Wu 21Jan 08

Greetings All

 

Another week has passed and things are busy as ever. We had 5 sports games on Saturday in 4 different places. The boy's soccer played at Patrice Bois against Fustel while the girl's bball played Fustel at home. The Jr. boys and girls soccer played games against club teams in Odza. I didn't hear how the boy's soccer did but both Jr teams lost. The girl's bball won their game in fine style due to some magnificent coaching. Actually, it's easy to look good coaching when your players are up 20 - 6 at halftime. We ended up winning by 12 or so and then traversed all the detours and made it to ASOY in time to play another game. ASOY was really tough last year but lost many good players this year. We couldn't do our "kamikaze" defense because our favorite former next door neighbor from the Nwest twisted her ankle a little in the first game. We put on a regular 2-1-2 zone and we did just fine winning by 14 or so. We got some extra loud cheers from the stands when we did our pre-game cheer in Lingala. One girl grew up in Congo and speaks the language well. I think 10 different girls scored on the day and everybody got at least one rebound. So many of the girls have improved so much I have no idea who to give the "Most Improved Player" award out to at the end of the year. We are 7-0 so far with 1 game left before the playoffs.

 

Betsy is in Bafoussam today attending a funeral with a friend. She is the school secretary and her brother died unexpectedly last week. It's about 3 hours one way and I don't expect her home early. They left at about 5am to get ahead of the weekenders going home from the city and to help the family get things running.

 

It hasn't been near as hot as last year and we actually got some rain a few days ago. That is very unusual for this time of year. It's overcast now at 5:02 pm and has been all day.

 

One of Betsy's 9^th graders is learning how to drive today apparently. He has gone around the loop with his dad about 20 times now. He seems to be doing well and would do even better if he would shift into 2^nd gear. Last year a girl in my Geography class got a perfect score on her final and asked if she could trade her prize (a pop) in for something else. I figured she deserved it so I agreed figuring I might have to cough up a candy bar at most. I was a little nervous when she got behind the wheel of our little car but she said she had driven before in the US. After a few minutes of "clutch" talk, she started it up. A few other kids were standing around to watch her go and they probably wished they had not come over when she hit the gas and sprayed them with gravel. After the shrieking stopped, she hit the brakes and killed it half way up the hill. I told her about lightly pressing the gas pedal and she said she had never heard a teacher shriek like that before. She got the car to start about the same time as my heart did and proceeded to drive around the loop a few times with fine expertise.

 

We thank you all again so much for your support through our time here. It has been a true blessing. We are close to our goal but still have a ways to go. The currency value is is way down here making things more expensive for us this year. We trust the God will provide and keep going knowing that we are in His care.

 

That's about it from here. I'm on my own for dinner but there's leftover stroganoff from last night.

 

Take Care and God Bless

 

Brian & Betsy