Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Feb Newsletter

Hello All,

Things have been very busy here lately. The Spring Drama production is coming up soon and volleyball (boys and girls) games start today. We had our friend Mary over for dinner last night to celebrate her birthday. Along with her came a family who has been ministering in Central African Republic for a number of years. Because of an ever-changing political climate they have left for good and are spending a week or so here before they go back to the US. The kids especially liked our 3 baby kittens who arrived last Friday.
We got rain the other night. Our lawn perked up like crazy. I think it grew an inch on Monday.
We have an accreditation team from the US here in 2 weeks to determine if RFIS really does educate young people the way we say we do. It is a high tension couple of weeks preparing for that. The amount of paperwork that goes into this is unbelievable. Some of the senior teachers are putting in at least 20 or 30 extra hours a week since October getting things in line. Our midterm progress reports are due the Wednesday the team is here. We are not looking forward to that.
Hope you all like the newsletter. Our trip up north was great and we are planning another to Equatorial Guinea over spring break the end of March.
Thank you all for your thoughts, prayers and support throughout. Hopefully we will get a chance to see most of you this summer.
God Bless
Brian & Betsy

Friday, February 23, 2007

Weekly update 23 Feb

Good Day All

 

The absence of a weekly letter last week was a silent tribute to Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter. No, actually we were at the Annual RFIS High School retreat at a place called the Rock Farm. Our day started with a 7am Tuesday arrival at school to get things set up for the baggage loading and checking of essential supplies of the students. We had to make sure they all had plenty of Coca-Cola, candy bars, DVD’s to watch and IPods to listen to music instead of conversing and sharing. It was tough getting them all to understand why we do NOT bring along these items but rather we insist upon 2 bottles of water, a valid ID and a malaria treatment. IPods and cell phones are not permitted. I know a few brave souls went against the grain and brought their phones but failed to think ahead that there are no cell towers 2 hours into the rainforest, thus no signal. The plan was to have students arrive at 730, be checked in and bags ready by 800 and load up for an 830 departure. There were about 80 kids and 20 adults going so this seemed like an easy task. At least a dozen kids were still not at school by 800 and 3 had no ID. It is a gigantic pain in the rear to be stopped by the gendarmerie (cops) and have no ID. They look for any excuse to nail you for a bribe and they rarely write tickets. They simply keep you there until you cough up what they ask. Sometimes they will just haul you down to the station if you don’t have money and leave you there. Even Cameroonian kids have to have ID. So instead of leaving on time like we had threatened those who failed to come prepared, we waited for all 3 to get home and back. It was 920 before we left. We had 4 bush taxis filled to the brim and the ride was nice. After we got settled in and room assignments were passed out we had some free time. There was volleyball, soccer and a pool. The place is a kind of resort in the middle of a palm oil plantation and is really nice. There are little gazebos all over and plenty of spots up on the rocks to sit and read or talk. We had 5 sessions with a speaker all about biblical change and stripping away your earthly flesh. He is a pastor from the US who is a coordinator for a bunch of missions in Africa. He has a fantastic way of reaching to teens and has a warehouse of anecdotes that illustrate his points. Everybody thought he did a great job. After each session the kids were broken up into small discussion groups to reflect on his words. I was a leader of one group of 5 10th grade boys. I was worried they would be hesitant to open up and talk about this stuff but I was pleasantly surprised. I kept it loose and let them do most of the talking. Betsy had a group of girls that did really well, too.

Day 2 and 3 started with individual quiet time before breakfast. Everybody found a nice spot to read or whatever. Most kids really liked that the first day but were not as easy to awaken after that. After breakfast we had some class sessions. I co-taught a 2 hour Economics simulation game all about producing goods and selling them on the market. 7 countries compete with each other to sell and buy. Deals are made and tariffs applied. It was fun to see them barter to make the best deal. They all did well and they thought it was fun. The other half of the kids did an hour of macramé and then an hour of ASL (American Sign Language) taught by my lovely bride. The next day they all swapped classes. We had our Olympic Games on Thursday. 4 teams of about twenty competed in the Cheering Contest, banana eating, a swim relay, obstacle course and 4 way soccer. The soccer has 4 goals with each team going a different direction at the same time with 2 soccer balls. It was crazy. We also had some individual events like the limbo, coconut put, Frisbee golf and the water balloon toss. Every kid had to be a contestant in at least 1 event and they all did great. The most impressive was a 5’6” 140 lb. Korean kid peeling and eating 5 large bananas in 60 seconds right after lunch. He was not in the swim relay. The retreat was successful in that many kids really found out a lot about themselves. They looked at things in a new light and many really grew closer to the Lord. Even our 2 Hindu students admitted they have real concerns about salvation and are asking a lot of questions about Jesus. That’s cool. There were a few kids who decided to sneak out of their rooms at 2 am and wander around the compound. They were caught and reprimanded. If it was a secure facility it wouldn’t be as big a big deal but there is no fence and the security is so-so. There were a couple of drunk guys snooping around that evening oogling the teenage girls. There were thankfully no reported conflicts but it is still a serious matter. They may not be invited to future retreats. (neither the girls nor the drunk guys) I learned a lot about how to reach out to teens through God’s word and I also had a good time. Betsy twisted her ankle a few nights before so she was hobbling around the whole time but seemed to manage nicely. We got home late Friday night and we were so wiped out that we managed to do a whole lot of nothing on Saturday. It has been so hot here the last few weeks that daytime activities produce little interest. I think we hit 94 on Saturday with humidity. People say that the rains will some back soon and whenever they do come it is not soon enough. My desk at school is next to the windows and every car that drives by kicks up a cloud of dust that inevitably ends up on my stuff. I have to wipe everything down every morning.

 

The big news around here is that Rachel Ekstrand, a former RFIS alum who is back as a bible/math teacher who was in our missionary orientation class with us announced that she is no longer dating the music teacher. After 2 months he asked her to marry him and they will tie the knot in her home church in Iowa (only about 70 miles from us) in June. Rachel works very hard here and has kind of been adopted as our little sister. Her parents are the Covenant Regional Coordinators for Africa (our bosses) and they live here in Yaoundé. Ryan Einfeldt is an MK from all over and a real nice guy. We are very happy for them.

 

That’s it from here. We have been invited over for dinner tonight by an SIL family. Ken is from the US (Texas I think) and Marta is Portuguese and their 2 oldest boys go to RFIS. We don’t know them real well but they are really nice folks and it should be fun.

 

We are gearing up for more fundraising for next year. We are still short of our goal and ask that you all pray for us and if you know any organizations or individuals who wish to partner with us in our ministry, send them our way.

 

Thanks and God Bless.

 

Brian & Betsy

Monday, February 12, 2007

Sun, Feb 11, 2007: Rain!

Sunday 11 Feb

It rained! Betsy reports that it poured for a good 5 minutes while I was up at school playing street hockey at school. We didn't get a drop 2 miles away.

That’s it. God Bless.
Brian & Betsy

Fri, Feb 9, 2007: smart neighbors and translators

Isaŋha,

Greetings from Cameroon, the land of cheap fruit and stray dogs. The greeting at the top of this letter is a traditional greeting in Kom. Kom is one of the many language groups spoken in the rural areas on Cameroon. One of our favorite students and our next-door neighbor is from the northwest province and her first language is Kom so I thought I would toss it in. She is over tonight getting some assistance with her homework. She came to Yaoundé to live with a missionary woman here in the city about 6 years ago. In the village, her education was stagnant and unreliable so after seeing her potential, she was asked to come and go to school here. She is in 10th grade now and does fantastic in all her classes. She still takes upper level English Language Learner classes but her vocabulary is probably better than mine. She is a joy to have around because of her charm and good manners and for her it is a nice luxury to have 2 teachers next door. She is very inquisitive and fun. She started and still leads a bible study club for young kids in the neighborhood all in French. She also is an outstanding athlete. She was a star soccer player and won best defensive player on my girl’s basketball team. She dreams of going to college in the states but I don’t know if her family would agree to it. Most girls her age in the village are getting married and having babies by now. I know she would do well.

I had the privilege this week to have a few minutes with Scott Clark, one of the hard-working bible translators whose office is in the same compound as RFIS. He has 2 kids at RFIS and goes to our church. He showed me a “language map” of Cameroon. There are 268 different languages spoken here and only about 70 have translation work done or working. Another 50 are in the process of getting work done in the next few years. One of the biggest obstacles to spreading the Word to many groups, especially the northern ones, is that they write in Arabic. Arabic is fairly easy to translate but the variations to many languages are so subtle that one misread phrase can change the entire meaning of a passage. For example, Fulfulde is written in Arabic but uses different enunciations to the vowels. If a word is written with an awkward phrasing it would diminish the message. Like if I wrote “the coat is wondering on the bill”. Just 3 little subtle changes in the appearance of the letters change it to “the goat is wandering on the hill”. The translators take their job very seriously and want to make sure that God’s Word is presented for them to get the most out of it. Many of the language groups are also Muslim. What’s odd about bringing the Word to them is that it is easier getting Arabic writing people to hear the Word than languages that use our Roman alphabet. The reason is that people who do not read Arabic know the Qu’ran (Koran) by memory not by reading it and it is deeply engrained. They can’t read it and see all the conflictions with Truth. They simply believe it and their minds are set. Arabic readers can be driven to see the Truth much easier because they can see the inconsistencies in the Qu’ran when reading the Bible. Not to say that it is an easy chore either way but it does make an interesting weekly update topic.

One useful tool the missionary translators use in the field is a cloth picture gram thing. It tells the most important biblical stories with pictures so anybody in any language can follow along. The one he had was from a guy in Tennessee who sells them on the internet at gowestafrica.com. I think they are about $10 and they ship. It would be cool in any Sunday School classroom.

That’s about it from here. Things are still plugging along fine. It has been so busy this year so far but with God’s grace we seem to manage. Now that basketball is over I don’t know what to do with my afternoons. I actually got home before dark 2 days in a row. Crazy.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Feb 3, 2006: changeless weather, championships and a pizza prize

Good Day All,

I can honestly say that after 6 months I would trade anybody’s 25 below wind chill for our 85 degrees and 90% humidity for a day. Another teacher here calls his forehead the “permasweat”. It hasn’t rained here since thanksgiving and all the roads are pure dust. Many people take this opportunity when the world is a cinder box to burn off their gardens and little corn patches. I haven’t seen any get away but the smoke is just thick in the air. It gets old after a while.

The varsity girl’s team had the semifinal game on Friday. The other team didn’t show up so after 40 minutes everybody piled in and went over to see the boy’s soccer play their playoff game. It was against the roughest team in the league and much blood was shed but we upset them 3-2. The other team argued every call and were such poor sports that they poured dirt over the refs head after the game. They were still arguing after everybody else had left including the ref who we gave a ride back into town.

Saturday was supposed to be finals for both teams but we got a call early at home that changed our basketball game time to an hour later so my girls team and I went over to see the start of the game. W expected them to play La Gaiete but we found out that that team had won their semifinal game but started a brawl afterwards with the other team. Both teams were kicked out of the league so our boy’s team won the title by forfeit. Not exactly the way you want to win but its still a trophy.

The girls played great defense and after fighting off a late rally managed to win by 7. I was very proud of how they played and they deserved it. We had all the fans from the boy’s soccer game at the end so it was nice. Betsy and I went out to dinner to celebrate. I ordered a ham and pineapple pizza and the waitress didn’t believe me. I managed to talk her into it and it wasn’t bad.

School is going well and we have an accreditation team from the states coming in a few weeks to snoop around and make sure we actually do teach kids stuff. Tension is a little high because of that but we are getting by.

Betsy’s wish has come true. I am done with coaching for the year. Maybe now we can have dinners on time.

Thanks and God Bless.
Brian & Brian