Here’s all of us at a welcome to Paris sign –in the airport, of course. With less than six hours of layover, we’ve been strongly advised not to leave the airport. ? Here’s the rest of the sign:
And of course we found a children’s area, complete with an Eiffel Tower made of blocks…
We’re all looking forward to some rest at this point, so we’ll see if we can find any open couches….
This is Joel and I sitting on the couch that helped throwing out back out a couple weeks ago, now on the curb. We tried selling it but couldn’t. We tried giving it away but couldn’t do that either. So now it sits ready for bulk trash pickup. I seriously wanted some kind of vengeance on this couch but I guess I’ll just have to be satisfied with this.
Now that our shipment to North Carolina (going on to Cameron by sea freight) has left, I’m feeling exhausted and ready to crash. So I thought a few selfies with Joel and various “soon to be trash” items was appropriate. Yes, this is a large TV (or sewing, dishes, etc, as we used it) cabinet:
And on the other side of Joel, you can see the animal chair (used to be Abby’s favorite spot, but it looks ripe for a cat roost, as well (or a roost for several cats, or anyone else that doesn’t mind dog hair embedded in their furniture –which excludes most people, apparently):
Anyway. This isn’t supposed to be depressing, that’s just how I feel being this exhausted. And having these reminders that I seem to be willing to put up with furniture that must other people consider junk. But maybe someone will beat the garbageman to one of these items and it will find a new home before taking up space in a landfill.
Anyway, on more fun tasks like to taxes (yes, I know it’s June…), files (that didn’t make the NC shipment, for some reason), and prepping other stuff for local storage. 😉
Relocating to a new foreign country can be costly. We have a number of one-time expenses to pay for plane tickets and setting up house, work, vehicle, etc. in a new city. Wycliffe holds a separate account for us, called a launch expense account.
This Wycliffe account for our Cameroon set-up is now ready. This means we can officially let people know about these expenses, as well as how to help with them. We’d be happy to talk with you about why any or all of these costs are necessary, but the point of this blog entry is to provide clear instructions, for those who have decided to contribute to this account. Note: this is similar to, but different from, contributing to our monthly financial needs, which is described here. Continue reading How to Give to Our Launch Expense Account
How do you become a financial partner in our Wycliffe ministry? Click the “Give” link. But what does that mean? How does it work? In this post we will walk through step by step how to contribute to our financial needs online. The side bar of our website includes a “Give” link to our Wycliffe personal missionary page, (where you can also send us a note in case you lose our address). This page looks like this: Continue reading Financial Partnership Instructions
We just hit 90% of our Wycliffe budget! This is particularly encouraging, because for some time now I’ve had difficulty answering our most frequently asked question: “When are you leaving?”
I usually mumble something unintelligible (you might have noticed this), then try to say something about it depending in part on how quickly our finances get together. And the school year constraints: after this school year ends (June 1-ish) and before the RFIS school year starts (Aug 1). But as we get closer and closer to a full team of monthly financial partners, we feel more comfortable making more specific plans, trusting that God is moving in people to partner with us, and that the remaining 10% of our budget will be there soon.
CAVEAT: Wycliffe’s (good) rule that we cannot leave for our assignment without 100% of our budget covered still applies. We’re making these plans because we see God working and bringing people into partnership with us, and as an act of faith in His provision for this work. We believe it is strategic to move forward with more specific plans now, though if our Wycliffe budget is not fully covered in this time frame, we will have to delay our departure.
So our current plans are to vacate our house and hand it over to a property management company by June 15 —in order to have it rented out by July 1. To make that happen, we hope to empty our house by June 1, so we can spend the first couple weeks of June cleaning and painting more or less full-time. And after that, we’d like to take time to celebrate Father’s day and our 20th anniversary, before flying out in the second half of June (exact dates will depend on ticket availability and pricing).
If you are in North Texas and want to help us pack, clean, paint or run a garage sale, please do let us know! We hope to pack and clean as we can from now until June 1. 🙂
The majority of group housing is in a compound with a shared wall and guard, called New Land —presumably because it was once new… But lots of our colleagues live there, and there is a central play ground where Joel got to try out the tire swing:
as did James:
But I think the best thing is that they don’t have to play alone; there are lots of other missionary kids in there:
As we mentioned before we left, one of the main goals of our March trip to Cameroon was attending the second National Symposium on Cameroonian Languages (NASCAL2). It was good that we could schedule the trip to coincide with this conference, as this is part of a significant goal for my work: interacting in national linguistics conferences. Because this conference was held some six hours by road north of Yaoundé, it took some work getting there, which I’ve chronicled here.
This is the view out my hotel balcony:
and one with me in it:
Arriving on time, we had lots of time to stand around waiting for things to begin:
This is what the plenary room looked like for the first couple hours:
This gave me a number of opportunities to meet people, such as Joseph, a professor in the German department in Yaoundé:
Godfrey: 
Nelson (A PhD student): 
and Elijah:
But eventually everyone got there, and the first plenary sessions got going:
I was somewhat surprised to see the style of journalism that I had assumed was unique to DRC, recording the presentations:
and the audience:
Unfortunately, the delay starting wasn’t particularly well accounted for in the schedule, and was complicated by power being cut just as the sun was going down, making light even more necessary:
Since most presenters depended on a projector, the room I was in quit for the day, in consultation with the organizers. But this decision wasn’t coordinated across the conference; at least one other room was still going a couple hours later:
So we got dinner and headed back to the hotel, to prepare for the next day:
The next morning, we were back in the same room, but with power on (and an adjusted schedule):
I got to hear presentations from other missionary colleagues, like Sarah:
And Cam:
As well as from Cameroonians like Adriel (another doctoral student at Yaoundé)
I even got to make my own presentation (on how to evaluate the importance of tone in a given language, which sparked a decent conversation):
There was also more time for side conversations with Joseph Bushman:
and Ayunwe, a professor at the University of Buea (which hosted WOCAL7):
And I got to help out with a group photo for people working with CABTAL (Cameroon Association for Bible Translation and Literacy, a member of the Wycliffe Global Alliance), plus a friend or two:
And I got to speak briefly the with Mathaus, the head of linguistics for CABTAL:
and with Adriel Bebine, who is working on his doctorate at the University of Youndé I (we also got to sit together over the closing meal, so we got to chat some more):
There were lots of corridor conferences with the organizers:
and there were a couple local performers, though I only got a pic of this one:
In the end, we had the obligatory ceremony, wherein I got a certificate confirming my participation (:-)):
After the closing ceremony, and the closing meal (which I guess I didn’t get pictures of!), we headed off to see the local attraction “Museum of Civilizations”:
though on the way I ran into Jeff, a student at the University of Dschang, who gave a loose-fitting shout-out to the Pacific Northwest:
Here is the museum, across the lake in blue:
and my selfie with the lake:
The lake itself is a fairly major feature of the area: 
I have lots of pics of the museum itself, but I won’t spoil the surprise, in case you might go there yourself some day (:-)). They were very proud of it, and kept it open late to allow us to see it.
So over all, the conference went well. The organization did not allow as much time for informal interaction as I’m used to having (between presentations, over meals, etc), but I did get to make a number of introductions, which was much of what I was hoping for. On the way home, I texted with one contact I’d made about the possibility of helping with some teaching on tone, which would be a strategic way for me to use my training. So we got some relationships started, with those currently in and out of Bible translation work, and with people in universities and in other institutions. As we make our move to Cameroon this June/July (Lord willing!), we’ll be able to further cultivate these relationships, and see how we can best help the church and Bible translation movement in Cameroon!
One thing we didn’t expect, when we booked this trip, was that it would coincide with the opening of Captain Marvel in Cameroon. Someone in the community organized tickets, so we went along for the experience. I thought it interesting that the theater parking lot (on a major university campus) bordered on a crazy stand of banana trees:
The bananas went most of the way around the parking lot:
But it was also on a bit of a hill, so on the other side the trees slope down, making buildings visible across the valley:
Then, of course, there is the theater building itself:
Here is a 180º panoramic showing this all together:
Here are the kids, standing in line 🙂
Inside, there were big comfy chairs:
And we each got to sit with someone we liked: 
Out of respect for the establishment’s very clear and repeated instructions, I had my phone off during the movie, but there were a couple other points to note. First, though the pictures above don’t show it, the theater completely filled up. And this was the original (English) version of the film, not a dubbed (French) version, so it was interesting to see so many Cameroonians there.
Second, it was interesting to see how much more communal the experience was. Throughout the movie there were audible reactions to what was going on. Not people being obnoxious, just reacting, and lots of people reacting together. Like once, a character said something like “he lied to me!” As this was a conclusion most of the audience had reached earlier, someone responded “Really?!?” in French, and the whole room laughed.
Anyway, it was good to get out on the town (even if we had to sit in traffic to get there), and enjoy a community experience, while also hanging out with a number of other missionaries (and their kids!). We never really had this kind of experience in Kenya, Uganda, or DRCongo, so it is nice to know that this will be possible to do on occasion.
One of the main goals of our March trip to Cameroon was attending the second National Symposium on Cameroonian Languages (NASCAL2), which was held some six hours by road north of Yaoundé. So before detailing the conference itself, I’ll chronicle the trip up and back. Mostly because I saw more of the country than we did in Yaoundé, but also because I had little to do but converse and take pictures. :-)
It took pretty much forever to get out of the city:
But once we did, the roadside view was mostly beautiful:
Though it was also much a work in progress:
There were lots of shops in larger and smaller villages along the way:
And various dead vehicles, as elsewhere in Africa:
As well as construction materials and crews:
And cell towers:
We saw gasoline brands we only see in Africa:
We crossed a major river:
And we eventually stopped for lunch:
We spent a lot of time behind trucks:
But we also got to see countryside houses of the more powerful: 
and lots of kinds of trees:
including evergreens!
Along the way, we also saw lots of small shops:
And people going about their lives:
Eventually, we stopped for gas:
As far as I could tell, this truck was filling up, not filling the station tank: 
The gas station was across the street from Air Force One:
Some colleagues were trying to send someone money, so we spent some time at the post office:
Unfortunately, things didn’t go smoothly (between internet, phone calls, who was in the office, and who had money, etc), so we spent about an hour looking at the post office, and the road it was on:
But we ultimately got back on the road, and filled up at a station with croissants:
So the summary I take from all this is that there are some things that are just like Kenya and DRCongo (e.g., much of the road, shops, and scenery), and there are somethings that are very much different (croissants, pyramids on houses, evergreen trees). So this trip was helpful in the process of adjusting to Cameroon: setting our expectations for a better and more productive time working there.
One of the great successes of the trip we took to Cameroon in March was the relationship with the school our children will be attending: Rain Forest International School. This is the compound wall and gate on approach:
And the sign just outside the gate:
This is a 360º panoramic from the parking lot, with the parking lot in the center, and the closest building on each edge:
There is a sign inside as wellː
And a bush signː
And a lovely soccer fieldː
On the right are classrooms and administration:
On the left are more classrooms and the library, shown here again:
The buildings have outside walkways:
and lockers:
But perhaps the most important features are peers for James and Joel:
and for Anna:
And, of course, a field for them all to play on:
And of course, where our kids have peers, those kids also have moms, which is good for Kim:
Anyway, there is certainly much more that could be said, and more things to show, but the bottom line is that RFIS has a great campus, lots of other missionary kids, and ours are all looking forward to studying there next year. So that is one of our major goals for this trip accomplished: getting our kids started on their transition to their new school. We were hoping they could be each excited about this move, and RFIS is making that happen!