New Wind Blowing

We are excited that God is blowing his fresh wind through the NavYouth ministry here.  Together with Wilson & Rose, we really see God calling us to line up to the vision of this ministry which is to work with young people to bring them to a place of being able to reproduce into other disciples of Jesus.  We realize that some our labors and activities while not being bad at all, require tons of energy and investment for very little fruit.  As a result, we are paring down the program activities and focusing on those few who deeply want to grow and study, rather than those that only want to come for fun and games.  We will still have some fun stuff for sure, but I think we realize that we have spent much of 5 years running after the youth and reminding them of every activity.  We look forward to having them come because they are passionate followers of Christ and not passionate followers of Gilles & Wendy.  We will have a 3 day, 2 night spiritual retreat in mid-July to earnestly begin this time of investing in those God brings.  We are passionate and excited about what God is doing.  Thanks for being a part of His work here in Cameroon.  We love that you walk this journey with us.

What a day of rejoicing!

What a welcome “home”!  We saw God move so fantastically on our behalf while we travelled from Colorado to Virginia to Chicago to Brussels Belgium and on to Yaounde Cameroon. Why does that amaze me?  Sometimes I am so ashamed when I expect so seemingly little from our Great God.  But alas...please keep me on the Potter’s Wheel, dear Jesus.

So many of you prayed specifically for our seats to be together and for our luggage to make it in its entirety on the same plane with us.  God moved and moved some more...all our luggage arrived with us with nothing stolen.  We also were granted an amazing grace to be seated together on our flights.  We didn’t even have to ask anyone to switch with us...they boarding passes printed out with us sitting together.  I just love it when God shows us so wonderfully.

Despite not much rest on the flights, we arrived in Yaounde overjoyed to see our friends and family.  We were really blessed to have a welcoming committee of about 25 at the airport to greet us.  Within that group were close Cameroonian friends, expat friends, and some co-laborers.  

And more - at our home, not only were our two dogs, Smokey and Milka, waiting for us, but there was a group of youth from NavJeunesse that were here throwing confetti, singing in both French and English and dancing...what a rejoicing!

Our 11 days here so far have been complete with seeing friends, cleaning, unpacking, cleaning, fixing broken things, cleaning, sleeping, cleaning...etc.  Need I say more?  It really is great to be back.  It’s not without challenges and trials, but we feel more prepared to attack those as a team and in a unified spirit this term.  Praise God.  Thank you for your prayers and love...we totally couldn’t be here without you cheering us on.