New House

Big changes are happening at the Red House. Soon we will be moving to the White House. No, obviously not "the" White House but this one! :o) As of tonight, we have sold our red house and will (if everything goes as planned) be moving not too many miles north of here to the white one by mid-October. It's on just over an acre of land and has a beautiful open field behind it and trees. This month they are starting construction of a pond in the field as part of permanent flood protection. This was an area that was affected by the flood this spring but is the first around here to receive flood protection. We are getting so excited to move but have lots of packing to do between now and then!

Africa

We are in Africa and having a great time. The kids have adjusted very well and are loving playing around the mission compound with the missionary kids. They look like missionary kids themselves running around and playing in the sand, chasing lizzards and bugs, etc. As Olson was running around yesterday, he said to me, "I LOVE AFRICA!". We arrived in N'Djamena on Friday night. All of our flights were on time and we had no big hassles getting through security. The biggest issue was that we arrived there with only 6 of our 8 bags. We had the two suitcases that had our clothes and stuff in but the missing two had things for the missionaries and also for our kids program. Thankfully those arrived the next day and we received them intact. The drive to Maroua from N'Djamena got a bit long for the kids but we were thankfull to have air conditioning in the Land Cruiser. We had 10 people(2 families) in the Land Cruiser for the drive including an 11 year old, almost 10 year old, 9 year old, almost 8 year old, a 2 year old and a 1 year old. The littlest ones had a bit of a harder time than the rest of us, they did not like being in their carseats that long. I think with the border crossings it took about 7 hours or so. The border crossings went very well, we have to go through two of them to get into Cameroon, one on the Chad side and one on the Cameroon side. Jeff and Marcos went in for those and they went quite quickly, the first one took only about 45 minutes and I think the next one was about 30 minutes. Kirsten H. and I were in the vehicle with the kids trying to keep them occupied, mostly by feeding them. Kirsten bought a few things from people who came to our windows with goods to sell so we got to try a few African treats. Then we had to make another stop to get the papers for the vehicle stamped. Marcos went in to do that and they told him that he needed to geta photocopy of some papers so he walked to a shop with a photocopier while we waited in the Land Cruiser and continued to try to keep the kids entertained(we gave them lots of snacks). Marcos got to the shop and it was closed. He went to a second one and the copier was broken. He went to a third and had to fix the copier(take care of a paper jam) for them before he could make his copy. He was finally then able to get his stamp and we could go.When we were finally on our way, the drive went pretty well. We only had one person get carsick which is amazing considering the swerving and braking Marcos had to do because of the potholes in the road. As we drove by the stretch of road by the Waza Game Park, we saw some antelope and a few monkeys. I was telling them how I remembered seeing giraffes at Waza as a child and just as I finished saying that, I spotted a giraffe out my window!!!!!! It was so cool. We stopped and backed up so that everybody could see it and then we also saw two more!!!!!!!!!!!!! The one looked like a baby giraffe and we were all able to see them. We were so excited. We hadn't even been in Africa for 24 hours and had already seen three giraffes!We are now at the mission and on Day 2 of the Spiritual retreat. We are enjoying getting to know the kids and have had a good time with them and their parents. Our biggest challenge with the kids program has been the age range of the kids, from 1 year old to 15 years old. But for the most part it has gone well.Kaelen and I got to go to the market today with some of the other ladies and she thought it was very cool. As I type, the kids are once again running around outside with some of the many playmates here(there are 17 missionary kids), after doing a bit of schoolwork. I hear them yelling and laughing like they have been doing every day. The bugs are not too bad here and we haven't seen any snakes or scorpions and hope not to. Yesterday we went to the pool at a hotel here and all the kids got to swim. One afternoon, I think we will go and climb Mount Maroua. Last night we all had a fire and roasted hotdogs and then made smores with some of the stuff that we brought out here in our many suitcases. The hotdogs made it out here just fine even though they were in one of the bags that took an extra day to arrive. The weather has not been too hot, maybe in the 80's or 90's and the mission here is beautifully shaded so we don't feel the heat much, except when going out in to the market or something. We have air conditioning and hot water in our room and also obviously have wireless internet access! We are all healthy so far and have gotten our bodies onto African time so we feel well rested also. Please pray for continued health and safety for us and also for the kids program that we are able to make it interesting for all the kids regardless of age. Also pray for the missionaries as they have their spiritual retreat that it would be a time of strenghthening, renewal and encouragement for them. Thanks!

A Few Africa Pictures

We are home from Africa and getting ready to go again.

It is so good to be back with our kids. We arrived home on Thursday morning after a long trip home due to flight cancellation, re-routing, missed connections, hours and hours spent in the airport and a red eye flight but we made it! We are trying to get used to being back here - the different time zone, climate, routines etc.

In a little over a month, we will turn around and go again. This time the kids will also come along. We are privileged to be able to go back out and put on a kids program for the LB Missionary Kids from Chad while the missionaries have their annual spiritual retreat. We are so excited that Olson and Kaelen will be able to come along with us this time and to be able to share this life-changing experience with them. We will be leaving Christmas Day and will be gone for a few weeks. Exciting!

We are ready...

almost! After a full evening of packing we have things mostly ready for our trip to Africa. (For more information about this trip, you can visit our trip blog at http://cameroon08.blogspot.com/.) I have a few more last minute items to pack tomorrow but not many. We have managed to pack everything that we wanted to and our bags are still under the weight limit. Praise the Lord! Three of our four bags are already zipped shut even, just one more left to finish! We fly out to Seattle tomorrow, spend the night and then met our team and fly out from the States on Wednesday.
The kids were sad tonight about leaving and both cried but we know that we are all safe in God's hands. Please pray for the loneliness issues that our family will deal with being apart. Kaelen wrote us the sweetest note on Sunday and gave it to us tonight. On the outside she drew some hearts and wrote, "God is with you" On the inside it said, "Dear Mom and Dad, I hope you have a great time in Africa. I will be lonely but I know that God is always with me. I love you! from Kaelen" What precious children God has blessed us with. It will be hard for this Mommy to be away from her kids but am thankful for what God is already teaching me about TRUST!
We covet your prayers. Please continue to lift us up! Here is a link to our prayer calendar with specific requests for the days and a bit of an itinerary. Thank you all!
www.lbwm.org/downloads/Cameroon2008_prayer_calendar.pdf

Labor Day Weekend With Cousins

First Day of School

Sorry it took so long!

Catching Up From the Summer

Here are some pictures from our trip to South Dakota this summer. We went through the Badlands and Black Hills on our way to Colorado this time. It was the first time there for 3/4 of us, Jeff was the only one who had been there before. It was beautiful and we had a great time together. It was much more fun than our normal route driving through Nebraska.

We are going back to Africa!!!

Jeff and I are going to AFRICA in November! We are so excited about it. If you would like to check out more, my sis Teresa made a website and a blog that we are using to keep people up to date. You can check it out at http://www.cameroon08.com/. There are a few more details on there. Please pray for this upcoming trip of ours, thanks. We will be leaving on November 5th and head to Garoua, Cameroon where we will be doing church planting work.