The Last SCA

We just got back from two weeks at Charlie’s homeschool co-op called Sonlight Christian Academy. SCA has been such a blessing to our kids and to the other missionary kids involved.

On the opening night, the children presented a presentation they prepared. Charlie hates being in the spotlight, but she did great as she demonstrated how the lungs works using a model she made out of a coke bottle, straws, and balloons. She loves science!

The kids got an opportunity to have a more typical school experience than they get at home- sitting in desks being taught by someone other than their mothers.

They also got to study subjects not taught everyday in homeschool. This session the kids learned all about shoes! Charlie loved it! She informed me that I should not wear high heels or I might get “hammer toe” and that she could not wear flip flops anymore because she needs better “arch support”!

They also had swimming lessons almost every day (one day they did Crossfit instead!). Charlie said swimming was her favorite part!

They performed a play! The older kids did “The Elves and the Shoemaker” and the little kids did a play about jungle animals finding a shoe and not knowing what it was. Charlie was a cute little monkey and she mostly remembered all of her lines!

 They also had art class. The highlight was making shoes they could wear out of duct tape!

When they weren’t in class, the kids played and played!

 The parents also got to play lots of games, have times of worship, and we even threw a party for Elsie the director of the SCA program as she is moving on to a different ministry opportunity. Look at the cake we made for her (she loves Settlers of Catan)!

SCA is something both Charlie and I have looked forward to over the past two years. Unfortunately this was our last SCA as the number of students has dwindled and there is no longer a director. Maybe in the future SCA will be revamped. If we are still in Cameroon at the start of the next school year, we will likely join another homeschool co-op in Yaoundé, but it will be hard for it to live up to our beloved SCA!

A whoa nelly month!

Have you ever had so many important, big things going on at once that you feel like you are in a fog and can barely see one step ahead of you? Welcome to my life for the last several weeks!

In the last month, we had a visitor from our home church- Paradise Community Church in Phoenix, Arizona. It was wonderful having Erica come visit! The girls were enamored with her and she was so kind- doting on them and playing with them. She even hosted a sleep over for Charlie that included a fashion show and nail painting! In addition to blessing our family with her sweet spirit, she was able to shadow doctors at the hospital in Banyo as well as Mbingo. She even saw an all day long surgery where two surgeons reconstructed a jaw bone from a piece of leg bone!  (Hopefully these times will inspire her future medical career!) She visited an orphanage, saw many, many muddy roads, visited big cities as well as small villages, and trudged through the daily rains!

A highlight for me of her trip was the teaching we did for teenage girls. Erica taught about puberty and I taught about caring for one’s body as well as our identity in Christ. The lovely and amazing ladies at Paradise Community Church sewed 50 reusable menstrual kits to give out to the community! Each kit (based on the “Days for Girls” designs) had reusable menstrual pads, underwear, soap, and a washcloth inside a beautiful bag. They were a big hit with the girls and a gift that will keep on giving as they will empower the girls to care for their bodies in a dignified and sustainable manner. Also, the kits were so pretty!

And, bless her heart, Erica put up with me as I packed up our house in Banyo and moved to Mbingo. Ya’ll, I was in full-on crazy mode. I could barely remember my name I was so frazzled. But one foot in front of the other and we managed to pack up everything we owned and put it in and on top of a bush taxi we rented! Whoa nelly, I don’t know how they got it all in/up, but they did (trunks were piled 3 high on top!). As we unpacked, one of our friends said, “This is amazing! They keep taking things out. It is like a clown car!” We traveled 14 hours over muddy roads (at one point 10 men had to gently guide our van down the road as slid in the mud with absolutely no traction- our van was on a giant slip and slide) and roads with pot holes big enough for entire cars to fit in! This journey was not for the faint of heart to be sure! 

We then moved into our house in Mbingo and I frantically unpacked trunks while simultaneously packing to go on a trip to the capital to escort Erica to the airport less than a week later. We rode 9 plus hours on a public transport bus to Yaounde. Spent one day shopping at all the fun “big city shops”! Then she went to the airport and I made another 9 plus hour trip on public transport back to our home in Mbingo (after having mud splattered on me from head to toe thanks to a taxi).

The next day, the girls and I traveled to Bamenda for Charlie’s homeschool coop! In a period of 10 days, I think I traveled 44 hours on public transport! That is almost 2 full days in hot, cramped, uncomfortable buses/ cars on muddy and bumpy roads. My back, neck, and tail bone were sore for days!

For two weeks, I taught “cooking skills” at the homeschool co-op while single parenting the girls as Josh worked 16 plus hour days in Mbingo. And let me tell you, I was tired before we even started the co-op time. Then O decided this would be a great time to debut epic toddler tantrums- hitting, kicking, screaming, biting, and so many time-outs. Poor thing. She has had so much transition in the last few months, but did I mention how tired I already was and that I was spouseless at the time?! I texted Josh so many times, “I CAN’T DO THIS!!” 

But Charlie had so much fun with her friends and she even learned to hula hoop!

But, alas one step at a time and one foot in front of the other! I am thankful for a Lord that carried me through it all!

Now on to our next journeys- 1^st grade, the next steps in the adoption process, and new ministries in Mbingo! But hopefully I won’t have to take any big trips for a while!

I am enough!

It is almost Mother’s Day. Shout out to all of you fabulous mother’s out there!

This will be my first Mother’s Day as a mom of two! That thought still seems crazy, yet totally normal to me. We are doing well as a family of four and O is adjusting great. We have been back to “normal life” in Banyo for about two weeks, but of course it is a totally new normal now. Can we just talk about how two kids somehow make more than double the mess of one child?!

We are also consumed with adoption paperwork! Just one of the many forms we had to fill our is 45 pages! And not 45 pages of easy fill in the blanks like tell us your address type stuff! No! 45 pages of questions like- tell us about your childhood and any trauma you experienced, what are your strengths/ weaknesses, what is your philosophy of discipline, and my favorite: Describe your feelings about yourself.

Um.

Where to start. Well, the “Miss America” answer would have been- “I feel like I am the best person in the world, totally the best possible candidate for adopting a child!”

Ha. Most days I feel like I am drowning in dishes and Legos! Surely the “best candidate ever” would have figured out how to get it all done quickly, efficiently, with a smile on her face, while crafting with the kiddos.

Ha!

So I went with the honest answer:

Right now, I feel that I am enough. Or at least I am trying to tell myself that I am enough- that I am mom enough, woman enough, nurse enough, missionary enough, etc. As a woman, a mom, and an international aid worker, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by the “expectations” each title carries, but I am realizing that most of those expectations are my own and perhaps I should reevaluate those expectations! I may never be the perfect Betty Crocker, Florence Nightingale, Mother Theresa hybrid, but that is alright. I know how to make cinnamon rolls from scratch, I can give chemotherapy, and I can teach about AIDS in a rural village, but I don’t have to (and can’t) do it all at the same time. I am learning about balance and seasons of life. Right now, my kids are young and they need my time to take them to the bathroom and cut up their food. Right now is a season of motherhood.

Ok, so even that answer was 95% “Miss America.” The real honest answer might scare them away: I totally don’t feel like enough most days, but I know that God is enough. He has me covered so therefore I am enough. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough.

So dear mothers out there (especially missionary mamas ‘cause we are a whole other breed)- take a deep breath, relax, and know that YOU ARE ENOUGH BECAUSE HE IS ENOUGH!

Happy Mother’s Day!

(oh and sorry can’t post pics of O until the adoption is final. I know, it is a bummer.)

Engineering in Mbingo

It has been an absolute whirlwind the last month and a half after leaving Banyo for Mbingo.  Our whole family was excited for months at the upcoming arrival of my brother Zack and friend Jessica.  They arrived safely although having to go through a ghost town in the largest city in our region due to the anglophone/francophone conflict.  My brother aka 'Dr. Zax' as he is called here was able to get involved right away with all the medical happenings around the hospital.  Everyone of course immediately fell in love with Zack and tried endlessly to figure out how to get him to stay forever.  He was able to perform many surgeries and has a sea of new crazy medical stories as you could imagine.  


Jessica and I jumped right in on a project to ultimately fix a challenge that was cursing the hospital for years now.  The challenge was that there is a linens cycle and if anything slows or stops the linens needed for a surgery, the operation cannot start, ultimately resulting in delayed patient care for critical surgeries.  As are many thing in Africa, there was a much more complex than anticipated set of variables that were causing the problem.  Our initial assumption was that the drying process was slowing things down and so we set out to build a more cost effective, higher throughput system to get things dry when it rains.  In the rainy season it is almost guaranteed to rain at least once every day.  Currently we have 2 large plots of land set aside to dry clothes on lines in the sun.

When things can't get dry we fall back to our 30,000 watt electric dryer similar to the one in your house only scaled up.

Electrical challenges in Africa are mainly caused by poor design/planning, maintenance and funding.  Adding the large electrical load of the dryer to our grid is expensive and will cause us to need to buy a new transformer sooner rather than later at best or blow out the current transfer at worst.  The new transformer is easily $60,000+.  Therefor reducing/eliminating the dryer would be cost effective and buy us time before needing to upgrade to a new transformer.


The next challenge is that the OR is hot and humid even with 12 AC units attached to it.

So now the fun begins.  We tried to think of every creative way of solving the problem.  From simple to completely insane, we tossed around every idea.  Jessica was able to put all the variables into her computer and kick out some terribly useful numbers.  Jessica is a friend of mine from college who specializes in mechanical engineering that relates to HVAC.  She has spent much of her professional life designing HVAC system in Colorado.  Her company was kind enough to let us use a laptop and specialized software which helps in solving challenges like this.

We spent nearly every day she was here working on different ideas.

We went ahead and prototyped what we felt was the best idea in our front yard.  Very simple really.  When it starts raining, release the lever and voila you have an instant tarp protecting your clothes from rain.

Obviously this was a scale model and the real system would need to be 50x larger but we wanted something to show the hospital administration to sell them on the idea.  I don't want to put you to sleep with too many technical details but needless to say the challenge is complex.  We presented several different ideas including this one to administration and a large collection of 'simple fixes' which should help make a big dent on the numerous challenges.  We also started another project to collect more data to help solve the procedural part of the linens challenge.  Their response was very positive and hopefully a tarp deploying system will be built before rainy season this year.

Zack and Jess both left and everyone was sad, especially Charlie.


A week later started IT Class.  I spent 6 days solid with the heads of IT from numerous CBC hospitals throughout Cameroon to train them to prepare their hospitals for the upcoming EMR (electronic medical records) installations.  This is class 1 or 3: upgrading their networks.  The class was pretty intense with 5 hours of lecture and labs per day.  I was very pleased with their performance and passion for the topic.  We even had our first female IT 'guy' who was one of our top students. 

I ran out of adrenaline after the 6th day and crashed hard today.  Sunday as a day of rest is a great idea.  Tomorrow starts another new project...

Lori has been busy teaching Charlie through Kindergarten, visiting with Fulbe patients at the hospital and keeping all of our taste buds very happy.
   

Happy Christmas!

Merry Christmas or as we say in Cameroon- Happy Christmas!

Christmases overseas are starting to become less, well, foreign to us. While we miss family and friends at this time, we now spend less time thinking about all of the Christmasy things we are missing out on in the States and have instead embraced our own unique mix of American and African traditions.

Here is a picture tour of our Christmas season:

• We had to start the season off by putting up our gigantic, professionally decorated Christmas tree!

• Every night of Advent we went through the Adventures in Odyssey Advent stories- many night with our friend Lisa. One night we made gingerbread houses!

• Charlie and Lori did lots of baking. We even attempted homemade marshmallows! They were a hit with this crew!

• We went Christmas caroling around our village.

• We brought a plate of cookies to the Lamiido (our local king) and his wives and had a great visit with them!

• We had a "ladies only Christmas party" with food, snowflake making, the telling of the Christmas story and of course henna!

• We also had a "kids only Christmas party" - a melted snowball fight aka water balloon fight followed by watching "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."

• Christmas morning we had a lovely breakfast with a lovely view.

• And of course there were presents- from near and far!

• We went to church and after the service we all ate makkala (fried dough), popcorn, and cake.
• After church, local kids went door to door wishing a "Happy Christmas" in hopes of getting candy. It is kind of like trick or treating.

• Charlie and Lori then took dolls, match box cars, and candy to kids at the hospital (thank you Paradise ladies!) and cookies to the staff. (no pics of this because I feel super uncomfortable taking pics of sick kids)
• Then dinner with other missionaries and ice cream for dessert. Ice cream is a VERY special treat around here!

• Carols around the Christmas tree.

• And then we ended Christmas day with a fun game where the first person to unwrap the impossible to unwrap package with their oven-mitt-donned-hands wins a prize and Lori won!
  

We had a very merry Christmas season celebrating the birth of Christ with family and friends. We pray that you also rejoiced over the greatest gift ever given- God with us- Emmanuel!

What's in a name?

I went to a naming ceremont today. Little Jainabou Abbu was born a week ago and was nameless until today.

This morning her father and the men of the family joined with male friends to take the baby to the Mosque where the Imam announced the child's name for the first time. Boys are usually named after famlily memembers but parents can get more creative with girls' names. The baby is a grandchild to a co-wife of my good friend Hawawou. Yesterday I went to visit my friend and met the baby for the first time. I suggested they name her “Loriatou,” but alas they went with Jainabou. My dear friend invited me to the “after party.”

Family and friends celebrate a naming ceremony by slaughtering a sheep and then feasting. It is also kind of like a baby shower (minus the ridiculous “how big is the mommy's belly” game). Everyone brings gifts for mom and baby and everytime someone new joins the party, they go and look at each gift. The mom and baby received several new outfits, diapers, baby supplies, and SOAP- oh my goodness did they get soap. So much soap! I told Charlie's nanny about how much soap the mother received and she said when she had her child, her soap supply lasted until her daughter was a year and 8 months old! I brought some gifts, and yes some soap! But the fun thing is the mom gets gifts too- and not “mom gifts” like nursing pads but fun gifts like fancy new shoes and pretty cloth to make new dresses! There was even “goodie bags.” We went home with a leg of lamb, cola nuts, and candy!

We had a great time. So much laughing and eating and taking pictures since everyone was dressed up and in a festive mood. You might notice that Jainabou also was quite festive with her eye brow makeup! She also had her head shaved for the event much to my dismay. I begged them not to shave it because she had a head full of soft, thick, beautiful black curls. They all laughed at me and did it anyway. Regardless, she is a sweet little baby and everyone enjoyed passing her around.

I am so greatful to have met Hawawu. She is so joyous and fun to be around. I am so glad to call her friend and love that she has invited me into her life!

Eid al-Adha

Last week was Eid al-Adha - a Muslim celebration remembering Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son. Here, those that can afford it slaughter a ram and have a feast with friends and family.

There is also the horse “Fantasia.” This is my favorite big Banyo event. Everyone gathers around the Lamiido's (the king) palace in their finest clothes. Street vendors sell yummy treats. Charlie and I  went with some friends and we wanted “anything deep fried!” We ate fried black-eyed pea fritters! Yum! Dignitaries come from all over- we sat behind the Minister of Finance! Musicians play homemade guitars and drums and crazy high pitched horn things. There is usually some kind of clown or jester. Excitement is definitely in the air!

And of course the main event are the horses! The horses are dressed up in elaborate head dresses and ornate saddles. They get together in groups of 5 or 6 starting down the road from the palace then all together they charge the stands and stop thisclose in front of the spectators. Then the men raise their long spears and everyone cheers!

 More groups repeat the same and every once in a while there is a musical interlude or a specific group like the “Princes of Banyo” or the wives of the Lamiido that come up and salute the Lamiido

or the Prefect (government official).

And then there is the crowd favorite- the "court jester." He rode his own special "horse!"

One of my favorite parts is getting to interact with different people. Charlie made a friend in the stands and later his father asked Charlie if she wanted to marry his son! (She was smitten!)