any photos right now even though I have lots of good new ones.

 

Anyway, we were up in Bamenda last weekend to paint our new house and do a bunch of cleaning up in the yard. Had a lot of fun and worked from dawn to dusk as we only had 3 fulls days up there. The boys loved it and played out side all the time, running around and getting filthy. Praise God the house already had a hot water heater so we could take warm showers. The boys found a bunch of giant snails in the garden (6" shell) who our Cameroonian friend told us we should eat. We hid them under some leaves before leaving to keep them out of harms way :-).

 

It was two weeks yesterday that we make the final move. I taught for the last time in our children's church today. And next Sunday Jake is preaching and they will have a "Sending Off" for us and also little Jude will get dedicated. Anyway, doesn't look like we will have Internet before we leave but will try to do a few more blog entries before then even though we will only packing, packing, packing!

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Get trade secrets for amazing burgers. Watch "Cooking with Tyler Florence" on AOL Food.

Say Cheese!

We got Jude's passport picture taken yesterday.... this was like the 30th one they took. It's extremely hard to get a 2 month old to look straight at the camera, holding his head up so both ears are showing. But with a very patient photographer we finally got, good job he had a digital camera!

Then we went and handed all the paperwork in at the US embassy, I'd heard from a friend that it's a complicated process but it was actually super easy and quick sitting in the coldest air conditioned office I've been in for a long time, so nice! They also had a diaper changing table in the bathroom, a diaper changing table!! I almost bowed down and worshiped it (just kidding!). Usually when we're out I change his diaper in our truck, which isn't easy as our truck has a very "slop-y" backseat. So even though he wasn't really wet I changed his diaper at the embassy anyway. Amazing how the things I used to take for granted mean so much now.

Helping Hand

OK, I think it's time for Seth to get some bigger socks! After football (soccer) practice it took him about 10 minutes to get them off even with big brother's help.

Our little warriour

FES wrapped up last week, the kids had the chance to dress up medievally (if that's a word). Had fun making Josh's crusader costume, he took it all very seriously as you can see from the photo :). All the kids got to school early that day and it was like a mini battle ground as pretty much all the boys were dressed as some kind of knight with some kind of weapon, they had a blast. So grateful that Josh gets to participate in this, he really enjoys it. Seth will be old enough to be there next year.

Praise Report!

Here's the most wonderful picture on my whole blog, my oldest brother getting baptised!! I have prayed for Dan to become a Christian every day since I as 6. He gave his life to Christ about a year ago but just recently really started living for Jesus, he even looks different! Dan has found a great church in the south of England and got baptised there this past Sunday. For all of you who are praying for family members to be saved, don't give up, we serve such a faithful God! Love you Dan!!!