Wednesday, October 31, 2018

It just took one  shot.  Only one.  And his life was over.  To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.  For the believer.  Which he was.  Husband.  Father of eight.  Son. Son-in-law.  Brother.  Friend.  Fellow church member.  And now missionary.  But it is all over.  His mission was short.  Eleven days.  And then glory.  Not what he planned.  Not what his wife planned.  Nor the children.  Not what the church thought of as they sent him off to Africa. He was to live out his days as a missionary.  Well, he did.  But not according to the plan.  But it was God's plan and God does all things well.  Even when a bullet penetrates the body of a missionary and snuffs his life out.  They were traveling into Bamenda to buy groceries.  He, the missionary who was driving them, his wife, and their second son.  Suddenly as they arrived at Four Corners, gunfire started up.  And one of the multiple bullets that  pierced the car (Swiss cheese comes to mind) penetrated his body and it was all over.  

Since the missionary was able to identify the assailants, his life is in danger.  The U.S. Embassy warned them to get out quickly.  Don't spend the night. Said he would go to Bamenda for the night and then on down to Yaounde in the morning.  NO! said the Embassy.  Bamenda is too close.  They will find you.  Their plans have changed.  They are coming on down to Yaounde immediately and will stay with us.  Soon they will go with the new widow and her children back to the U.S.  They plan on staying for three month, letting things calm down.  Hopefully they can come back at that time.  Two men are coming from America to help the grieving family get back home.  Life can change so fast in a moment of time.

Friday, October 26, 2018

We leave in a handful of hours to go out to the village.  Back on Tuesday.  There are ten of us going out in two cars.  There will be a baptism on Sunday first thing, followed by communion.  Then Jim is preaching the morning sermon.  Guy will translate for him.  We are looking forward to a good time in the Lord. 

Thursday, October 25, 2018

Praise and Blessing were a hit from the start.  Blessing was not the least bit afraid of Praise and Praise loved licking her little face.  But Ingrid, Deborah, and Samuel were a different story.  They stood wide eyed a safe distance from the furthest end of Praise's chain and tried not to tremble visibly.  Francis, who spent the last week and a half visiting Praise each day after work, had mostly gotten beyond his fear.  Mostly.  He had  to put on a brave face for his family.  He admonished his wife that she was next in line after him.  She had to be the mother of the dog and she had to take charge when people visited.  She had to learn to take hold of her collar and not let her lunge at people.  So she is trying.  And he insisted that Sammy and Deborah had to pet Praise.  It was hard, but with effort, they managed a pat or two.  Bit by bit their new dog will work her way into their lives.  It's a good thing that Blessing is too little to know to be afraid of the big scary dog.  She will teach her siblings that she is OK and Praise will slowly fit into the family.  It's a process. 

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

He grew up in Congo.  She did too.  MKs, they went to school together all the way through high school.  Then they did university training in the States, got married, and came back out to Africa.  He as a family practitioner doctor and she as a school teacher.  They are one of at least three couples in their class who did the same.  All returned to Congo to follow in their parents footsteps.  When things got hot in Congo, they moved to Central African Republic.  Now the doctor and his wife have come back out to CAR for their last term before retirement.  They brought eight large pieces of luggage out with them for their hospital.  They are here at Shiloh for a few days, taking care of things prior to going to CAR.  In fact all their friends will be retiring at the same time.  It's going to leave an awful big hole out here.  But life marches on.

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

It's official.  Cameroon has a new president.  He will serve for seven years.  At the end of which time he will be well into his 90s.  You see, he looks a lot like the old president.  As in very old.  It came as no surprise to anyone that he won.  But they went through the charade anyway.  It was announced that they would declare the winner at 11 a.m. on public radio.  So at 1 p.m. they finally got around to reading off the results in each polling section.  It was a real kick as they made it look like a serious and honest election.  And then at the end, surprise, surprise!  Paul Biya won!!!  I know it was because I wore my Biya watch and hat.  Must have had a great influence on the outcome.  Yesterday every big city in the country was on lock down.  Police were out everywhere in riot gear.  Word had gone out on social media for planned protests, but the President put a halt to that.  So in the end he was peacefully and duly elected, if not without a little help from his friends.

Sunday, October 21, 2018

We're just back from a quick trip out to the village.  Left Shiloh 2 p.m. yesterday.  Returned 2 p.m. today.  Jim preached this morning.  Otherwise ever part of the service (including the translation into Manguisa) was carried out by Manguisa themselves.  It was a real honor to be there.  And tomorrow night Jean Claude will be leading the Bible study. Damien is at his brother's funeral so we filled in for him.

On our way back into town Eric entertained us with a steady stream of jokes.  Here are the best two:  An older Cameroonian couple took a trip to Israel.  While there the wife suddenly died.  The husband said "Praise God!" and began checking his options.  He discovered that it was exorbitantly expensive to ship her body back to Cameroon for burial in the village.  Conversely it was not costly at all to bury her in Israel.  As he considered these options, he suddenly declared that he didn't care how much it cost to ship her body back home, that was what he was going to do.  He remembered that one time they buried someone in Israel and the person rose from the dead.  He didn't want to run the risk!

So this group of Cameroonian men were standing around talking when the Devil suddenly showed up.  The crowd dispersed as the men ran in all directions.  Except for one man.  He just stood there.  The Devil came up to him and asked why he didn't run away.  "I've been living with your sister for years, so I'm not afraid of you!" he replied.

Saturday, October 20, 2018

The house is hopping.  We've got the staff from Guy's seminary here for the weekend.  We're doing three meals per day plus coffee breaks.  These are quality people.  They've taken over the living room.  But when they go to bed, Theirry transforms it into his bedroom.  And Dorothy goes to her nieces to sleep.  

In a couple of hours we are going out to Eyene for the weekend.  Damien's brother is being buried today, so he cannot preach tomorrow.  Jim is taking his place.  Guy can't be with us as Pastor Ken is here from Brazil and he is translating for him.  So Jean Magloir will translate Jim's French into Manguisa.  Doris will lead singing.  Jean Claude will give the announcements.  And one of his announcements will be that he is leading the Bible study on Monday evening. Little by little they are taking charge of things and we are delighted.  We are hoping to discover how many plan on being baptized next weekend.  Two car loads of us will be going out for that event.

Friday, October 19, 2018

The Epler Butt.  Probably not in your dictionary.  Unless you are related to Edmund and Lela Mitchell.  And truly, I never discovered if it came down the Mitchel side or Lela's ancestry.  Lela Mae Hoyt was her name by the time she died at a ripe old age.  She had five or six husbands.  Used to say she only married them to bury them.  Course that wasn't true of Mr. Sullivan, hubby number two.  They had one son and then she couldn't take the drinking anymore so she divorced him.  This was way back in the Dark Ages when NOBODY got divorced (though we all know someone in our heritage who DID divorce).

But I digress.  We were talking about the Epler Butt.  As in hind end.  Lela Mae's three girls, Allie, Vera, and Mame used to laugh their fool heads off about their Epler Butts!  They were grown women when I witnessed this behavior...Grandmothers even.  Fast forward thirty years.  We were visiting my cousin Judy and family in Michigan.  She's the family historian.  One evening during our visit she asked me if I had ever heard of anyone called Epler.  Grandma (Allie) lived with us so I  grew up absorbing family history.  I laughed and told Judy that she was famous for her butt.  I told her how Grandma and the old aunts used to laugh about their Epler Butts.  She was amazed.  She had never heard of anyone of that name and neither had her father, but her research had turned up an Epler in the family line.  I told her that the only thing I knew about this poor lady was that she had a big butt and she passed it on to all of us.  So we laughed about our Epler Butts.

Fast forward many more years and we ended up out here in Cameroon.  Before long we discovered that a girl with a large behind is very marriageable.  Somehow the culture has determined that if you are broad in the beam, you will be able to carry children without problems.  And now Dorothy, our dear young widow friend from Bamenda who is living with us, arrives on the scene.  And let me tell you, she has a true Epler Butt!  It would make the Epler family proud.  The theory must work cuz she has two children.  And she did get married.  Who knew the Epler Butt would be an assert?!

Thursday, October 18, 2018

Someone gave us everything necessary to make corned beef.  Everything but the beef itself.  So I went to Centre Gel and picked up a good cut of meat and went to work.  It was a process of making the brine and adding pickling spices.  Everything was boiled together for a half hour.  Then when the liquid cooled I added the meat and put it in the fridge.  Every day I turned the meat so the brine could soak in evenly.  Finally it was time to take the meat out, wash it, and cover it with water in another pot.  After adding more pickling spice I cooked it for four hours.  And was it ever tender and yummy!  I've never made corned beef.  On occasion in the States we would buy it when it was on sale.  Jim really loves it.

Meanwhile we cut up some cabbage and made sauerkraut.  You can't buy this in town either, so it's either make your own or go without.  Years ago I tired to mimic the old aunts whose parents had come from Switzerland.  These were my great aunts.  They used to make sauerkraut every fall in these wonderful old crocks.  But after a series of failures I resigned from the sauerkraut business.  Until now that is.  A few year back I came upon a recipe that is super easy.  You mix salt with the cabbage and pack it into canning jars.  Then you fill the jar almost to the top with water.  After loosely covering the jars with lids, you set them in a basin as the liquid will spill over.  I checked them every few days and skimmed off any mold and added more water.  When all the fermentation stopped (about a week later) I washed the tops of the jars, screwed down the lids, and canned them in a cold water bath.  The results are fantastic.

So now we are eating corned beef and sauerkraut with mustard.  We're in hog heaven!

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Francis came back to work this afternoon.  He's been off for four days.  Malaria.  He was hit hard.  This business of being his own night guard and then working for us days has really gotten him down.  He's lost a lot of weight, and now he's practically skeletal.  His face is gaunt and if it weren't for a belt, his slacks would be falling off.

Today we took Francis to the neighbors to introduce him to his new dog.  They are giving him one of theirs.  They have three dogs.  The dog is named Peace.  She's German Shepherd.  Very gentle and loving.  At a year and a half she is still playful and young.  She loves to lick and to be petted, especially belly rubs.  But Francis is scared to death of dogs.  So is his wife.  Neither of them grew up around dogs.  Nobody in either of their families have dogs.  They are typical Cameroonians.  But they know they need one for a guard dog as their new house has had three break-in attempts since they moved in last month.  And that's why Francis is up all night guarding the place.  He's going to visit Peace each afternoon and gradually get to know her.  And one of these days he is bringing his wife and kids over for about an hour of get acquainted time.  He's a little less afraid than before.  He knows he has to love Peace and she will be a great blessing for his whole family.  But it's an act of the will.

Monday, October 15, 2018

This day wasn't anything like I had planned.  It began yesterday actually.  That's when the electricity went out.  Somewhere around noon.  In fact Dorothy rang and rang the bell when she came back from church, and then finally gave up and phoned us.  That's when we found out about the power outage. It was dark all night long so at 7:30 this morning I phoned Leo and told him to stay home.  He was coming to translate a document into French for us.  He would do the work on the computer, but there was no electricity and our battery was dead.  So cancel that job.  The other job on the "to do" list was making a new window screen for one of the front room windows.  But that required the use of the sewing machine, so cancel that job.  We swept and moped the house instead.  That didn't take any electricity at all.  Then late this afternoon, after Doris went home for the day, the electricity came back on and life went back to normal.  We'll get to that "to do" list tomorrow if all goes well.

Sunday, October 14, 2018

We just had new uniforms made for our team.  They are very excited.  The best seamstress from Belo in the NW Region has fled to Yaounde.  She is a good friend of Dorothy's and her pastor's daughter.  So we asked her to do the sewing for us.  She just delivered the outfits and believe me, she has lived up to her reputation.  She does outstanding work.  All the plaids match all around the outfits.  That is very rare out here.  So the gals each have two dresses and two skirts but only one blouse.  Can't quite figure that out.  Seems to me like two blouses and one skirt would work better, but far be it from me to complain.  They will work it out somehow.  The guys all have two pair of black slacks and two shirts.  Joseph, our night guard, wanted long sleeves.  Each item is different from the other.  We lined them all up and took their picture.  Today Dorothy asked permission to wear one of her new dresses to church.  She looked really sharp.  I told them they all have to work extra hard now that they have their new outfits!

Saturday, October 13, 2018

Just returned from a two day retreat for missionary ladies.  Thirty one of us gathered together.  We sang, we prayed, we listened to testimonies from other missionary ladies, we heard messages from God's words, and we had facials.  It was a good time.  Began doing some preliminary planning for another retreat in the future, maybe at Shiloh.  We are well equipped to put on a retreat.

Thursday, October 11, 2018

The presidential election here in Cameroon turned a corner when one of the Presidents nine (count them, nine!) opponents announced that they had won.  The government was outraged.  There is a department that is charged with the vote count and making the announcement, and it wasn't that guy!  It takes two weeks for the results to come out.  Even the U.S. Embassy spoke out against what the candidate had done, and cautioned others not to join him.  Actually this could be quite dangerous for this man.  As in real dangerous.  So, like in America, elections can have surprises and be interesting.

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

This afternoon Jean Magloir from a Manguisa village near Eyene showed up at Shiloh.  And six hours later he went back to his mother's house!  That's our guy.  He does this in Eyene, too.  It has been five years since he came to Yaounde.  His mother was injured in a motorcycle accident so that is why he is here.

He brought us lots of food from the village:  a regime of plantains, a whole bunch of lemons, some grapefruits, and some casmangoes, which are a wild mango.  They have long spines all over the large pit, so they are a challenge to eat.

Jean Magloir told us how he spends two or three nights at his house and then hikes into Jean Claud's and spends the night at his house.  Then back home for two or three more nights and on and on it goes.  He is really very lonely.  He is from a dying village.  There are a number of very nice houses in the village, but they are all empty.  He is the only one who lives there year round.  He talked about having a wife.  He needs one.

We talked about the church and the things he is doing to encourage people to get baptized the end of this month.  Getting baptized was very significant for him. Life changing actually.  He is on his way to becoming a leader in the church.  He talked about how much his life has changed.  The things he used to do that he can no longer do as a baptized believer.  It was a blessing to have him in our home.

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

I spent fourteen minutes on the phone this afternoon, trying to phone to America.  Do you know how much it costs?  Don't ask.  It's too much.  And then the music ended and this man answered.  I no sooner explained that I was phoning from  Africa and here is what I wanted and  the call dropped off.  Disgusting!  So I have to go through it all over again.  One of the joys of living in Darkest Africa.

Sunday, October 7, 2018

Today Peter told us about two men.  One was an American and one a Cameroonian.  The American was bragging about how organized we are and how quickly we get the results out after an election in our country.  The Cameroonian man replied that here in Cameroon we are much better than that because we know the results BEFORE the election takes place!  True.  Too true.

Today is election day.  Churches were told to not hold services because people needed to be free to vote.  Our church took place, but Theirry reports that very few attended. 

We had a church service here at Shiloh for the four of us.  We listened to a sermon from London.  It was really good.

We lifted our voices in praise to Almighty God yesterday when Judge Kavanaugh became Justice Kavanaugh.  God is merciful to American.

And yes, we know the results of today's election here in Cameroon.  No surprises here.  It will take a couple of weeks for the results to be announced though.

Saturday, October 6, 2018

When I opened my eyes early this morning they landed on the words "Happy Birthday" which were laying on top of our mosquito net.  I laughed and Jim was immediately awake.  I think he didn't sleep since putting the words there shortly after midnight.  Later when I was called to breakfast, extra people were there.  In fact we numbered eleven around the table.  Jim had invited everyone to a birthday breakfast for me.  We ate granola and milk, eggs with yogurt and guacamole, bagels and lox, coffee, tea, cream and sugar.  What a feast!  And as we finished eating all of that, a lovely cake was set down in front of me.  "Happy Birthday Alice" was written on top of the cake and there was a seven candle plus two individual ones to bring us to seventy-two.  Lots of pictures were taken and a wonderful time was had by one and all.  What a great way to turn old!

Friday, October 5, 2018

Peter is really enjoying getting to know us at deeper levels.  We've known him for years and years, but this is different.  Since arriving at Shiloh he has discovered that we have been helping out his nieces (who are also Dorothy's) which simply blows his mind.  He declared that "missionaries don't know we have nieces and they don't care."  But here we are, helping them out repeatedly.  And today at breakfast he learned that we are the lowest supported missionaries around.  He couldn't believe it.  He asked about our savings for retirement and we told him we didn't have any.  But what are we going to do when we retire?  I asked him if God would be dead at that time?  We've been busy laying up treasure in Heaven and we expect Him to keep right on taking care of us.  He said that other missionaries are wise in planning for the future.  We told him that true wisdom is putting our treasure where moth and rust cannot corrupt and where thieves don't break in and steal.  He's deeply moved.  He does not know what to think of this.

Dorothy is loving having her big brother at Shiloh.  He's very intellectual.  Has his doctorate.  She's very down to earth and ordinary. But they love each other dearly.  They are in the library at this moment talking up a storm in their tribal language. 

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Peter arrived this afternoon.  We've know him for years.  He's Dorothy's older brother and a strong Christian.  He told us that Effie was in the U.S. and met with a congressional sub committee.  He talked about the Ambazonians, his people.  He told how the government is treating them and the killings. He said many things.  And he plead with the U.S. government to help his people out.  He also introduced himself as the director of CABTAL (Cameroonian Bible Translation and Literacy).  The board of directors of CABTAL had a meeting and fired him.  He is still in the U.S.  If he were to come back to Cameroon he would be put in prison.  His wife is an American and he has become a U.S. citizen in the recent past.  They built a home not far from us here in Yaounde and had big plans for what he would do when his seven year term was up in December.  But those plans cannot be carried out now.  Our actions have consequences. 

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Campaign season is short and funny out here.  We have nine (count them...NINE) men running against the president.  They haven't a chance of winning.  Three of them are supposed to be strong Christians.  Three (one Christian and two others) each have strung one banner across the street in Yaounde.  That is all.  The others?  I don't know who they are.  But Paul Biya goes all out.  There are posters, banners, and signs every few yards all over the city.  They are giving out free T-shirts, both long, short, and no sleeved.  Also there are free long sleeved white dress shirts with his face on the pocket.  There are two types of hats.  And there are neck scarfs along with material to sew into outfits.  Additionally there are little tiny back packs for small kids and children size umbrellas.  And for the elite, there are ladies purses.  Watches.  I forgot to mention watches.  Dorothy and I each got a watch which we are proudly wearing.  Jim got a T-shirt, as did Doris and Francis.  We are longing to get more free stuff. And every single one has the presidents face and his slogan for this season on it.  It's "Paul Biya, the force of experience".  Last time he ran for re-election, it was "The Peoples choice". Not that we are voting for the incumbent, but it's fun to deck out in our finery and laugh.

Monday, October 1, 2018

Yesterday morning in Bamenda, the Bible belt, all sorts of people left their homes to go to church, including Dorothy's daughter.  As they were walking along the police came and chased them back home.  They were told they were under a 48 hour quarantine and not to leave their houses again.

Yesterday in Dchang, Francis' village, they burned houses to the ground.  It was the opposition party.  People ran away from the village and now it is empty.  This is a French village.  This is the first the war has spilled into the French sector.

Today the Police were not permitting English speakers to leave their houses here in some parts of Yaounde.  But somehow today, the opposition party was able to leave their houses and march through the streets of villages and town all throughout the NW and SW Regions.  They sang songs and planted signboards announcing the first anniversary of their independence from Cameroon.

It's a delicate time.  We went shopping today and now plan to lay low until after the election results come out.