Bye-bye Big City

So, what did we do in Yaounde? After our meetings and helping the Coleman’s prepare their new house and move their belongings into it, we relaxed for an afternoon at the French Club.

The kids loved the pool and playground. We were excited for the break. It was an encouraging time to be together with friends from North America. This only happens twice a year during 2 different missionary conferences we are involved in.

We are travelling back to our home in the rainforest tomorrow, Friday (we'll probably be home before most of you have eaten lunch - so pray for us at breakfast, for safe and speedy travel).

...And she meant it as a compliment

"You're SO fat, like this" (hands spread wide apart), "And YOU are too!!!"

This was said to me and Nathan tonight when we went to visit the Cameroonian family in Yaounde that we spent time with when we were first here, almost 2 years ago.

My answer, "Yes, we are very comfortable here now."
Her response, "YES! You are adapting well, you are so big."

We'd probably knock someone out if they said this to us in the States. But here, even if you haven't gained any weight, people like to compliment you on how fat you look. To them, this means that you've been well fed and happy, as opposed to skinny, starving and unhappy.

This sure takes some getting used to from our self-conscience selves.

Birthday Conversation

(Early AM, July 17th) Laurel: Boys, do you know that today is Nandry's Birthday?
Boaz: Yeah, I already knowd that!
Asher: So....where's the cake then???

Our 7 Year Old

We celebrated Nandry’s Birthday yesterday with 3 other World Team families here in Cameroon. So…there were 11 kids and 7 adults present. It was a fun party! Here are a few more photos of the day.

Nandry got to talk on the phone at various times during the day to family back in the States too. That was super special to her.

Instead of one cake, we went ot the bakery and got just about one peice of each kind of cake they had. They were all decorated so pretty. We had icecream from the store too!

Nandry got so many presents too! I think this has been her favorite Birthday yet. We are so glad that we got to have a "big" party! It was fun having the other kids there...we had a nice game of "Sardines" outside. We wish you could have been here too!

Quote of the Day

Boaz: “If we got a kitty cat and a dog they would fight.”

Nandry: “No, they would play together. Kitty cats and dogs aren’t as mean as little boys.”

Everybody squish together and smile!

How well do you know our kids, even though you haven't seen them in almost 2 years (except for pictures of course)? Is this Boaz or Asher?

Part One

Here's a copy of an email we sent to a kid's SS Class. They were wondering what our kids thought of life here in Africa. I wrote it from the ideas that the kids had.


Here in Cameroon, we live in the jungle with the Baka people. One of our neighbors, Mama Lendo, is the grandmother of alot of the kids that we play with. She's really funny. She has a hole through her nose and her lip, and sometimes she puts sticks through those holes and makes funny faces so that we laugh. The Baka speak a different language than we do, but we know how to say "good morning" to them, "Mo-o juko-e". It actually translates as"Are you awake?" The Baka kids are really nice to us, and we like to play with them. Most of them know French, and so do we, so we talk in French when we play with them. One of our favorite games to play with the Baka is"Police and Bandits".

There are lots of fruit trees here in our orchard and in the forest. When we want some, we can just go to the tree, climb it and pick the fruit. We like ngoyo the best. If you eat it before it's ready, it tastes like sourpatch kids candy. It's red and small like a cherry tomato, but has a large seed in it and sometimes the red fruit gets all over our hands and mouths and clothes and is hard to wash out! We also get bananas by the regime. Instead of just having a hand of 5-10 bananas, we have a regime hanging outside our door with 60-100 bananas that we share with all of our neighbors. We also eat alot of corn from our garden and plantains. Our Mom & Dad let us grill them over the fire for a snack. Sometimes, but not often, we eat wild animals. Our favorite is hedgehog. We've also tried snake, but didn't like it as much.

Part Two

(Continued from the above letter)

We have 2 goats, lots of chickens, a cat named "Mixie" and a baby monkey named "Kemi". Kemi's mother was shot and eaten by hunters, so they gave her to us because she would have died without a mommy to take care of her. So now we are taking care of her. She likes to hang on to our shirts or hair and go outside and play with us.

The Baka get sick alot because it's hard to keep clean and have clean drinking water and because there are mosquitoes and bugs that carry disease.We have to take yucky pills every night so that we don't get malaria and we sleep under mosquito nets. We wear long-sleeves and pants alot, even though it's hot because there are tiny insects called moot-moots that bite and make us itchy. But, we are more used to all of it now.

We like living here alot, but we miss our Grandmoms, Grandpas, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and friends. We are thankful for the big area that we live in and aren't confined to a small yard. We are thankful for our Baka friends and our teammates (who have 2 kids our ages). We are learning more and more about God and we are happy that we get to tell the Baka what we know, so that they can know Jesus and that he loves them.

This woman lives at the village down the road from our house. She came to visit with her baby. I love the baby's expression, he was a bit scared of us and got nervous when the flash went off when we took his picture. The mama had an infected sore on her leg

that she kept mentioning, hoping we would be able to "fix" for her. We showed her how make a hot compress, by soaking a cloth in hot water and holding it over the infected area...and repeating that at least 3 times a day. She said her older daughter at the village had 2 large sores like hers, and we encouraged her to take care of those sores the same way. We see so many infected sores, absesses and other skin infections among the Baka, among so many other illnesses. Lack of hygiene, sanitation and good water are big problems that cause many sicknesses and infections that are uncommon to the western world. One of our goals is to help the Baka learn how to take care of themselves and their kids using simple but effective methods so they don't suffer so much from being sick.

Yum, Yum, eat it up!

This young Baka girl (about 15 years old) is preparing one of the two porcupines that her "man" (he's about 17 years old) caught in his traps out in the forest. She's in charge of preparing it for a family of about 15 or more people, including aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. The porcupines were covered with really sharp quills that were about 2 to 5 inches long. First, they put the porcupine into a pot with a little bit of boiling water so the quills start to fall off. Then they take it out of the pot and pour boiling water over it little by little as they scrape the rest of them off. We didn't get to taste this yummy meal, but they offered the other porcupine to us to buy...but we declined. We did get to keep some of the quills. Pretty interesting. I never knew that porcupines had tails!

Remembering and Thanking

Asher and Boaz were playing with toy cars and trucks in their room this week. All of the cars and trucks were lined up, upside-down, with the wheels sticking up in the air. When I asked what was going on with the cars, Asher answered, "the wheels are broke and they are in traction!" :)We thank God that Boaz is better and walking and running (and climbing trees again) w/o even much of a limp. Can you believe that Boaz broke his femur only a little over 2 months ago?