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.

Adopting while living abroad

It has been a hot minute since I have written on this blog. It is not that we have not had things going on, but rather those things tend to be of a somewhat sensitive nature that lend themselves to private email updates rather than shouting out for the whole interwebs to hear. Things like growing unrest in Cameroon and adoption updates. But I feel like this blog should be on the internet because I myself have been searching for a blog posts like this: a post about adopting a child while living abroad. If there is anyone out there adopting while living in a foreign land: you are not alone! Bon courage!

The adoption process is pretty much always complicated and tedious. There is sooooo much paperwork! And personal questions! And checks to be written! It is like running a marathon, but with hurdles. Ya’ll, there is a reason that the “long distance hurdle race” is only a ¼ mile and not 26 miles- it would be impossible. Imaging jumping over a barricade on mile 22 when your legs are like jelly! Yet, adoptive families look at the race course and say, “Yeah, it is going to be tough, but we can do it!” The joy at the finish line is worth the pain and sacrifice.

Now, if the standard adoption process is like a marathon hurdle race, adopting while abroad is like a marathon hurdle race American NinjaWarrior style. At first, you look at the track set before you- a flat marathon with prepared stationary hurdles. Yes, it looks hard but doable, so you start on your way only to find that the hurdles are in fact not stationary- they move and then more pop up unexpectedly. You trip, fall down, but get up again. You still have momentum and strength. Oh and then there is a detour you have to take that you didn’t see on the planned route and this detour doesn’t just have hurdles. Noooooo, you have to jump on a swinging pendulum over a pool of water to get to the net wall which you then have to climb. Once on top, monkey bar your away over the hungry crocodiles to jump through the hoop of fire. Then and only then can you go back to the marathon of hurdles. Oh and there will be more unexpected detours with daunting obstacles like this to overcome.

Case in point: getting O’s passport. If you yourself want to get one yourself, here are 31+ steps to follow:

1.       Ask a local person familiar with the local bureaucracy how to go about obtaining one as you are a foreigner and have no idea what the process is and there are is no handy online guide to help you. Get told you must go to the capital city.

2.       Drive 9 hours on awful roads with 2 kids to that capital city. Get car sick. Take care of your child that is also car sick.

3.       Pay for the transport and then also pay for a hotel for your family. (As it happens, there was heat wave during the hottest part of the year. The place we were staying did not have ac and we could not open the windows because there were no screens and we would probably all get malaria.)

4.       Sweat a lot.

5.       Hire a taxi to go to wherever it is that one obtains a passport. Thank God that this taxi man is a saint and he will translate for you, guide you to the three different places you need to get signatures and stamps, advocate for you, and sit with you on crowded, hard benches outside in a heat wave.

6.       Wait and wait on those benches. Ten hours over two days to be exact. With a toddler on your lap. A toddler that must eat every fifteen minutes and pee every ten. Oh and there are no bathrooms, so you have to beg someone to hold you spot while you take said toddler out to the street to squat and do her business.

7.       Finally get your name called, enter the air conditioned office (give those people hogging the cool air while you were sweating major side eye), and be told that they cannot process the application there and that you must do it at the town where you came from- 9 hours away.

8.       Cry. Ugly cry. Plead with the person. Show them every paper in your adoption notebook. Ugly cy your way out of the office talking about how ridiculous everything in this country is.

9.       Embarrass your sweet taxi driver as you act a fool.

10.   Take the 9 hour drive home and start all over again.

11.   Find a friend that knows the commissioner.

12.   Make an appointment.

13.   Drive an hour to the office, wait two hours in the office past your appointment time.

14.   Hand over your paperwork and pay for the passport.

15.   Sigh a sigh of relief that, “Wow, that was so easy!”

16.   Wait.

17.   Wait.

18.   Surely it is ready now?!

19.   Get a call that there is another paper needed.

20.   Organize that paperwork and drive an hour to the office to do it.

21.   Wait.

22.   Wait.

23.   Get evacuated due to near civil war.

24.   Ask your taxi friend if he knows how to get the passport while in the capital city so it doesn’t go back to the town 9 hours away.

25.   Have the taxi man go every week to talk to the people that print the passports to ensure that it does not get shipped to the other far away city.

26.   Cry when you hear that they shipped it to the other city.

27.   Copy passport receipt and write a letter authorizing brother of that amazing taxi man to pick it up in that distant town.

28.   Cry again when you learn that the brother has seen it on the desk, but the one person that is allowed to hand it over is sick in the hospital in another part of the country and not sure when he will get back.

29.   Pray that the during the chaotic presidential elections the building where the passport is sitting on the desk will not be burned or destroyed.

30.   Rejoice when the new building where they moved the passport office is safe and that the brother is able to travel on the roads again.

31.   Slump over in defeat when you hear that the commissioner will not accept the letter you wrote and will only accept a verified and stamped copy done at the police station.

This is where we are now. We started this process in January and mind you, this passport will only be used one time to get one US visa. How many more obstacles will there be? There is no telling. And this is only one of the foreseen hurdles. We are simultaneously tackling similar issues with our fingerprint/ FBI clearance!

Specific ways you can pray:

·         That we can get the passport ASAP!

·         That the crisis in that town remains stable and that the roads are passable so that the passport can physically get to us.

·         For quick resolution of our criminal background clearance.

·         For strength to continue the marathon. I feel like I am “hitting the wall” and feel overwhelmed when I see the rest of the race ahead of me.

·         For peace in Cameroon. Honestly, my struggle is so small compared to what so many people are going through here.

A Nostalgic Summer

When we left Mbingo to stay in Yaounde, I did not expect to be transported back to summertime in the late 70’s/ early 80’s. I have seen a lot of articles in social media recently about creating nostalgic summers for children - summers like I had as a kid- playing outside with friends, riding my bike until it was dark, with no scheduled pintrest activities in sight. You know, the “idea” of summer many of us have in our heads. That is what we have stumbled upon during our time in Yaounde. We are staying on a missionary compound that has SO many kids. It is gated with a guard which allows the children a safe place to roam and play all day! There is even a playground and a soccer field. As I am writing this, I just watched two girls ride past our house on their bikes, a toddler toddle past my window, the sounds of kids playing is drifting into my windows, and my girls are reading books with friends. They have already played on the playground and built play-dough creations in the back yard this morning. It is not even 11:00! They are outside almost all day (except for the community wide rest time).

Our 4^th of July celebration was right out of a Norman Rockwell painting! The kids had a bike parade in the morning complete with patriotic tassels and parade music. Charlie won most patriotic for her Statue of Liberty bike! Then there was an impromptu dance party. In the evening there were old fashioned games like the three-legged race, watermelon seed spitting contest, and potato sack races (well actually African market bag races). Afterward, we had a picnic with hotdogs and all the fixings.

My girls are loving life right now and that makes my mamma heart happy. It also makes waiting for the adoption to be finished much more tolerable. And speaking of the adoption- ADOPTION UPDATE-  we have finally sent in our finalized US home study and our “Petition to classify orphan as an immediate relative.” This is a two-pronged application. The first part will either approve or disapprove of Josh and I as suitable parents to adopt a child. This should take about 6 weeks to either gain approval or to hear back about any “Requests for Evidence.” RFEs are ways for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to clarify any area of concern in the home study. Apparently, these are becoming more and more common. There is a chance that we won’t have any RFEs, but honestly the way our adoption has gone- I am not holding my breath.  If we get approval from the UCIS, then the application goes to the US Embassy in Cameroon. They will then investigate O’s case to make sure she meets the US “orphan” requirements and that there is no child trafficking involved. How long will that take? Who knows? We are hoping to be home before Christmas. In the meantime, we have enrolled Charlie into the missionary school here and even O will get to go to preschool two days a week. They are both so excited!

I am not the most patient person. In fact I really hate waiting, but I am so thankful that our girls are really enjoying our time in Yaounde and making great summer memories.  

Homesickness

On the 24^th, we celebrated one year together as a family of four! We have been so blessed with our sweet and sassy “O”! She loves Dora and Elsa and Anna. She has the most amazing curls. She talks and talks and talks- especially at dinner time. She is so funny. She always surprises us with the silly things she says. She is a ham. She has perfected 100 faces to make a crowd fall in love with her. She has never met a stranger. She wants princess hair (pig tails, a pony tail, or bun) every day, but would much rather put something on her head like pajama pants so she can have “long hair” to toss around. She goes through at least 4 princess dress up dresses a day and has an obsession with those clickity clackity play high heels. She says, “Charlie I love you” a million times a day- about as much as she says, “Charlie, I am never playing with you again!!!” She gives the best hugs. We thank God for allowing us to parent her!   

But…..

As I read over all that I wrote about our sweet girl, how can I have a “but…,” but I do. I am so content with our family and what a blessing it is, but I have really been struggling lately with being content with our current circumstances. We have jumped over so many hurdles in the adoption process and we have gained a lot of ground, but the finish line is still out of sight and I am getting tired.  And I still can’t even post a picture of her or write out her first name!

One of the main struggles is that I am a planner. Planning eases my anxiety. If I can plan for it, I won’t usually worry about it. Until now, the adoption process has not really interfered with our plans (except moving to Mbingo, but we had already been working there so it wasn’t so far out of the realm of what I had envisioned for our family). But we were planning on returning to the States this summer so that Charlie could start school in the Fall, but now it looks like the adoption process could take another 8 months or so or maybe less, but probably not and maybe even longer. The not knowing is killing me. I desperately want to know when we can go home so I can plan. Also, I am just ready to go home.

I am struggling with homesickness at the moment. Most of my socks have holes in them. The holes have probably been there a long time, but when I am in the throws of homesickness, little things like holes in my socks make me angry. “If I was just home, I would throw them away and buy more at Wal-mart!,” I huff. Don’t worry about my cold toes, it is really not that big of a deal. The socks are just a symptom and not the only one.

We have been in Cameroon for more than two years. This is the longest uninterrupted time that we have been away. On our last term, we went home for a few months after we evacuated. Thankfully we have not had to evacuate unexpectedly this term, but we also have not had any trips home or out of Cameroon. Our term was supposed to be two years long and we had already planned to extend a few months to better accommodate the school year. Now our two-year term is looking to be closer to three years. I had not prepared my head, heart, or sock supply for three years!

I also had not prepared myself to be away from family and friends so long. Three years is a long time to be away from loved ones. So much changes. Friends have had babies, loved ones have passed away, children have grown… and we have missed it all. And they have missed the changes in our lives as well. Charlie is not the same little girl she was when we left, now she is a “big girl.” She has learned to read and ride a bike since we’ve been gone. And O! She has never met her grandparents or Aunts and Uncles or cousins. There is something so sad about not being able to share your child with the ones you love and vice versa.

Homesickness seems like it has such an easy cure- go home! But here is another major struggling point for me: I feel trapped! We cannot leave the country unless we want to leave O behind. We cannot go home. This feels claustrophobic, especially as tensions in Cameroon continue to simmer. This then triggers emotions from when we did have to evacuate CAR on our last term. If things in the country really took a turn for the worse, what would we do?

If you have read this far and managed to wade through all of the emotional muck that I have thrown out in this long blog, thank you. Thank you so much for your love, support, and prayers. Thank you for letting me be honest. I didn’t want to write this blog- to put all of my ugly out there for everyone to see, but the life of a missionary is not all singing kumbaya and Billy Graham crusades. Some days (seasons) are hard and that is where I find myself now. Recently, the Rend Collective song, “True North” has become my anthem and prayer. It is so easy to let homesickness take me off course or as the song says, “let my circumstances become my compass.” I would really appreciate your prayers that I would continue to seek Christ as my “True North” for I know He will guide me on the path.

Here are the lyrics to "True North"

Oh, You are my true north

Oh, you are my true north
Iwill follow You into the dark, dark, dark (woo)
I will follow You with all my heart, heart, heart (one, two, three, c'mon)

Oh, oh, oh, oh

I will not let the darkness steal the joy within my soul
I will not let my circumstance become my compass, no
I will not let the fears of life and sorrows of this world
Dictate to me how I should feel
For You are my true north

Oh, You are my true north
Oh, You are my true north

Oh, oh, oh, oh

I will not let my failures turn into the curse of shame
I will not walk beneath the clouds that taunt me and condemn
For I will stand on solid ground the shadow of Your love
Forgiven, changed, a heart renamed
For You are my true north, everybody sing

Oh, You are my true north
Oh,…

Or if you want to hear the song:

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!