More Critters!

We'd just got into bed last night when we heard our dogs going nuts outside... I thought they were trying to get out of our gate as there was lots of banging going on. So we went to investigate with our handy maglite and found this huge rodent dead in our driveway, aka Bush Rat (they actually sell these on the side of the road for meat). Anyway I guess our dogs had managed to catch and kill it. Kinda freaking that huge thing was running around in our yard!

Jude turns one!

Our little boy turned one this past Friday. He's walking now and just the cutest little thing tottering around everywhere. Now I can take him out in the garden with me when I'm working out there and he has a great little time exploring the back yard. I made him a cake and had plans to make a great design, but the dog we're looking after, snuck into the kitchen and ate half of it as it was cooling! Ahhh! So made another one the next day but didn't have much time to decorate.

Seth made Jude a very sweet card, it says "I Luf you Jude," how cute is that! Not bad for a kindergartener :)

God working in Africa

I friend sent me a really cool article on missionaries in Africa, here is a bit of it, you can read it all at:
www.blancocountynews.com/news/article/10997


World magazine reported recently on an unexpected comment by English columnist Matthew Parris about desperate conditions in Africa and what he saw as the solution to them. Parris was raised in Malawi, from which he had just returned, and undoubtedly surprised his London Times Online opinion page readers with the following title of his report: “As an atheist, I am truly convinced that Africa needs God.”

This atheist has observed that something very special has happened to Africans who have responded to the words of missionaries. Those who have heard and heeded their message of faith are changed from within. A transformation has taken place that has produced new life. He has seen this approach to Africa’s problems break old bondages and bring hope to those who believe. No wonder he pleads for more missionaries rather than more money!

I thought it was really interesting that even an atheist can see that Africa needs God! And it sure does, everywhere does for that matter.

To change gears a bit, we had an interview with a potential "Ma and Pa" for the orphanage today. It went really well and looks promising. Both parties are praying and seeking the Lord and we'll go from there. Please keep it in your prayers, as this us a huge responsibility and we want it to be a ministry for the couple, not a job.

Devotion

When we were back in the States our church there asked us to write a message for the devotional they put out at the start of each year. My topic was Africa (very appropriate) and it was for today. You can check it out on their website if your interested.

www.eastcoastdevo.com/2009/02/10/day-31-africa/

Our little preacher!

I got to share at the Crusade as the Speaker (Chris Schneider) was preaching a message geared to children as well as adults. We got there early and made balloon animals and hats to get the kids to come in and of course that worked like a charm. Once the crusade got under way, Chris called all the children forward to hear a special message. We sang a song and then shared the "wordless Book" with them through colored balloons. They were all very excited and payed close attention.



Josh also got to share his testimony, we were VERY proud of him! We talked about it at home and I asked him to just tell how he asked Jesus into his heart and if there was anything else he wanted to share. He chose the Story of Joshua and how we must have faith and trust in God too and then quoted John 3:16. When he finished everyone cheered and clapped, very cool! There was at least 450 people at the crusade. We're hoping to get a video of it up on the web soon. Anyway at the end of the night many came forward for salvation (100+) and lots of them were kids, praise God. Also got to pray for many people at the end for things such as barrenness to doing well in school.

Not a very clear picture but you can kinda see the size of the crusade

Well, the car wash has been open four days and is going great! The first day was a little slow but things have certainly picked up since then, PTL! Lots of cars have been coming, people are amazed at the pressure washer, and all the boys have been working hard. Jake's been down there everyday just to keep an eye on things for the first week so he's been gone all day. But we are really excited that it's going so well.

Bread For Life has a team here in Bamenda right now, the same one that comes each January to do free medical outreaches and crusades. It's good to see some familiar faces and new ones too (a total of 30 in all!). We have 6 of them staying at our house for the week, it's nice to have some "American Fellowship" as well as enjoy some of the goodies they bought with them ie. nuts, M&Ms, Hersey's chocolate (not so good for my new year resolution's diet :).

They've had large amounts of people coming for the medical outreaches and the crusades have been packed with many people getting saved each night. I was asked to sing there two nights ago with another team member, so that was fun. I also got to teach on the importance of Children's ministy at the pastor's conference yesterday. It went incrediably well and had many invites to come speak at different churches to share with their children workers. So that's always encouraging. Also got to share with them about WON and our vision for orphans. I had at least 4 people come up telling me that they knew of orphans that needed somewhere to go. So we took their contact info and once we are up and running we will get back with them.

Working at the Car Wash!

Praise God we got the water installed today at the car wash, so all systems are go!. We'll have the grand opening next Monday... next week will be a time of training the wash boys and manager as well as promoting it. Check out the new pictures on our website's front page of how much the place has changed since they started. I've been busy painting the sign boards for the place, one for prices, and two for signs on the road and building.

Cameroon Orphanage Work Team

If you go to the home page of our website you'll see a button to click to see the brochure for the April team that will be coming here to work on the orphanage. By that time, we'll have kids at the Children's home but there will still be plenty to do. There is 12 places, I believe that 6 are already booked so if you interested you should call the number soon. It is open to everyone and we always have a lot of fun. Think, pray about it, maybe God is calling YOU to come on a missions trip :)

West African Critters...

So when we were traveling the other day I got to see something very cool that I've been wanting to see for a long time. Here, at the little road tolls there's lots of vendors selling everything from coconuts to meat on a stick. One guy had a bunch of frogs, and not just any frogs, Goliath Frogs! (the largest frog in the world). I'd heard about them before and have always wanted to see one so was really excited I finally did. Poor things were still alive hanging on a string, not knowing their fate of landing up in the stew pot (or maybe they did). I didn't manage to get a picture of them, the one below is from the web, the ones I saw weren't quite this big...

... maybe about two thirds of this. If you google them you can see even bigger ones this! Kinda freaky!

BTW, one of our favourite car games for long distances is where each of us choose an animal that we think we will see for sale the most on the side of the road. Bush Rat is usually the winner with monkey or Diki deer coming in at a close second. Snakes, crocodiles, huge lizards, and pangolins are not uncommon either.

Happy New Year!

Jude ate a LOT of sand!

What it's all about, relaxing!

Jude taking his nightly bath :)

Waterfall we stopped at on the way home

Happy New Year, or Happy, Happy! as they say in Pidgin here. Had a great time at the beach. There was about 10 missionary families there, out in the middle of nowhere. We shared a site with our great friends the Youngs (he is a pilot for Wycliff out here). They have kids our boy's age. And of course we took our dog Strider too so it was a pretty packed car for the seven hour plus drive down there... but well worth it.

I got to go snorkeling for the first time, Jake went last year but since I was pregnant I didn't want to risk bashing into any rocks. It was soooooo amazing, saw hundreds of amazing fish. About a hundred meters out into the ocean, there's sort of like a rock wall that all the fish hide behind, fish of all shapes and sizes, they're very tropical looking. I even saw a eel (not to big) peaking it's head out at me from a hole... which I quickly swam over. It was just like another world under there, God's creation is so marvelous. It was such a blast and can't wait to do it again next year. Also our friend caught a huge barracuda that we had for supper one night, scrumptious! The boys had fun swimming, building sandcastle and playing battleships of all things (their now favorite game).

For new's year night a bunch of us got together and played Scum till midnite. Then we lit a big fire... and went to bed :)

We got back on Friday and have busy ever since. The car wash should be open in the next week or two. We've paid for the water meter to be put in but they haven't done it yet... I think they're waiting for a "gift" which we won't give of course. Just pray that it all gets sorted out as it won't be much of a car wash with our water!