D squared + J squared = Anderson

Tropical Fruit

Posted on February 26, 2014 by David

In the 32 years I lived in the USA before moving abroad, I never purchased passion fruit. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know what they even looked like. I would see passion fruit on labels as an ingredient in tropical juice blends and knew the taste of them, but didn’t know the fruit. I didn’t really know much about mango or papaya either.

We are surrounded by tropical fruit and enjoy most of them. We’ll admit, we do miss berries, peaches, cantaloupe and nectarines. When we are in the USA we miss sweet bananas – if you haven’t eaten bananas in the tropics, you don’t realize how tasteless the bananas are that are sold at grocery stores throughout the States.

We enjoy passion fruit juice. We like it in smoothies, by itself as a refreshing drink or frozen into ice cubes that we can flavor our water with. I thought I would share the process of the passion fruit transformation.

1. Purchase the passion fruit. This is what they look like here. On the outside, they don’t look very appealing.

2. Cut them in half and scoop out the insides into a blender.

3. Add water to the passion fruit and blend. Strain the seed bits out and return the juice to the blender. Add sugar to taste, more water and blend again. Enjoy!

Posted in Cameroon, home | Tagged Cameroon, passion fruit, tropical fruit | 3 Comments

10 Reasons You Should Be a Missionary

Posted on February 24, 2014 by David

I recently read a blog written by a family who serves in Cambodia. I thought it was funny and relatable, so I wanted to share some of it, plus add my own to the list.

http://trotters41.com/2014/02/15/ten-reasons-you-should-be-a-missionary

10 reasons you should be a missionary

10. You’ll get to try new things, like amoebas and boils.

Even if you’re the most vaccinated person you know, you just might get sick. On the bright side, most of the time your illnesses will sound cool. A couple of years ago at the middle and high school many students had boils. I remember at a church service when the prayer request was given to pray for the boil problem at the school, I was thinking, I never heard that prayer request in my passport country.

(pictured above is David’s neck boil from 2011)

9. Your kids will have friends from countries you didn’t know existed.

I think our boys could plan a route for us to travel from Cameroon to the USA with five stops along the way where they can name a family living there to stay with. (Niger, Mali, Senegal, France, Switzerland)

8. You driving skills will improve.

Lights are optional at night. Lights on during the day can be to impersonate a VIP, light flash can signal not to pull in front of that vehicle or light flash can indicate to pull in front of that vehicle.

I mean, who knew driving 20mph (or 32kph) could be so exhilarating. And when you need to transport wood or a mattress, just lay it on the roof of the car and hold it with your hand out the window. Two lane roads turn into a road supporting four or more lanes of traffic. Watch out for the motorcycles because even though you have your turn signal on and it’s clear you are turning left – you’ll get passed on the left.

7. You’ll learn to be grateful for the little things, like sugar and clean water.

If you can drink the water coming from your tap without worrying about amoeba or cholera – be grateful. If your water comes out of your tap clear (meaning not orange or brown or dark yellow) – be grateful.

Older missionaries in our part of the world remember when granulated sugar became available. Before then the only sugar available was sugar cubes. We are grateful for granulated sugar, however, due to the humidity, the sugar is somewhat wet and clumped, but that beats crushing sugar cubes into granulated sugar to use in a recipe.

(I was going to include bacon in this section, but that just makes me salivate and start a pity party)

6. Your gross out factor changes.

You’re surrounded by dust and dirt, so you don’t freak out when a thick layer covers your floors or shelves overnight, just wipe with your hand, wipe your hand on your hip and go. When you place rice in water to cook, you skim off the bugs that float to the top – no biggie. You get out of bed in the night and scrunch a cockroach underfoot, you get the sudden yuck, but wipe your foot off and continue on. You invite geckos into your home because they eat the bugs. You’re surrounded by people urinating when you go down the road and if you know that person, they will talk to you while they relieve themselves.

–5. Your children will learn how to whine in multiple languages.

The ability to whine, out loud, in front of other people, without them knowing, is the gift of a lifetime. Just be sure to teach your kids to do a quick perimeter check for possible same-language listeners within earshot.

Your new language will also allow your family to share bodily function jokes all throughout furlough. Very bonding, really.

–4. You’re always not from around here.

In the host country there are many things you’ll never “get” or don’t even want to “get.” It’s just too foreign to wrap your mind around – no worries, you’re not from around here.

Time marches on in your passport country. New products come out to make life more convenient or change the tapestry of society. When on furlough and you can’t figure out how to use the automated systems or smart phones or whatever, you have the excuse of “I’m not from around here.” A panic option when the people in line are becoming increasing impatient is to pretend you don’t speak English and speak another language.

–3. Fashion rules will no longer apply.

You ever seen a missionary? Yeah.

–2. You’ll get to report to hundreds of people routinely, details about your work, your family, and finances.

It’s accountability on steroids.

You may get asked why you need so much, or why you have to pay for your kids’ education, or why you save for retirement, but at the end of the day, you’re in a partnership and it’s a privilege that others partner financially and prayerfully so you can do this thing we call missions. It’s an honor to serve, even when the reports are due, the power’s out, it’s hot season, the spreadsheet’s rebelling, and you can’t figure out how to get that docx into a pdf into an html into a mobile-friendly, print-friendly, e-mail-friendly format. But hey, at least you don’t have to use envelopes.

–1. You’ll get to experience the raw joy of crossing language barriers, cultural barriers, time zones and comfort zones, simply to show Jesus’ love.

Maybe you preach the gospel. Maybe you serve the sickest and the poorest, touching the folks no one else wants to touch. Maybe you teach English or a vocation, aiming to empower. Maybe you do a thousand things for economies or community health or justice. Maybe you deal with governmental issues, housing, administrative, finance, aviation, construction and security. But there is one Love that draws us together and pushes us out the door. Everyday.

His name is Jesus, and at the end of the day, He is worth it all.

Posted in Cameroon | Tagged Cameroon, missionary, reasons | 3 Comments

Olympics

Posted on February 21, 2014 by David

We are happy to have the ability to watch the winter Olympics. This is the first time the boys have seen the Olympics. We are watching them on the only channel we can find that airs them and all the commentary is in French. We have noticed differences in this French version from the American version, for example, in some sports only the French athletes are shown and once the French athlete is done with the event they move on to a different event. Also, when the French athlete performs the comments are: perfect, fabulous, wonderful, etc… It makes us chuckle.

The boys have gotten into the Olympics. They root for the American athletes and will call them out by name. In the snow boarding Jonah was yelling at the television saying, “Come on Patrick; you have to do good; don’t let USA down.” David and I were laughing. The boys asked where the Cameroon athletes were. We explained that they wouldn’t have a place to practice winter type sports, so that’s why. Joshua being our geography guru explained how some of the other countries who were competing also didn’t have winter, but they were represented. Another time to chuckle.

I’m glad the boys have had the opportunity to watch the Olympics and be part of the action. It makes us feel connected to our passport country to be rooting along with our family and friends. It also makes us feel more communal on social media because we at least know what many posts are talking about. Most of the time we have no idea about television shows or movies that our social media friends are sharing. We are feeling connected and blessed.

Posted in Cameroon, home, Kids | Tagged Cameroon, Olympics | 1 Comment

Snail Eggs

Posted on February 19, 2014 by David

I know I’ve blogged about the snails in our yard. They don’t gross me out, I prefer that most of them not be here because they have killed some of my plants.

I was walking around the yard and noticing in shady spots around the yard we had many snail eggs. I took it as a challenge to find groupings of the eggs and photograph them to share with you.

Posted in Cameroon, home | Tagged Cameroon, Eggs, snails | 2 Comments

Water Filters

Posted on February 17, 2014 by David

We’re sick and tired of intestinal issues. Some call it King Tut’s Revenge, some call it riding the porcelain throne, there have been songs about it using baseball terms, some call it the trots – diarrhea! It’s no fun! I used to not be so open to discuss my intestinal issues before living here, but now it doesn’t faze me – when missionaries get together – we talk about it. We’ll even try to help each other out by asking more probing details because chances are someone else has had the same issue and knows what is needed to solve the problem. Since we keep having problems in this area (amoeba, giardia), we figured it might be a water filter issue.

We purchased a new water filter, one that has a UV light that’s suppose to kill all the viruses and bacteria in the water. This is our fifth water filter system since living in Cameroon and we hope it does the trick and we’ll stop having the repeated intestinal troubles. Since our water gets turned off regularly, we keep a good supply of filtered water on hand. We used the water in those bottles to water our plants outside and refilled them all with the new filter system’s filtered water.

Posted in Cameroon, home | Tagged Cameroon, Diarrhea, Water Filters | 3 Comments

Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 14, 2014 by David

Happy Valentine’s Day. It’s not a holiday or celebrated day here – just any other day. We don’t get the candy conversation hearts or heart shaped boxes with chocolates or roses delivered.

I remember when David and I were dating he would have roses sent to my place of work and take me out for dinner. I would buy the conversation hearts that he enjoys and we would lovingly gaze at one another.

After children were added to our fold, I started buying Papa Murphy’s heart-shaped pepperoni pizza and would wait for David’s phone call that he was headed home from work. I would pop it in the oven to time it so when he walked in the door, the pizza would be ready. I would still purchase the conversation hearts – they became dessert.

In France, I made heart-shaped individual meatloaves for each of us.

Last year, I wanted to rekindle the Papa Murphy’s memory and made heart-shaped pizza’s.

I don’t know what I’ll do to help us celebrate Valentine’s Day this year, but I enjoy looking back at the photos from Valentine’s Day past.

Posted in Cameroon, home | Tagged Cameroon, Valentine's Day | 2 Comments

What’s That Noise?

Posted on February 12, 2014 by David

The other day while David and I were watching a movie, I heard something. It had been somewhat windy and on one side of our roof the aluminum roofing flaps a bit in the wind making a bit of a ruckus. David said he thought it was just the flapping. I said it sounded stronger to me than flapping, but we didn’t hear the noise again and the dog didn’t bark, so we went back to watching the movie.

The next day, I walked to the backyard to add some items to the compost and saw that our backyard papaya tree had fallen down and was resting on the gutter. In my mind I thought, “Ah ha, that’s the noise I heard.”

Posted in Cameroon, home | Tagged Cameroon, noise, papaya tree | 4 Comments

Highlights in Pictures

Posted on February 10, 2014 by David

Here are some highlights of Cameroon in pictures.

Posted in Cameroon | Tagged Cameroon, Life, Pictures | 3 Comments

Grief

Posted on February 6, 2014 by David

Grief hurts! It doesn’t matter if it comes suddenly or after someone has suffered with a terminal illness or after someone has lived 100 years on Earth – it hurts! It hurts because we love each other and miss each other. It hurts because we selfishly want to keep that person with us and not let go.

Since we’ve returned to Cameroon in November 2012, we’ve been directly affected by ten deaths here and two deaths we’ve mourned afar. I remember reading in a book written by a missionary serving abroad that when one mourns from afar the grief usually doesn’t fully hit that person until they return to their home country and experience the first gathering where that person isn’t present.

Grief is handled differently by each person and is handled differently by each culture. Grief is cultural. In our passport country, although we don’t have great words to say, we have been taught by watching, listening, experiencing while growing up, words to convey sympathy to someone who has lost a loved one or that we would receive from someone expressing their sympathy to us. Don’t get me wrong, there is no way to make someone feel less pain when mourning the loss of someone they loved, especially through words. It’s difficult to know what words to use with our Cameroonian friends to express our sympathy in a way that is received as sympathy. The way funerals are conducted, memorial services, burials are all completely different than in our passport country. When emotions are raw, it’s hard to grasp a learning curve of that magnitude.

We lost a friend and co-worker on February 4^th. We are in the midst of mourning. Because of the scope of David’s position, he doesn’t get to have downtime because he’s the one turned to for answers about logistical things that need to be accomplished. This has been difficult for David as it is the fourth death since returning from furlough that he has had to assist with the various logistics, including taking his friend and co-worker to the morgue.

We know the promises we have from the Bible, we know that our friends and loved ones are in heaven. I’ll never forget something a friend shared after he lost his beloved wife. He said he knew the extreme depth of her love for him and their children, however, it hit him during a drive that if she had to choose between returning to be with her family or staying in her eternal home, she would choose her eternal home. I’m also reminded of a song, written by a friend that speaks of golden streets and how on golden streets we’ll be free. We know we live in a fallen world and because of that, there will be death, but we have the promise that in heaven there will be no more death. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelations 21:4

It does bring comfort and a smile to think of those who are in their eternal homes, dancing on golden streets in uninhibited freedom!

Posted in Cameroon | Tagged Cameroon, grief, Loss | 9 Comments

Truth

Posted on February 5, 2014 by David

There are many times when our emotions are raw.

There are many times we want to share all the nitty, gritty details of things that make us angry on our blog, but we know it wouldn’t be constructive.

There are many times we want to share about our frustrations that come in many forms, but know it not only would be endangering to us, those reading it wouldn’t understand what we were sharing unless they too lived it.

There are times we grieve because we can’t be with family or friends.

There are times when we wonder if we are hurting the boys by raising them here.

There are times we want to hop on the next plane to fly back to an environment we know how to operate in without needing to think of cultural this or that or how to say something.

There are times we grieve selling our home, cars, possessions and leaving comfort.

There are times we want a family members or a friends loving arms giving us a bear hug.

We are people, fallen creatures. We have emotions, in fact, these emotions are more tapped into here than they’ve ever been while living in our passport country.

Why do we stay? Only one word can answer this question: obedience. When things are down, like right now, we hang onto knowing we were called here and we are here out of obedience. His ways are higher than our ways, even when we can’t see it.

Posted in Cameroon | Tagged Cameroon | 3 Comments