June 28th

Yesterday Marie came to visit from Kekem.  She brought with her cooked rice, with tomato sauce and fish (maquero).  It was very delicious. I had cooked some rice w/ sauce as well.  It was not as tasty as hers.  Work was in progress yesterday. I had to talk to the chief contractor to speed things up.  The chief of the village visited the work site and gave some pointers as well. Mama Cecile visited the site and gave me cooked peanuts and ripened bananas.  I shared with the workers.  Cement bricks fabrication is progressing well.  Jean-Robert and Boko are in charge of making the bricks.  Boko hired two other helpers and it is speeding things up.  I have been keeping close eyes on materials.  I told the workers that if I am busy moving dirt inside the foundation or talking with the contractor or doing other work, they must make sure I see and count the cement and iron bars before they use it, or else I will consider it as not used and they will have to pay for it in return. This plan is working so far. I try to do my best to always be there when they are grabbing the materials so they don’t have to track me down. 

Yesterday was another blessed day.  I was able to share the gospel to everyone on the site.  I did not stop the work of course, but the four children that were there asked questions after one of the workers had just returned from performing a sacrifice.  He told me that he went to perform the sacrifice for all of the us that were working.  I told him I do not believe in that type of sacrifice.  That is when the children began asking questions.  Parfait, one of the kids, stated that it is an obligation to perform sacrifice.  He also stated that if I live in the village longer, I will end up performing sacrifice.  I asked him if he believes in Jesus, he said he believes in Jesus 50 percent and 50 percent in sacrifice, then he changed and said he believes 60% in Jesus and 40% in sacrifice.  He said that the two of them goes together.  That before they can perform any sacrifice, they have to ask and pray to God first.  They tried to justify this by saying that God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, then he gave Abraham a goat to sacrifice, therefore, God loves and accepts sacrifices.  Out of four of the kids, only one did not believe in sacrifice any longer.  He said he was baptized in 2012, and his pastor told them that now that they are baptized, they should no longer believe in sacrifices.  He said that ever since he has stopped performing sacrifices.  One of his friend said that he has not stopped, and stated that he does eat meat sacrificed to the human skulls.  The young boy replied by saying that he only eats it if it is given to him.  He said that just because he eats it does not mean he still believes in sacrifices, but that he considers it as meat and meat only.  His friends didn’t want to believe that his friend is a changed boy.  He still has his bible we gave him in January.  I asked if he can bring it to the house on Sunday so that we can go through some passages of the bible together with the other children. 

Many of the workers were listening as we talked about Jesus being the only sacrifice for human kind and why the cross, why did Jesus have to die. We had about 18 people at the site listening that day. I realized that the children here only know what they have been thought from birth by their parents, who in turn learned from their ancestors.  But I know that God is a mighty God, and He will move and is already moving mountains here in Bano.  “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” 2Corinthians 5:21

Jesus is asking us to not worry about anything, instead, to pray about everything.   He is asking us to fix our thoughts on what is true, honorable, right and pure, and lovely and admirable.  He is asking us to think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. 

 Valerie

100 bags of cement on the porch

Pierre is unloading 100 bags of cement to be used for the foundation.

Keeping the bags dry until needed.

Something we take for granted

There are many things we take for granted in the United States. One of them is the ability to walk into a store and purchase a good pair of shoes.

These pictures show just a couple of examples of the shoes the workers have on site. That is why we are motivated to bring quality used shoes to the village for fitness and everyday wear.

A Legacy of Fitness

The people in the village are saying that in January there will be tons and tons of people for the 5K because even the little kids want to run. Apparently everyone is talking about fitness. Also ever since we left, a number of men and women formed a group to stay in shape. They exercise at least once a week together. In fact the chief’s first wife has started getting into shape. It is wonderful that a single event has spawned a village wide movement of fitness.

Pierre’s little boys blessed

When Valerie first came to Pierre’s house his son was wearing our son john’s old sandals. When they saw Val, they ran to Val like they have never run before, then they looked at their dad and said, this is the tata that gave us lots of shoes and clothes and smiled. The children are in good health except that the baby Elisha has some little wounds on her legs; unfortunately they do not have enough money to take her to the hospital. Please keep them in your prayers.

An update on the new mother from our January visit.

Pierre told Val about one of the women from Bano that received clothes at the hospital. He said that she was extremely happy for receiving baby clothes at the hospital. Her husband had not purchased any baby clothes for her yet, and receiving clothes was a tremendous blessing for them. Apparently Anna and Amanda where able to bring the baby clothes the hospital at the right time, it’s amazing how much we can bless someone with something that seems so little. Thank you again everyone for all of your gifts and donations they are surely blessing the people in the village.

The first of many trips to get supplies.

The first time purchasing materials from the city of Bafang. They had to load fifty bags of cement one at a time by carrying it on their head. there were only two people loading it.

Val gets to work.

In the following pictures, Parfait (a volunteer from the village) and Val were cleaning the worksite while the workers were preparing the construction area.

This is how things looked when Val arrived.

The following pictures were taken by Val two weeks ago when she first arrived at the work site. 

You can see that grass is growing out of this pile of sand due to neglect. 

In these two pictures we can see how the grass has over taken the construction site. Since Val has been on the site things have completely turned around. She tried to send me a video of the site today, but the file was too big. Unfortunately we really do need to have someone onsite to oversee the workers.

It takes a very long time for her to upload pictures, so I will post them as I get them.

A family's Hospitality

Last night Val went to Pierre’s house for dinner after picking up more materials for the construction. Pierre and his family were the ones living in Val’s father’s house when we first visited the village.  When we first met them the two boys only had one set of clothes and their food for the day was a small piece of cassava root. We have been able to support them each subsequent mission trip. Last night they only ate potatoes cooked in palm oil, and onion, and salt. That was all they had for supper, nothing else. They didn't even have condiments to add to their food. But they were so generous to want to share with Val. It is often humbling to see how much those who have so little are willing to share. Val brought them a sack of rice while visiting them, and they were very happy. Val plans to buy them some garlic, ginger roots and other spices the next time she shops at the market. In the meantime she will share the spices that she does have.

Hello everyone, at about 8:30 pm our time 2:30 am her time, Val and I had a wonderful conversation through Skype. We were able to audio chat for about 40 minutes. Then we did something we didn't dare try before. We had a video chat. We had to reconnect about three times but it was so worth it. We got to see each other for the first time in two weeks. What a blessing. We were so very, very happy. It was like GOD gave her a belated birthday gift. Maybe it was because she was on so early her time, this was the best connection we have had to date especially in the village. For those of you out there who know just how slow the internet can be in Cameroon I think you can appreciate just how very, very, very blessed we were. Please continue to pray for her and the important work she is doing. Everyone in the village agrees that the orphanage would not be making the progress it is without her. Thanks again for your prayers and support.

Val is back in Cameroon

Hello everyone,

I've haven't been able to update the blog on Val's trip as much as I'd like because she has not been able to connect to the Internet. She did land safely in Yaounde last Saturday and she arrived in the village of Bano about a day later. Not only has she been overseeing the project, she has been working along side the contractor and his crew each day of the week. With all of the work she has not had as much opportunity to minister to the people of the village. She was able to speak with a young man who ran the 5K last year and a group of women who came to the work site.

Please continue to pray for her as the consruction continues. I'll post pictures of the progress as soon as I get them. Thank you very much everyone.

Happy Father's day to all of you fathers out there.