Meeting Cameroonians in Nashville (of all places!)

Mid-August we visited some close friends in Nashville, Tennessee. We first met Rachel in Cameroon many years ago and she still has real passion for the country. When she moved back to the states, she reached out to the Cameroonians in her area of Nashville. Interestingly enough there is around 60 Cameroonian families living in that region. Rachel set up a Helping Hands Children's Home fund raiser one night while we were there. Many Cameroonians came (even some from our home town of Bamenda), it was so awesome to hang out with them. It's amazing how the African culture has such a hold on me, I felt right a home with them, speaking French and pidgin English, talking about places that we have all been too, complaining about how much we all miss good roasted fish (with the head on off course), and just feeling so at ease. I must admit I was a little nervous to start off with, I didn't want any Cameroonians to feel like we were "exposing" their county with some of the pictures of extreme poverty in their country that we showed. But on the contrary, everyone was so encouraging and thanking us for the work that we do in their country (I had a few tears in my eyes that night!). 

One of the coolest testimonies of the night is that there was a Cameroonian man there, a professor of mathematics. He is from a tiny little village in our province where we have quite a few children in our orphanage from. In fact he is related to the pastor that helps us a lot in that area and Jake has stayed in his house while in that village! Of course this opened the door for a great conversation and friendship. We are hoping to see him when he comes to Cameroon next time (as well as many others). 

Professor Samuel and his beautiful wife

Jake also got to meet a friend he hadn't see since high school. I posted about the fundraiser event on Facebook, and come to found out, she and her family lived close by Tennessee (and who said Facebook was useless!). It was neat to meet her and her family.

We praise the Lord that the fundraiser night was a great success and over $3000 was raised. This is all going towards a much needed 30-seater bus for the orphanage ($12,000 total needed). Also many new contacts were made, we always get excited when we see Cameroonians helping Cameroonians! We appreciate all the hard work that Rachel and her family put into the event, to get the word out about the orphanage and the needs it has. 

One Cameroonian family invited us for dinner one night. They made cassava and ndole (a traditional meal), which we have really been missing, it was soooo good! It was cool to see that they still decorate in typical Cameroonian style and had the TV blaring away while eating (you have to live in Africa to understand). It was just the Cameroonian fix that we needed! 

Some of our new Cameroonian friends

Presentation table

Jake sharing

Jamestown, Virginia

Getting behind on my blog! I have so much to share; we have seen so many amazing things and have been blessed in so many ways but just haven't had time to get on the computer and collect my thoughts. It hasn't been the kind of busy where our time has been filled with lots of events (well, a little bit) but busy with spending quality time with family and friends, being an encouragement and getting encouraged! I just don't want to waste a moment with them all. Anyway, I have a few extra minutes tonight and already had the below post mostly finished a couple of weeks ago, so decided I had better finish it up. So here is a post of what we were doing on the first week of August. 

We headed to Williamsburg to visit our good Cameroonian missionary friends (the Conrod Family) who are also on furlough in the States pretty much the exact same time as us. They minister to the Baka (Pygmy) tribe in the rain forest in the East of Cameroon. They are what I call "real missionaries" as they live in the middle of nowhere, have no electricity except what they get from solar panels, pump their water up from a spring, those around them speak no English and have had very little exposure to the Gospel. We admire the difficult and challenging work that they do to advance the kingdom of God in that area of Cameroon. We go to the same missionary homeschooling co-op and we've visited them a few times out in the East, and are proud to call them our friends. So since we really weren't far away from where they are staying in Virginia, we decided it would be great fun to hang out for a few days. It is always great to meet people in the West that you've only know from Cameroon... we don't have the big invisible sign of foreigner/missionary over our heads and we are just inconspicuous, kinda fun!

We spent the time at Williamsburg in their parent's time share. We slept in a beautiful apartment with a swimming pool, gym, sauna, game room, mini golf, and tennis court all at our disposal; we felt very spoiled! We also got to go spend a day walking around Jamestown Settlement. It was so awesome for the boys as they have both studied it in school recently and it really brought everything to life for them. Here are some photos of our time there:

The Powhatan village

I loved that the kids could touch and feel everything there!

They got a chance to scrap the fur off of a deer hide

A canoe that they are burning out and will actually use

Jordan playing some sort of Indian darts

Josh in the hull of a ship

My little soldier man

They boys got to see how a real matchlock gun worked (Seth read a book in school about it last year)

Jude was very interested!

Looks a lot like England

Seth and his buddy Asher. It was really nice for them to hang out with some kids that they already know.

Family devos with the Conrods. Fun to sing French, English and Baka songs. 

On the way to Williamsburg one of the back tires of the RV blew out. It sounded like a shot gun, made my heart stop for a few seconds! Since the the RV is a duelly we crept off the interstate, and there was a gas station right there that had a shop attached to it. They had the spare on in less than 15 minutes. They told us the back tires were old and needed to be replaced. We headed to Firestone where we decieded to get 4 new ones for the back as they said the tires were at least 10 years old. We praise the Lord for His continued protection! Other than that, RVing is going awesome.

Rocky Gap, Virginia

Last weekend we headed up right to the West Virginia boarder to the tiny town of Rocky Gap. Some friends have a family cabin there, their Grandfather built it in 1949 as a sort of retreat place as he was a pastor. Nowadays the family uses it for get-togethers and churches uses it for baptisms. It is in the middle of nowhere, next to a bubbling river in the Appalachians mountains, absolutely beautiful! The family offered it to us as as a time of retreat, so we took them up on their offer! We spent two very relaxing days there. There was no cellphone reception, internet, we just got away from it all and spent some quality time with the kiddos. 

A real log cabin!

Hunting for crawdads

Got one!

Tubing on the river

Jordan enjoyed having her freedom back after being cooped up in the RV for the last few days

Could she get any cuter??

They boy's favourite, the rope swing

My little explorer

It had an awesome play area

The boys caught twin fish at the exact same time!

Dinner!

Well, there was a little work; cleaning the fish

They were delicious!!

We appreciate the wonderful people that the Lord puts in our lives that bless us so tremendously.

Shelby, North Carolina

Last Wednesday we had the privilege to share at a church in Shelby, North Carolina. There is a wonderful family there that we had never meet before but had just communicated through letters and emails for the past few years. It was so great to finally meet them! It is wonderful how the Lord puts sisters and brothers in your way that bless and encourage you. We had a lovely evening together (with great food!) and really connected. They have two wonderful little boys (and another baby on the way) and our kids all got on really well. We are hoping we might see them come and visit Cameroon one day. The church was also extremely welcoming and very interested in what the the Lord is doing in Cameroon.

Kids enjoying dinner together

Presentation Table

Jordan with her new buddy

Jake and I answering questions at the end

Josh and Seth singing their Africa song (they did soooo well!)

The lovely Osborne Family (Jordan really wanted to be in the picture!)

JAARS

On Tuesday we went and spent the night with our good friends, the Schmidts. They used to be missionaries in Cameroon with Wycliffe. When we first arrived in Africa, the took us under their wing and showed us the ropes. They introduce us to other missionaries in towns, had us over for dinner a lot, and shared with us a lot about the Cameroonian culture. We also both helped with the same church plant. The thing that struck me the most about them was that they never uttered one negative syllable about Cameroon or her people (pretty impressive). Their love for the country was obvious and they even adopted two Cameroonian children (a long, painstaking ordeal!). After we had been in Cameroon about two years they had to move back to the States, as both of their parents weren’t doing well health wise. They are still serving with Wycliffe at the JAARS center in Waxhaw, NC. 

It was so good to reminisce about Cameroon with them and see their kids (that are all grown up now). We went for a tour of JAARS which I enjoyed immensely. We have lots of friends in Cameroon that work for them. They are an awesome ministry that serves Wycliffe by providing planes, pilots, and mechanics. This allows Bible translation (and a myriad of other things) to continue on smoothly. Cameroon has over 250 languages so there is a big need for it!

 

We went to their Alphabet museum there. It showed us how we got our letters today and all the different alphabets of the world, extremely interesting!

Seth's name in hierogylphics 

Gutenburg press (a replica at least)

We went to the hanger and saw different airplanes they are fixing up to send overseas.

A wheel that Indians in South America made to get a plane back up in the sky.