There seems to be continued “relative” peace in the capital, and all our friends who were with us, mostly over Christmas and New Year’s (we had a total of 58 people at our mission station one night) have either returned to their homes or moved on to a different place of ministry. Some decided to leave for their time in the states and Europe a bit earlier than expected, and then one family is helping out at the Cov./Free Church hostel at the high school in Yaounde, while the regular dorm parents, Dan & Karen Carlson, deal with Dan’s mom’s serious illness. Please pray for their family as they walk this road together. One family in particular, though, hung around a bit longer than the others. Paul, Jo, Robert, & Karys Murrell, and their home school teacher, Sarah.
The gorilla has been temporarily adopted by the Turk family, waiting for legal documents so that the Turks can take her to the nearest primate center, in Cameroon. The Murrells are bible translators with Wycliffe and they are Brits. They hooked us up with, yes, Downton Abbey, and a few other wonderfully British shows on the DVDs they brought along with them. They hung around longer than the rest, and we were sad to see them go.
Many of our guests were so very willing to help out, however they could, whether it was sorting through container items or combining school projects with Timothé Turk or helping to clean up the hospital laundry room. Hey, wait, maybe all that work chased them away???
We are thankful that we had room for all who needed to stay, and thankful now for the peace that has enabled most of them to go back to their ministries.