I’ve (DeAnna) seen many different things circulating about throwback Thursdays or flashback Fridays, so I decided to get in the act too. I’ll try to be consistent and have flashback Fridays.
This was our first piece of information that we had done after being called into full time missions.
I’m going to shamelessly brag about Joshua. For those who have known us since Joshua was a baby and have walked with us, know that at one time he could only be understood by a few people (me, David, Noah, Nelson, Jonah and Aunt Denise).
At age three he was diagnosed and started therapy for apraxia of speech. He had much speech therapy and we also worked with him at home on his speech. Even in France he continued his speech therapy. He’s came a long way! However, he also gets nervous when he’s in front of people because he knows that when his emotions are high (happy, angry, sad or nervous) his speech is hard to understand. When he shared with me that he needed to prepare for an oral presentation in class, I could see the concern on his face. I tried hard not to reflect that concern in my expression, but went into pep talk mode.
His class has been studying the History of Medicine and he was assigned to present what Pierre and Marie Curie did to impact medicine. He researched to find more details about the Curie’s (including the way Pierre died, which he included in his presentation). He wanted to type his presentation by himself and find a visual aid for the presentation. I was proud and in awe of how he took responsibility for it all. Once his presentation was printed, I urged him to practice it several times so when his nerves are high, he will be comfortable with his material. He practiced several times and even looked up from his paper.
The day of the presentation, parents were invited to attend class when their child presented. David, Sophie, Jonah and myself all went to listen to Joshua’s presentation. He was nervous, but did very well.
Once, twice, three times a gardener? I’ve (DeAnna) been trying to get a garden to grow at our home. The last time the corn grew to about 14″ before being taken over by ants and all the other items never sprouted. We have a man who comes once a month to help around the yard and he shared his advice as I was sowing seed. Hopefully this time I’ll see some green produce grow.
We’ll admit our year in France was a hard year! Like most things, with distance the grass gets greener. Something we are very thankful for is France was a great stepping stone to coming to Cameroon. I think we would have been completely overwhelmed if we arrived here without a year in France first. Not only did we learn Franglais (we’ll admit our French isn’t very good, but we get by), I learned the important lesson of converting temperature for cooking, converting to the metric system for measuring and drying clothes inside without a dryer.
(pictured above is laundry hanging in our apartment in France)
Doing laundry has many checkpoints. First checkpoint is – is the water on? Check. Second checkpoint is – is the electricity on? Check. Third checkpoint is – is the water pressure somewhat strong, because if it isn’t the machine will not cycle all the way through? Check. Time to do laundry. Laundry is done, but we are entering rainy season, which means our normal way of drying clothes – hanging them outside on the lines, doesn’t work so great. What to do to try and prevent the laundry from souring? Hang them all around the house. We first learned this in France and use the skill here too.
(pictured above is laundry hanging in our hallway)
(pictured above is our drying rack full of things in the drying process)
A few weeks ago I (David) had to give devotion at the monthly prayer meeting of CABTAL and SIL. I waited until the night before to prepare and the power had gone out so I sat with my candle, Bible and pad of paper not knowing really what I would talk about.
Normally one of the general director’s of the two organizations gives this devotion and they both do a great job of tying in what God is doing in one or both of our organizations to encourage everyone in attendance. But neither of them was going to be in town, so I was next in line. Most of my time during the previous two weeks had been spent working to get a former member repatriated back to the United States, not really an encouraging subject even though the funeral the day before was a great testimony to his life. What I was doing for the last several days involved me being on the phone with numerous people in an effort to get the Meta New Testaments out of the port so they could make it to the dedication that would be the next day.
So I decided to do my devotion Isaiah 55:6-13 with my focus on verse 8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. I shared some of the thoughts that I have about planning, organization, and shipping arriving as scheduled. And I agreed that some of my ways were definitely not in line with God’s ways, especially in how I relate to taxi drivers who insist on making additional lanes. We ended by praying for the Meta New Testaments to be released, for the Meta speakers and above all for God’s will to be done.
The New Testaments were released from the port 2 days after the dedication and were being distributed to the many people who were at the dedication. I don’t know why they weren’t released on time, only God does. Was this a failure? Depends on how you look at it, but many would say yes. I know His ways are not my ways, but now I know that He can even use a failure to deliver the Meta New Testaments for His glory.
“So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:11
Dr Peter Yuh, Translation Consultant who helped the team, with the one locally printed copy of the Meta NT
(photo credit – CABTAL Facebook page)
The rains have arrived! We are experiencing cooler nights – hooray! Power outages seem to accompany the arrival of rainy season. The other night the boys were not going to let a power outage stop their nail biting game of Battleship.
Jonah wore a headlamp so he could see where to place his pegs and Joshua relied on candlelight.
We were in a store and I saw a type of oil I haven’t seen before, colza oil. For a few months it’s been difficult to find any of other kind of oil besides palm oil. Any other type of oil, but palm oil, is always expensive because it’s imported. Back to the colza oil, David has a French/English dictionary on his phone, so I asked him to look up what type of oil colza is because I don’t know this word and I couldn’t figure it out by the labeling. He showed me his phone and I decided not to buy it because I didn’t know what that kind of oil is. I won’t give it away, but you can look it up on Google translate and type in Colza.
After further investigation and searching through more comprehensive French dictionaries, we found out that it’s canola oil. I’m bummed now that I didn’t buy it because I like to use canola oil.
I (DeAnna) have always enjoyed going on walks. Growing up my mom, sister and I would go on many walks. We can sit for hours laughing about stories we shared or experiences shared while going on walks. There was a summer when a friend and I walked miles around Leeton talking and goofing around. Even during my teenage and college years when friends wanted to have a deep, in person conversation, we would go for a walk. Walking around Leeton isn’t like city walking. Leeton has chip and seal streets, so right after the tar had been squirted on the street followed up by gravel, I would get small chunks of gravel that had tar adhered to it, stuck to the back of my legs and stuck to the bottom of my shoes.
When we lived in France, we had to walk several miles daily just to go to school. We also walked to get groceries. There were sidewalks we could walk on and a pull-along cart we could use to tote our groceries.
I’m blessed to have walking friends here. Two days a week I have a scheduled walk time with a close friend – I really look forward to our walking and talking time together. One day a week I have a scheduled walk time with a blossoming friend. The walking surface isn’t like Leeton or France. The walking surface changes during the year, but right now is thick, powdery, fine, red dust with loose gravel on top. When I get home from walking and take my socks off, I have a ring-around-the-ankle dust line indicating where my sock had been with a thin layer of dust rising up the back of my legs to the bottom of the capris I was wearing. This dust ring doesn’t wipe off, it’s necessary to scrub it off with a scrubbing brush.
Regardless of the tar gravel, necessary walking or dust rings; I’m happy to be walking and talking.
We lost a friend and co-worker, Bob, on February 4th. There have been and are many logistical things that have had to and have to be done. David has been responsible for the logistics of re-patriation and all the necessary paperwork.
Things are quite different here than in our passport country. When one is in the midst of grief, it makes the learning curve and differences much harder to traverse. Since paperwork takes time and visas for loved ones to travel to Cameroon takes time, Bob’s memorial service was held on February 27th. It was a wonderful service celebrating Bob’s life and glorifying the Lord.
(Bob is sitting on the left hand side of picture)
D squared + J squared = Anderson 