We unanimously agreed that Family Camp 2016 was one of the best ever.  And why was that, you ask?  Many factors were involved, not the least of which was "Old Time Fair Fun".  

Thursday immediately following lunch, all 40 of us spilled outside to take part in a hugely successful event that lasted right up until supper.  There were games and relays and races for all ages.  There was somethings for everyone:  bobbing for apples, three legged races, gunny sack races (or in this case, rice bag racing...we live in Cameroon; we improvise), and on and on it went.  The older children and adults were divided into teams of 3 for one event.  When the whistle blew, they took off running like crazy all over the large compound, chasing chickens.  The first team back to the starting line with a live chicken won a prize.  We did worry that the entire brood of chickens might succumb to heart attacks!  Those men and teenage boys who wanted to participate in another race were divided into teams of three.  Each team was given a large three wheeler.  They were not allowed to start the motor.  Instead, when the whistle blew one man jumped on the bike while the other two pushed from behind.  They had to race down to the finish line, turn the three wheeler around and push it back up to the starting line.  Like I said, there was something for everyone.  Even old grandmothers could stand on the sidelines and laugh ourselves silly!   

Family Camp 2016 is now history.  It ended with breakfast this morning, followed by clean-up.  But we always skip that part, and not just because we're lazy.  It's imperative that we rush down to Bamenda early in the morning. If we're not on the first bus out of town, we won't be back at Shiloh until nighttime.  We do all to avoid that.  It is safer to arrive during daylight hours.  So we left Family Camp early, and eleven very long hours later, arrived back at Shiloh. 

We've taken showers (hot water...such a novelty), had a bite to eat, and read through some of the backlog of emails.  Now it's time to get some sleep.  More about Family Camp tomorrow. 

For the last number of years we have spent the last week of  April up in the mountains above Bamenda, in the NW Region.  We gather together with a group of missionaries for a week of Family Camp.  It is one of the high points of our year.  We love the fellowship and the spiritual refreshment.  The food is always fantastic, and the wonderful mountain setting is breathtaking.  

The suitcase is already packed.  The taxi is scheduled to arrive at 6 a.m. tomorrow.  But there is just one thing wrong with this picture.  Jim came down with a bug last evening, and in spite of every effort, is still running a small temperature, and is still suffering from other symptoms.  Earlier in the day when it became obvious that he would not be making the trip, he insisted that I go on without him.  In fact if he recovers in the next day or two, he plans on joining us for the last half of Family Camp.  I am certainly praying to that end.  Family Camp just won't be the same without him.

  

The call came at 5 p.m. today.  Would there be a room available at Shiloh for a couple who needed a place to stay for two weeks?  "Sure, come on over," I told them. I gave them directions, and then the fun began. They took first one wrong turn and then another.  They phoned for direction clarification time and time again.  They could have walked to us in 15 minutes or less, but it took them an hour, driving around in circles, to find us.  I finally went outside our gate and made myself as visible as possible.  Of course they were three blocks away at that time and could not see me!

Turns out this young Cameroonian couple is fresh off their honeymoon.  The new husband has given up a good paying job to go into mission work.  They are here in Yaounde for two weeks of training and are eager to learn all they can.  In fact when they learned we have been missionaries for 46 years, they were in awe of us.  They hesitantly asked if we would be willing to counsel them, pray with them, and help guide them as they make decisions.  What an honor for us to have input in their young lives.

 

It was a request I just couldn't ignore.  A missionary family, living walking distance from Shiloh, put out a plea for a "missionary plumber."  They had a problem with a toilet.  In fact a local plumber had been hired to fix it a couple of times.  But the problem just kept coming back.  And then there was water coming up through the floor in another place in their house.  Their young plumber assured them it wasn't a serious problem, unless it got worse.  

They just needed help.  They didn't know if they should trust their plumber's judgment in this matter.  So I hastened to let them know that I live with a "missionary plumber" who doubles as my husband!  They were very surprised.  While Jim is no stranger to them, they knew him only as the one who runs Shiloh.  They had no idea he is Mr. Jack-of-all-trades.

The toilet problem was an easy and quick fix.  The young plumber had done an OK job as far as he went.  He just didn't know to do the final step.  But as for the water coming up through the floor, that was a different matter.  From a strictly plumbing standpoint, it is good advice to just keep an eye on it and see if it gets worse.  However if one knows something about house construction too, one realizes this is a serious matter.  The house foundation could be compromised.  The floor could even cave in. 

 

Missionary plumber Jim will be going back to their home soon to drill a small hole in the floor with his long drill and see if he can learn anything.  Hopefully this won't turn out to be too big a problem.

I am happy to loan my "missionary plumber" out to others.  It always reminds me of how terribly spoiled we are here at Shiloh.  When we have any maintenance problem we just holler "JIM!!!" and he comes to our rescue.

 

It's sort of strange how we bumped into each other again after all these years.  

On Monday afternoon I promised a missionary friend I would phone her soon and set up a time when we could have them over for a meal.  So bright and early Tuesday morning I phoned her.  But her phone was turned off.  Well, I could send her a text message, even though I truly hate texting.  I labored over a rather long text and then sent it off.    There was no response.  On Wednesday morning (that's today) I tried phoning again.  After several tries I finally got through.  Since my friend is an American, I naturally spoke in English.  But the man who answered was having trouble understanding me.  When I switched to French he quickly figured out that I had the wrong number.  Now what was I supposed to do?  I didn't have any other way of contacting our friends.  Of course I could always go to their house.  They don't live too far away.  This afternoon I was knocking on their gate as the rain started.  No response.  Finally I noticed a door bell off to the side.  Pushing it I could hear a loud buzzer.  About that time a neighbor lady called over to me to say that they were not home.  She had just watched them all drive out the gate.  I asked this Cameroonian lady if she happened to have their phone number, which she did not.  The only thing left to do was to go back to Shiloh and try again another day.  As I turned from the gate, someone opened it.  I turned back around and there she was!

"Amelia" I exclaimed!  We hugged and stood in the rain laughing.  How long had it been, I wondered?  I asked how old her baby girl was now.  When she replied "Sixteen," I knew she had made a mistake.  Maybe six years old, or even ten, but surely not sixteen!  How could the years fly by so fast?  Amelia proudly told me she had five other children, too.   

She was just a young wife with a newborn baby girl when she came to work for us.  Amelia had never held a job before.  She did everything wrong.  We struggled to teach her things, but she just wasn't willing to learn.  After months of trying and getting nowhere, we finally let her go.  Two or three years later we saw her at an event we attended.  She came running across the room to greet us.  She wanted to let us know that she was sorry for all the trouble that she caused us.  And she was so grateful for the things she learned from us.  She reported that she was working for another missionary family.  Every day she was doing her best to put into practice all the things we had tried to teach her.  She realized too late her mistakes.  But she was so glad to have that opportunity to see us and apologize.

Amelia is the only person who formerly worked for us over these last 25 years who has ever come back to apologize and to thank us for what we taught them.  She is one in a million. That's why we were both so thrilled to bump into each other after all these years.

Village uncles. We are blessed with many of them. They became our village uncles many years ago when we lived in a village for a few months. The uncles of the family we lived with became our uncles, too. We have visited them off and on over the years. It is always so sad to return to the village and discover that another one of our uncles has died.

We have always known that this group of uncles came from a large family. But we have never heard their story until yesterday. We were visiting one of our uncles when he got to talking about his father. He mentioned that his father had had twelve wives. Four of them were never able to have children, but eight bore his father children. When asked how many children his father had altogether, our uncle didn't know. He knew that his own mother had five children. In Cameroon, a polygamist father's other wives are called aunts. So our uncle could report that all his aunts who bore children, had anywhere from five to eight children apiece. Which means that his father may have had 50 children. Maybe even more. No wonder we have so many uncles! Even assuming that only half of the father's children reached adulthood, and that only half of those adults were sons, we would have a dozen uncles. We have personally known at least ten of the uncles. The uncle we visited yesterday told us he is 79 years old. We assume he must be one of his father's younger children. Very few of our uncles are still living. We miss every one of them.

And in far away America we don't even have one uncle who is still alive. So we treasure our remaining village uncles.