Cameroon At Last

Birds are chirping bringing in the new day.  In the distance I can hear the music from the chapel playing for morning meeting. I look out my window and tropical plants are all around me.  There are palm trees and a hedge of Lantana perfectly framing my yard with a mountain backdrop.  It truly is prettier than any place I have stayed since Hawaii. We have been at Mbingo in Cameroon for 6 days now and there have been so many positive things and to be perfectly honest some negative things since our arrival. 

I had so much fear and anxiety about us arriving in Douala and the process of going through customs, getting our bags, then getting to the vehicle that would be transporting us to Mbingo before we arrived.  But this process like the entire journey here was smooth and without stress.  We were greeted by George in the baggage claim and he helped us load our 21 pieces of luggage onto carts to be taken out to the van.  George spoke with a gentleman that was there and who was in charge of customs.  This allowed us to pass freely when there was a very long line that was having every bag opened and gone through.  We then loaded into the van and were taken to eat pizza at a Greek restaurant before arriving at the guest house.

We traveled all the next day to Mbingo and when we arrived we were in awe of the beauty and the welcome provided by all those who were there.  We carried in our luggage and the kids quickly claimed their rooms and began asking if they could begin unpacking right then.  We were fed well and then visited with Dr. Palmer and his wife Nancy.

Since that day we have been warmly welcomed by everyone here.  Dinners and visits have filled our evenings.  Then we took an intense trip to the city of Bamenda to shop for household items, new phone service, and went on a quest for a printer.  We succeeded in the purchase of the printer only to attempt to load the disk on our laptop computer and it completely crashed the hard drive.   Thankfully there is a brilliant IT guy here named Josh that was able to salvage a couple of the important files we need but the “drive is finished.”  Downside is that we are now going to have to purchase a new computer.  The positive side is that we have been graciously loaned a computer in the meantime. 

It has been like that the whole time.  We have something that would completely undo us in the U.S. to have it salvaged in another way.  It may not be the way we would choose or how we wanted it, but the alternative still gets us to a place where we can function.

The kids are doing really well.  They have found more ways to entertain themselves without electronics since we arrived. I have not heard them complain once when I say, “Well, go outside and play.” If your children are like mine this would have followed with grumbles and moans. Here though they simply go outside and find something to do.  I never imagined that they would be adjusting this well. Micah and Micaja have made friends with some local kids and have played both yesterday and today for 2 hours each time. They take a ball or paper with colored pencils and they all play, play, play.

We are truly thankful to be here and be in the space that we knew God was leading us to.  We still have more things to learn than I can even count, but we have already learned some things that we did not know before.  Please keep us in your prayers when we come to your mind.  Pray that Chris will find his place in the hospital that is beneficial to the people at Mbingo and also for him. Please pray that the kids continue to do well and flourish in their new environment. Pray that I figure out how to keep moving forward and taking in everything that is coming my way with a peaceful heart.  My next post will simply be things we have learned that are vastly different to the U.S.   I will also post pictures at that time, but as I said above with the computer going down we have been having some challenges. 

In Christ, 
Ashley
" The Will of God will not take you where the Grace of God cannot protect you."