Recently there was a car parked just outside our gate that had a unique license plate. We took a picture of it. Before we left Yaoundé to return to the USA last June, we saw an SUV that had an Ohio license plate. As crazy as it sounds, it’s comforting to rarely and randomly see license plates from North America. Our guess is the cars get shipped directly from the location and the license plate doesn’t get removed before transit.
As I mentioned in the Box of Chicken blog, we are used to seeing our food packages written in many languages. We became accustomed to this while living in France and since the majority of imported items that we buy at the grocery store come from France, it’s no surprise that the packaging has many languages. This Pringles can has the ingredients written in 19 different languages. That brings me to a question I ponder quite often, how come some companies that are familiar to us make it here and the majority don’t? There are times when you can find a Snickers candy bar, so why M&M Mars, but not Hershey? Why Pringles (packaged in South Africa), but not Frito Lay? Why Colgate toothpaste, but not Aqua Fresh? Why Coca Cola, but not Pepsi?
One of our Cameroonian colleagues who works in the Finance Department, also sells frozen boxes of chicken. She won’t divulge where she gets the boxes from. I find comfort in buying the chicken because it does go through inspection by the USDA. I know there are many people who don’t like all the inspections and governmental involvement with their food, but for me it’s comforting, if only you could see some of things we see on a daily basis. I found the packaging of the box funny. We are used to seeing food packaged with many different languages (just today we had a Pringles can that had the ingredients written in 19 different languages), but when I saw this box I thought this chicken was packaged for international selling. The packaging is in many languages and the weight in kilos.
No matter how long we live cross culturally and no matter how often we communicate in another language, there will always be cultural misses and lost in translation moments. I had one of those moments recently. The shower knob for the cold broke. The knob and the plastic piece that gets screwed into the backing separated and there wasn’t any way to just repair the knob, plus the size we needed is outdated and just doesn’t exist anymore. So we needed to replace the whole thing. David is very busy with work and I didn’t know where to start, so I asked our guard to replace it. He’s usually looking for odd jobs around the house to do on slow days. When he shared with me that the whole unit; knobs and shower pipe with head needed to be replaced, I told him we would prefer the flexible hose kind of shower with head. After giving him the money and going back to homeschooling Jonah, I trusted to him to do the job. After he finished the work and showed me the finished product, I’m sure I looked a bit puzzled. I wanted to burst out laughing because I knew my ideas of the finished product and his are quite different. I thanked him for his work, went into a different room and burst out in laughter.
During the month of April all the members of our organization who are in the country, come into Yaoundé for meetings and sessions. During this time we have entertainment options to last us for the year. We get to go to music night (watch our talented colleagues and/or children perform), there is a fun night (a variety show of sorts), a yard sale (we call it the great exchange), a carnival that the middle and high school students put on, a barbeque hosted by Wycliffe Associates and an annual pinewood derby race. We participated in our third pinewood derby race called CAM car race. This was our second year coordinating the event. The boys love working on their cars and having friendly competition racing the cars. This year we were fortunate to be in the USA to purchase pre-cut cars from AC Moore and bringing them back with us. This was a blessing since the band saw in the wood shop within our organization likes to break frequently.
I, DeAnna, will admit an area I struggle with is fully trusting the Lord to provide for us financially. I think part of my struggle is that living on support is so opposite to the way I was raised. I was raised that you work hard, keep your nose down and pull yourself up by your bootstraps when things are hard. God’s ways are different than our ways and this is one area that is hard for me. God has shown me time and time again that He does and will provide for us in every way, not just financially. We had a couple of months in a row that were very lean plus we lost some financial partners in ministry. We only receive the monies sent into Wycliffe earmarked for us, meaning there isn’t a minimum amount we receive regardless of what is sent in on our behalf. So there may be months of plenty, months of down to the penny what we need and lean months. I felt like the Lord was impressing upon me to write a newsletter type document to send out outlining down to the penny what we need monthly for living expenses. After I wrote it and asked David to review it, I felt uneasy and sensed the Lord didn’t want us to send it at that time, to trust Him and pray specifically about it. So that’s what we did. A couple of weeks later we received a few letters in the mail here that contained checks as gifts to us, we received notification from Wycliffe that a financial gift for our ministry was accidentally credited to another account within Wycliffe and they were in the process of correctly crediting it to our account, we received an email from one of David’s distant relatives explaining they felt led to become a monthly financial partner with us after the missionaries they formally supported resigned from their mission work. We received notification about a friend whom we’ve had contact with for many years who felt led to also become a monthly financial partner. I just had to share this testimony of how God is faithful! Thank you for faithfully supporting us financially! Thank you for committing to pray for us daily! We couldn’t be here without YOU!
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. Isaiah 55:8 NIV
Next to the place we purchased the shoes some people were selling fresh honey. When I say fresh I don’t mean recently jarred, I mean the bees are still working on it. The bees are at work in the white bucket and the bottled honey is in the recycled containers in front of the bucket. I told the boys to stay close and not to swat at a bee if it came near. A few people even brought their own containers and he filled them up while they waited.
I’m not sure, is this wild honey or organic honey?
How do you like your honey?
Joshua and Jonah are both growing at a rapid rate. Their feet have grown so fast that the shoes I packed six months ago before leaving the USA for them to grow into have already been grown out of.
Now we are at an age where Joshua is so hard on shoes that they are falling apart when he’s outgrown them and can’t hand them down to Jonah. Here the majority of the time the boys wear baboush, slip on foam sandals. These shoes are widely available. Poor Joshua has been walking around for two weeks wearing sandals that have a hole in the sole in both shoes. He does wear his sneakers (thanks to Aunt Denise and Peg Seitz) when he has sports.
We normally buy the shoes from the man who pushes a cart full of them up and down the street, however, when we’ve caught up to him he hasn’t had the sizes needed for the boys or the size that fits is pink (note: most Cameroonians will wear whatever fits regardless of color or style) so the man couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t purchase pink sandals for Joshua when they fit. After talking with Sophie about other places to buy the sandals, we went on a mission as a family to find proper fitting shoes. After trying on many sandals and having much assistance, we walked away with five pairs (two that fit now for Joshua and one pair to grow into and one pair for Jonah now and one pair for him to grow into).
I returned home one evening just after it rained and it struck me as odd to see two clucking chickens about 7 feet up in a tree.
On May 21, 1999, we were wed! It was a gorgeous spring day in Missouri, the sun was shining bright, it was warm and the birds were singing. We tried to time out the end of our ceremony with the sunset. We were married at Powell Gardens.
14 years have gone by. We have been blessed with two wonderful boys and the Lord has called us to a ministry overseas. We never would’ve imagined in 1999 that we would be called to Wycliffe Bible Translators in 2008, live in France to attend humility school (oh, I mean Language School) for a year, then on to work in Cameroon.
D squared + J squared = Anderson 