Back to School

Happy back to school time! Last week, Charlotte started 3^rd grade and O started pre-K. Josh and I also went back to school! He started middle school and high school and I started 1^st and 2^nd grade! Wait… what? Yes, Josh and I are teaching! Josh is teaching pre-calc at Rainforest International School until the regular teacher returns from the States. He has also teaching a class for which he got to write the curriculum. It is on “how to be an adult.” But he is most excited about teaching dance! As for me, I am teaching little kiddos at the Greenhouse school.

When we first came to Africa, we had a vague idea of what we would be doing, but honestly, we were clueless and up for anything. (We thought we would be doing agriculture!!- hahaha! Everything I have ever planted has died!) We have done nursing, internet, engineering, radio work, and the list goes on. Since we are still waiting on the immigration process for O and find ourselves in Yaoundé, we could not help but fill in where needed. Both schools are in desperate need of teachers! (if you or someone you know is interested in teaching cross culturally, let me know!)

The Greenhouse is for missionary children in preschool through 6^th grade and the Rainforest International School has missionary children as well as Cameroonian students in 7^th through 12^th grades. Our own family has been greatly blessed by the schools and so have many other missionary families. These schools provide quality education for missionary kids so that their parents can do the job God has called them without the added burden of homeschooling. In my class, the children’s parents are linguists, a missionary pilot, a literary specialist, IT support, and church planters. RFIS is also a great outreach to local families as all classes and activities are Christ centered.  

          Teaching is one of my favorite things about nursing. I love how knowledge can empower people! So I thought, “sure, I can handle teaching 6 and 7-year-olds!” Plus everyone in my immediate family has taught school at some point in their lives (my mom for her whole career!) so surely it runs in the family! After one week of school, I can confidently say, “Teaching is hard!” Oh man. I have been at school from morning until 5:30 almost everyday for the last month. The biggest struggle I am facing is curriculum. The school is in the process of establishing a school wide curriculum, but for now it is up to me to come up with everything. This has been exhausting and stressful. I keep worrying that I will forget something important like math! I am so thankful for numerous online resources. (shameless plea- if you would like to help me acquire lesson plans that would drastically decrease my workload and increase my students’ learning experience, gift cards to “Teachers Pay Teachers” would be an amazing blessing!)

The first three weeks of school are the first “Joint Learning Session” of the year. Homeschool missionary children from around Cameroon come to the Greenhouse for a school experience with other children. The whole school is studying ancient Egypt. I have learned so much! Did you know that the first Pharaoh was killed by a hippo?!

Here are some pictures from our superhero classroom!

Kenya

Jambo! If you are a world traveler or perhaps a linguist, you may know that this greeting is common in East African countries where Swahili is spoken. No, we are not learning yet another language or moving to yet another place in Africa. Charlotte and I just returned from a trip to Kenya! (The other half of the Shinar family were unable to go due to the adoption.)

Our last “vacation” or “much needed time away” was almost a year ago after we evacuated. It has been a long, difficult, and stressful year. For most of the time that we have been in Yaounde, we have been saying things like, “We’re leaving soon” or “I’m not sure if we will be here for that event” and so on. The waiting and the not knowing have been exhausting. We thought about taking some time away at Christmas but, “We’re leaving soon!” Ha. So when other missionaries began making plan for our semi-annual African Missionary Fellowship, once again I was not sure where we would be as the time came. One thing I did know was that I was desperate for a break. I guess Charlotte was too because there were some visitors that came to do a VBS type program for the missionary kids here in Cameroon. When they asked for prayer requests, she asked that they pray for the adoption “because we are stuck here until it is done.” Stuck. I don’t think I have ever used that word around her, but I can resonate.

Usually our fellowship is in Cameroon, but this year it was in Kenya! Now, if you have never traveled to Africa you might think all the countries are the same. Oh man! Kenya is a whole other Africa than Cameroon- especially Nairobi. Josh and I were there 10 years ago, but I didn’t remember how modern and fancy it is. Maybe it has developed a lot in the last decade, or as I suspect is the case- the difference between Yaounde and Nairobi are just so drastic. The roads are paved and wide. All of the cars are new and clean. No taxis in sight because everyone Ubers! There are malls and American fast food chains. Now usually I am the type of traveler that is eager to try local cuisine, but their ball of corn mush is so similar to the ball of corn mush we eat in Cameroon that I felt I could be “that” American tourist and eat Domino’s pizza and Cold Stone ice cream! We went into a “Walmart” type store and I almost cried. There were so many things!

While Nairobi is modern with bits of American culture thrown in, it is also rich with history and beauty. Charlotte and I had a wonderful time visiting the Giraffe center and the David Sheldrick Elephant & Rhino Orphanage. We got to hand feed the giraffes and get “kisses” from the giraffes. We also got to see baby elephants drink from a bottle, play with a soccer ball, and eat right in front of us. We even got to touch them!

Speaking of animals, we were also gifted a two-day safari in the Masai Mara! On our last home assignment, people kept asking Charlotte what type of animals we see in Cameroon. Well, the answer is “goats, chickens, and cows!” Now if someone asks her, she can say that she has seen giraffes, zebras, elephants, antelopes of all kinds, wildebeests, wart hogs, ostriches, hippos, and so on. She was also super excited to stay in a “tent.” It was unlike any tent I had ever stayed in. It was a luxury tent- glamping (glam + camping). It was so lovely there. I wish we could have stayed longer.

After our time in Nairobi and the Masai Mara, we headed to the coast for our conference. We stayed at a lovely hotel in Watamu right on the Indian Ocean. It was so nice not to have to cook, clean, or hand wash a million dishes! And there was air conditioning. Oh man, that was awesome!

We joined other Covenant missionaries from Cameroon, Congo, Mozambique, and Kenya. We met some new missionaries and had a sweet reunion with others that we had not seen in a while. There were several staff members from the Covenant offices that came as well to lead devotions and a class on financial wellness.

 The break from our normal routine was much needed. We had a great time and were ready to come home to see Daddy and Sissy, but honestly, I cried before we left for Cameroon. It is hard (and maybe even harder than before) to be back and face the unknown and the waiting again- to be “trapped” again. But I am thankful to be able to approach this time feeling renewed and rested.

TVs4Jesus live in Douala

TVs4Jesus is now live in Douala on TVs and Wi-Fi! 

Over the last few months, four hospitals in the Cameroon Baptist Convention were among the first to place orders.  Each of these hospitals paid for all their TVs (which they mostly already had) and 50% of the cost of the TVs4Jesus hardware.  The other 50% was covered by donations from TVs4Jesus’s generous donor base.  All the components were hand-carried out by a friend who happened to be returning from the United States. 

After months of work with each hospital to design a solution, on January 1^st  2019, I travelled and began work with the first hospital located in Douala.  Their electrician, Sherard and his team did a fantastic job of running all the cables beforehand.  I was pleased to find everything in order exactly as Sherard had described it from our numerous email conversations.  Over the next 5 days, we were able to install the entire system with ease…well kind-of. 

While everything went smoothly, Douala is hot.  Really, really hot.  As if that wasn’t bad enough, the hospital is shaped like a squared donut where the heat exhaust of all the ACs dump into the donut hole.  Of course, this is where we worked nearly the entire time.  We had to occasionally take breaks to the outside Douala air just to cool off!  Did I mention it is a 4 story building full of locked gates and jam-packed with people?  I must have gone up and down over a half-dozen times a day.  But, aside from a lot of bottles of water and a few muscle cramps, we moved along quickly.  By the end of day 5 we had 9 working TVs with plans to add 5 more, TVs4Jesus Wi-Fi at every TV location, ability to broadcast live video streams from a cell phone to all TVs and remote control via the Internet.  A TVs4Jesus tablet was given to the chaplain team to loan out to patients as an additional tool that could be used.  A substantial amount of time was spend with the hospital staff to familiarize them with how to use the system.  Both medical staff and the chaplains expressed interest in creating their own original content.  This team was shown how easy it is using their smart phones.  As a pure bonus, numerous expat friends happened to be staying at the same rest house, so I had a great time catching up with friends.  Now we just pray that God will use these TVs to share the Gospel, teach and encourage all who watch.  We look forward to the three other hospitals coming online in January with TVs4Jesus.