Has it seriously been a month since we last posted a story to the blog?!  What has been going on?  January was a busy month – my (Janet) days have been completely filled up helping with new missionary orientation.  And besides that, our internet has been terrible!  To make a long story short, we switched to a different company and are rejoicing at (relatively) high speed, reliable internet access.  Praise God for such great means of communication, and may we have patience when they don’t work as well as we anticipate.

For January praise God with us that:

1. Second semester is off to a good start.

2.  Since January 9 Janet has been helping to orient Wycliffe missionaries who’ve recently arrived in Cameroon. One of my responsibilities was to orient children for a couple of days – that was very fun, including drum lessons and Cameroonian etiquette.  Orientation continues to Feb. 10.

3. Covenant World Relief director, Dave Husby and 3 others came through Yaoundé to visit Central African Republic. Praise God their travels went smoothly.

4. Safe and secure travel for others coming back to Cameroon and CAR after furloughs, and for travel back from villages of service to school. 

For February Pray with us for:

1.  TEACHERS!!!!!  Next year will be Michelle’s Sr. year at RFIS.  We are short at least 15 teachers for Middle School and High School.  Many current teachers are either coming up to a furlough year or will complete their short term assignments.  Pray pray pray for new teachers to come.  I’ve heard a missionary say, “If no teachers come there will be a mass exodus of missionaries needing to get their kids into high schools in their passport countries” (mainly US and Europe).  For a complete list of staff needs go to www.rfis.org/staffneeds

2.  The bridge on the road to RFIS is in need of repair.  At least once a week trucks are getting stuck between the boards.  It’s not a huge bridge, but without it parents have to go a longer way through more traffic to get their students to and from school.  We are currently working with the local chief of that neighborhood toward a solution.  Pray that they don’t wait till it’s completely destroyed before starting the needed repairs.

3.  Orientation for new missionaries continues to Feb. 10.  This week the “orientees” are staying in a village to experience what life in the village is like.  Pray for good health – several of them are not feeling well – there is a lot of culture stress, especially for those with small children.  The final week of classes I will be leading a talk on prayer.

4.  Spiritual Retreat Feb. 6-9 for RFIS; Spiritual Emphasis Week for the elementary grades.  Pray that the Spirit of God will move in the lives of students.  Pray their hearts will be receptive to God’s message to them.  And pray for the speakers for each level: middle school, high school, and elementary.  Last year many of the non-missionary students accepted Christ as Savior and mission kids rededicated their lives to Christ.  Retreat week is a significant time in the lives of our students.

 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  Unlike Narnia where there was always winter and never Christmas, here in Cameroon we have Christmas every year but never winter snows.  We’re hot, dry, and sunny with harmattan dust dimming the bright sun.  Yet we rejoice in the birth of God’s son, whose brilliance is never dimmed

For December praise God with us for:

1.  Praise God the work has been going well on the new hostel –  floor was poured Dec. 22, walls going up the first of the new year.

2.  A safe trip for Covenant missionaries Paul & Sheryl Noren and Marta Klein who drove here from Congo via Central African Rep.  The trip went well.

3.  The dedication of the New Testament in the Noni language.  Praise God that He now speaks directly to the Noni people.  Praise too, for the ministry of RFIS (among other mission services) that made this possible, by taking care of the educational needs of the missionary translator family.

4.  A great vacation trip to the beach in Kribi, Cameroon Dec. 27 to Jan. 2.  So thankful for safe travels both ways.

For January pray with us for:

1.  A good break from school and work, then a strong start to the 2^nd semester January 15. 

2.  January 9 to February 10 Janet will be helping to orient new missionaries.  One of my responsibilities will be to work with children of new missionary families.  Pray for creative ideas, good communication and preparation in advance of a couple discussions I’m leading for adults.

3.  In January Covenant World Relief director, Dave Husby and 3 others are coming through Yaoundé to visit Central African Republic.  Pray for their travels and documentation.  They were not given multiple entry visas that were requested, so transit visas will be needed for their return trip Jan. 18.  Also pray for God’s purpose to be fulfilled in this trip.

4.  Safe and secure travel for others coming back to Cameroon and CAR after furloughs, and for travel back from villages of service to school.

May the Lord bless you in the New Year!

I love to take time at the end of the year to reflect.  Rain Forest International School (RFIS) has completed one full school year at the new site.  It’s been about a year and a half since moving.  Looking at photos from the past year or more, I was amazed to see how much has changed around RFIS.

Entrance to the School BEFORE and AFTER:

RFIS entrance - student drop off (January 2011)

RFIS as seen from student drop off (Aug 2010 - the first month of classes at the new site)

 

Front of auditorium and locker area BEFORE and AFTER:

Front of school buildings Aug 2010 on the first day of schoolFront of school building in October 2011 about a year later.

RFIS Basketball court (Aug. 2010)

Basketball court as it looks Dec. 2011

RFIS Prayer Chapel Garden just begun Feb. 2011

RFIS Prayer Chapel and Garden Dec. 2011 completed and in use.

It’s great to see the difference a year can make.  What is not as easy to photograph is the growth in the lives of our students and staff over the past year: cultural, social, emotional, educational, and spiritual.

Advent Wreath - 3rd Sunday in Advent

Advent is a special time in the Church calendar year.  In anticipation of celebrating Jesus’ birth at Christmas, I wanted to be sure that in our little International Church in Yaounde we lit the advent candles one Sunday a week in the 4 weeks before Christmas.  So, since the last Sunday in November, I’ve been making sure the advent wreath is set up, arranged for different families to do a reading and light the candle each week. 

For the 4th Sunday in advent – just last Sunday – I reminded our family that we need to be sure we arrived early enough to get it set up.  For once, we were all actually ready well ahead of time.  Traffic is pretty congested this time of year on our route from home to church, which meets in the Hilton Hotel downtown.  But we arrived in great time! 

And as we pulled into our parking spot I realized… I’d forgotten to bring the advent wreath!  Ah!  Kicking myself, I thought, “I knew this would happen some time.  NOW what am I going to do?!”  It’s not the end of the world to skip this portion of the service.  But it will feel so incomplete to light 3 candles and forget the 4th. 

So, as I was helping get our church supplies out of the little storage room in the deep recesses of the hotel where guests never go, I passed a counter where several pretty flower arrangements seemed discarded.  I asked a hotel employee, “Are these going to be used?  May I borrow one for just a couple hours?”  He replied that he didn’t care if we never brought the flowers back.

Ok, this will be nice, at least we’ll have a pretty flower arrangement on the front table.  Then as I looked closer, I saw the spongy block that the flowers were suck into, and thought candles could stick in there too.  So I asked the same very kind and helpful hotel employee if there were like 5 candles that I could use.  “Attendez deux minutes” he said, wait 2 minutes.  So I waited.  And soon he emerged from the recesses of the hotel where no guest goes with 5 nice white candles.  After arrangeing them in amongst the flowers, I asked one more thing of him — matches.  And there he came with a small box of Hilton Hotel matches.  And “voila!”  we had a very impromptu advent wreath.

Improvised advent "wreath"

God is good.  He cares even about the little details, like providing an advent wreath for the 4th Sunday — even covering for my absent mindedness.

The service included other last minute improvisation moments but we’re flexible and it all worked out to be a wonderful worshipful service with loads of music.

Worship singing with Judith on flute, Gabby on keyboard, Michelle on vocals, Hwan Soo on guitar and Josiah at the computer

Ebenezer.  What classic secular Christmas story does that make you think of?  Nope, not White Christmas or It’s a Wonderful Life.  A Christmas Carol by Dahl’s Chickens… no, I mean Charles Dickens.  Ebeneezer Scrooge is the main character, “bah humbug”.  But that’s not the Ebenezer I’m thinking of.

No, this Ebenezer is found in the Bible!  In 1 Samuel 7:12 we read:  ^“Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, ‘Thus far has the LORD helped us.’”  The footnotes say that “Ebenezer” means ‘stone of help’.

So at RFIS, in the prayer garden, we have also piled up some rocks.  And we had the students write a name on each one.  These are the names of people groups that now have the New Testament or portions of Scripture translated into their heart language.  

Each of these rocks represent around 20 years of linguistic and translation work.  The translation work for many of the languages on these rocks in the prayer garden have been done by or with consultation from parents of (former and current) RFIS students.  If not for RFIS taking care of the educational needs of their children, many of these languages might still be waiting for God’s word.

I just discovered something researching “Ebenezer” in the Bible.  In context, Samuel raised the rock to remind them that the Lord was their help when the people of Israel chose to turn away from foreign false gods and relied uniquely on God to save them from a battle against the Philistines.  And as the people of the language groups on these rocks now have God’s word, they can now turn away from their false gods and fully rely on the True God to save them from the Evil One.  So, not only is this “Ebenezer” at RFIS a reminder of how the Lord has been the help of all those involved in translating Scripture, but it serves as a reminder to pray that those who recieve God’s Word might accept his help and salvation in their own lives.

As I’ve been typing this, these words of an old hymn that I love, and may not be so familiar, have been going through my head.  Much of the English is not the way we speak today, but the message is excellent… now that we know what “Ebenezer” means.

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
1. Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.

2. Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.

3. O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

Today is St. Lucia Day!  Members of the Covenant Church with its Swedish heritage, we have had the joy of celebrating Lucia in many churches: Lucia breakfasts, Lucia smorgasbord dinners, and special music or presentations. 

Lucia with a star boy following

Saint Lucia, originally from Sicily, was persecuted for her faith.  Her story was carried to Sweden, and it is there that the tradition began.  The eldest daughter of the family gets up very early Dec. 13.  Wearing a long white robe with red ribbon around her waist and a wreath of candles on her head,  she delivers coffee and saffron buns to everyone in the house, while singing the traditional Santa Lucia song.  December being the darkest time of year, bringing light to the world is very significant in Sweden.  Christians, of course, recognize Jesus’ birth as the light of the world coming to earth, and so celebrate St. Lucia as a part of the advent season in anticipation of Christmas.

We have Santa Lucia here in Yaounde too!  But you won’t see girls in white dresses with candles; instead tnere are clerks in clean uniforms.  Here, Santa Lucia is a bakery and grocery store.  We’re quite pleased that a new one has recently opened in our neighborhood!

And you won’t find saffron buns here.  Instead, there’s a deli counter with Cameroonian fast food, sandwiches, breads of all shapes and sizes, and yummy French pastries including some of our favorites like…

Une Religieuse

des eclaires

des canards (like swans with cream filling and pastry wings)

Happy Saint Lucia Day… and bon appetit!   From the Z’s in Yaounde, where Santa Lucia isn’t just December 13.

Do you have your 2012 calendar yet?  If you’re anything like me, you use multiple calendars for multiple purposes.  I keep appointments on my computer so I’ll get reminders.  *bing* “Dinner with the new librarian” reminds me that we’ve invited a new missionary to our home tonight!  I keep a “busy moms” calendar in a notebook with important dates as well as weekly menus and shopping lists.

  There’s a calendar on the wall where I keep information that helps me figure salaries at the end of each month for our guards and housekeeper.  Ben’s also using it to count down the days till Christmas and the arrivals of special friends.

Some calendars have pretty pictures, some have words of wisdom or Scripture.  But all my calendars have one thing in common — numerals are in Western script (1,2,3, etc.) and days/months are in English.

For the Fulani people living in and around Cameroon, the calendar looks very different.  Numerals are in a different script.  Not only are the names of days and months different, but the way to write them is different.  They are taught to read in Ajamiya script.   

One of the ministries of our organization, Evangelical Covenant International Partners (ECIP) is to publish Fulfulde materials in the Ajamiya script that is more familiar to them than our Roman script which you’re reading now.   We also help our colleagues working among the Fulani people by publishing calendars. 

This year each month’s page features a scene and Scripture from the story of Jonah’s life.

Pray for those working on literature for the Fulani people.  Pray that the stories on the calendars will accomplish the intended purpose. 

As the rain and the snow
 come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
 without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
 so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
 and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
Isaiah 55:10-11

A lot goes on at Rain Forest International School (RFIS) after classes have ended in a day.  I took my camera around the campus one day and this is what I found happening…

Soccer practise

From the entrance where the soccer team was getting ready for practise, I wandered toward the classrooms. Right in the middle of the grass between the library building and auditorium I discovered these guys doing some landscaping with Ron…

Boys planting another tree on the campus!

I continued my walk through the campus ending up in the Domestic Arts building where these smiling faces greeted me…

Students and Covenant missionary Mr. Boeckel getting food ready for an evening meal event their class put on the following evening

And on the other side of the room….

Mrs. Mitchell getting assistance from one of the seniors making kitchen stools for the play that will be performed this weekend!

What a lot of activity!  Some days when the bell signals the end of class time, the campus comes to life with sports, music, creativity and your usual letting off of steam at the end of a studious day.

As Thanksgiving has passed we’re reminded that we have to be thankful for:  the gift of Salvation, the love of wonderful family, the joy of serving Him in Cameroon.  And we’re thankful for you and your commitment to pray for us without which our labor would be in vain.

For November praise God with us for:

1.  Praise God for Nathan (14) and my (?) birthdays!  We’re so proud of the godly man Nate is growing to be.

2  Praise God that my (Janet) hearing is back.  Was it the prayers of the Faithful or the antihistamine?  Maybe a combination, but I am very glad to have an unclogged inner ear again.

3.  Praise God the work has begun on the new hostel and staff housing – ground is broken and getting prepared for the foundation.  To follow construction progress, visit our new blog at http://www.ubachostelconstruction.blogspot.com.

4.  Praise God that Pastors Don Davenport, Darrell Griffin and Church chair Lisa (from Oakdale Covenant) have come to visit and encourage Sharon Davis, seeing what God is doing through her ministry. 

For December pray with us for:

1.  Pray that we’ll soon complete all the legal paperwork needed for construction of the new Covenant/Free Church Hostel and staff housing adjacent to RFIS property.

2.  Pray for new teachers to come to Rain Forest International School (RFIS) next school year.  We have more positions to fill than seems humanly possible.  Teachers are needed for the Middle School, High School in order for missionaries to continue their work of evangelism, Bible Translation, medical work etc.  (For a complete list go to http://www.rfis.org/index.php/staffneeds.)

3.  Pray for Janet’s relationships with various women and girls she is meeting with for Bible Study, prayer and discipleship.  May the Lord direct conversations to His glory and purpose.

4.  Pray for travelers Paul & Sheryl Noren with Marta Klein are on their way from Congo via Central African Rep.  Pray for safe travels, good health, and that the Lord’s purpose will be fulfilled in their visits with Fulani people along the way.  Pray too, for the many students who will be travelling to the villages of their parents’ service for Christmas break.

5.  Please pray for Covenant Short Term Missionary and RFIS  Math/Science teacher Samantha Barron who is currently in the US to join her family as her mother was diagnosed with cancer. 

6.  Continue to pray for my friend and her family.  She has been informed that her husband is expected to take a 2nd wife to help carry out his responsibilities to the family.  Pray that the Spirit of God gives wisdom in relationships, and that her husband will choose to follow Jesus’ way instead of the ways of his family traditions.

As you enter the season of Advent, may you find time to prepare your hearts for the coming King of Kings!

Thank you for remembering us in prayer!

Ron has the honor of carving the bird

We just had our 2nd Thanksgiving in Cameroon.  Once again, no turkey — that bird’s over rated, I think.  But this year, thanks to the investment of some Wycliffe Associate folks, an orphanage near Rain Forest has been raising chickens for almost a year now.   And this year they have some nice big ones ready for the holiday season.  I’m told that chicken is the meal of choice for Cameroonians at Christmas.

The Buffet Line

Once again we went over to Stoker’s house for a wonderful dinner.

Thanksgiving table with friends

One table was enough for us all this year — Boeckels and Falconers,

Z’s and Ellen (RFIS teacher).  Notice the candles are not lit — that’s intentional.  Here it gets pretty warm in late November.  Add a few bodies and the room’s temp rises so the fan needs to go on… and blows out the candles.  No need to light them, the table is beautiful, company is friendly and food is good. 

We hope all our American friends enjoyed a Happy Thanksgiving too!