Our last service, we had a word that we were going to be stretched. I guess that in my mind, I always think of God’s words coming to pass later. Well, for me that has been since we placed feet on the compound. I was asked to help with a music class. Basically, they learn new songs in this class. I was asked to play the keyboard. Mind you, they have no sustain pedal…. Then randomly, they end up singing different songs and I have no music. Yes, I am being stretched!

Sometimes things in our past prepare us for our future- Playing the keyboard for an event where they were expecting 3,000 people…. I couldn’t hear myself playing the keyboard J Takes me back to days back home! Praying for God’s anointing and an impartation so that I can play by ear.

The children were invited to a friend’s birthday party on Saturday, February 13^th. In the evening, we went to pick up the kids and to watch the Super Bowl. What should have been a very uneventful trip turned out to be very eventful! We were turning onto the road where our friends live and we got hit by a young man on a motorcycle. In my last post, I tried to give you an idea of how they drive around here. The motorcycles are crazy. There will be a motorcycle on either side of you and then two more on either side of a car coming the opposite direction. Yes, folks, this is a two lane road! So, this road that we were turning from isn’t super busy and it is a hill. Just before we turned, I mentioned to Jeremy to remember to check his blind spot which he did. As he was turning, I see a motorcycle coming out of the corner of my eye and can only watch him hit our truck and fly through the air. Two Cameroonians jumped out of their vehicle. The guy got up blood running from his lip and they were yelling at him. Come to find out, he had been behind a car that was behind us. As they slowed down, he took off around them and ended up running into our truck. The man admitted that he was in the wrong. Jeremy told him that he would take care of our truck and let the guy go. Well, he messed up his bike. He had to get someone to pick him and his bike up. Thankfully the man lived to tell about it as he was not wearing a helmet. The fork on his bike was bent. He couldn't drive away. That sure put me on edge for the next few days anytime we were in the car I would panic when we were driving.

We had the going away service for the founders of the work here in Cameroon. They served for 55 years. The service was 6 hours long…yes, you read that right! It was a good service as it honored the Knorr’s beautifully. We were so proud of Andrew and Emily. They sat through the whole service on a stage up front and were so VERY WELL behaved. From there, we went to a meeting for the school group that we are joining in the Fall. We left the house at 12:30pm and didn’t get home until after 8. It was a very long day.

Monday, we went to join the school group. This school group is made up of missionaries all over Cameroon. They travel to the city that we live in to get together and have classes for two weeks. I found out Saturday night that I would be teaching Language Arts to the 2^nd and 3^rd Graders!  Monday was a day of getting to know the children that I would be teaching, learning how the program ran and so much more. Also, of finding out that I would need to make lesson plans for math as well! This is Africa and you learn to just roll with whatever comes your way. We have met so many nice families.

The schedule during the two weeks of meetings with the school group went like this:

7:20 leave the house for school

8:00 classes start for the kids opening exercises

8:15- Language Arts- I am teaching

9:00- Math Class- I am helping to teach

9:45- Get dressed for Swimming

10:00- leave for swimming

10:15-11:45 Swim Lessons- Assist a teacher for this btw it is a freezing cold pool and the water is pea green. Some days, you couldn’t even see the children swimming in it! YUCK! They have swim lessons at a local hotel, but they don’t have heaters or covers for them. The outside temperature gets down to the 50’s and sometimes the 40’s. So you can see why the pool is soooo cold. Poor Emily looks like she is going into convulsions because she is shaking so much from being cold….the poor thing. She loves swimming, but doesn’t like the swim lessons because the water is so cold. You know it is cold when even the adults are shivering.

12:00pm Lunch

12:45pm Reading class- I teach this

1:00pm – 3pm A class about chocolate/Art/or Music it just depends on the grade as to what they are doing when during this time.

In the middle of these two weeks, we also celebrated Emily’s 7^th birthday. I made cupcakes, and she shared them with everyone at school. We stayed longer so that she would have time to play with her friends after school. If these two weeks weren’t busy enough, we also moved into our house!!!!

Driving here is crazy. I find that if you keep honking your horn and driving…most people let you go J You still have to keep a watchful eye everywhere! There are no traffic lights in the city. I only have seen one stop sign J The motorcycle taxis can do whatever they want! There is busy intersection that once in a while has someone directing traffic…That traffic happens to apply to only the regular vehicles and taxis. The motorcycle taxis drive right through the intersection whether it is their turn or not…it makes for an exciting time! One day on our way home, it took Emily and I about 45 minutes to get home. Usually the drive may be 20 minutes….There was a construction site and a huge truck was blocking traffic. Then farther up the road, there was six lanes of traffic on a two lane road. Yes, a busy intersection joins as well. Everyone was trying to go, but no one could go because everyone was trying to go. It was indeed a lot of people trying to go, but a whole lot of not going anywhere.

There are so many times that there is a glitch in trying to communicate with people. The ideas that are bred in other cultures really are astounding. Here is a communication error: A gentleman was working in the garden. He was showing me a few things and asking what we would like to plant. The man had dug a few holes in the ground and had put fertilizer in it. He proceeded to tell me that he was going to plant plastic….Mind you plastic garbage is everywhere. Imagine my face when he says this and I respond with, “You are planting plastic?” “Yes” he replies with a grin. He decided to get the seeds to show me. He came back with these seeds and was chuckling. “Watermelon” he says…. LOL…oh Watermelon…I see! In French, the word is very close to Plastic….. I also was asking the same man about a bowl for our new Puppy! Yes, we have a puppy J He brought me into our back porch and pulls out the dogs bones. I nodded my head and said, “Oh, so you give the dog a bone in the morning. Ok…” Once again, I had to ask for a bowl and use some hand gestures. We finally got to where we needed to be in the conversation. I find that I laugh a lot about things like this. Thinking here is very strange from ours. They think that the puppy should be inside when it is cool out. Cool as in 64 or so J They keep telling the children that they should have the dog inside it is too cold for it to be out J

Have you ever experienced going a mile in one hour! That was one of ours. We were invited over to friends of ours for pizza and a movie. They only live a mile from us. It was bumper to bumper traffic. At times, you just have to sit and people watch- possibly laugh a little! Everyone is just trying to do what THEY want to do. They do not care about those around them. We see from living here the real importance of having rules. It is complete chaos because there are no rules. Imagine a main road going through a town. There are no stop lights, yield signs or even stop signs. At the intersections, you literally just have to decide when you want to jump in a line of cars and move out very cautiously. We were stuck in traffic on the main road for 1 hour. We eventually, (after getting slightly irritated with people and their stupidity) had a few good laughs. People are out of their vehicles yelling at each other. Motorcycles are making about 4 lanes for their own traffic. The side streets were packed with people. Buses were trying to turn around in the middle of the road. This only makes traffic even worse because then both sides can’t move because no one is moving. Do you get this picture? We ended up staying very late that night hoping for the traffic to clear. The traffic was pretty good on our way home, but when we arrived at the bottom of the campus, we found out that there is a gate that gets locked every night! Lesson learned J We did eventually get in so that we could find our beds.

We were invited to go on a hike with a group of people. Here I am thinking a nice hike up a mountain in the woods. We travel over dirt road, that became a rocky road with huge boulders, to a path, then a field that we were driving through. There were so many different sites to see. You had normal village people. Then you had the Fulani herding their cattle on the open fields. We passed one farm that had hoses run for irrigation. It was beautiful and green. We reached where we would park the vehicles. The view was amazing of a lake that was a crater. The clouds were hanging very low and it got cool at times. Emily was a trooper. She was so tired. Today had an experience of a lifetime. We hiked with some friends up a volcano. It was really neat, but the hike was 4 ½ miles…. The view was worth it in the end though. We had a conversation in the car with the kids the other day about this hike. Emily says, “I did it once, and I don’t ever want to do it again!” Andrew says, “It was really neat, and I might do it again with Daddy.”

A few weeks ago, Jeremy thought that he was coming down with something because his lymph node in his armpit was really sore. A few days later, he was complaining that his bicep was sore. A day or so later he was saying that his forearm was really sore. We looked and he had this red line running down his arm toward his hand. I am very thankful for knowledgeable Doctors from the states that allow you to call and ask them questions. One such Doctor works in the best hospital in Cameroon which is only 40 minutes from our house. This Doctor has written a book on tropical diseases. We gave him a call. He felt that we should just keep an eye on it and if there was a fever or heat that came with it to give him a call. We prayed and are very thankful that the rash did go away and Jeremy is fine. It was so odd. Usually infections run toward the heart and not away. So, we have no idea what it was.

Our family has been blessed with a puppy! The children named him “Teddy”. I call him Teddy Bear. He really is a very good dog. Emily loves him. She is up at 6:30am every day and runs out to feed him.  She, often can be found, sitting in the doghouse while he eats! We also have a dog that “came with the house”! Her name is Lady. She is 12 years old, but a very good dog. She loves attention and really dislikes it when we call the puppy! She loves to drool on poor Teddy. She is so patient with him though. You can find Teddy hanging on her leg with his teeth. She just gives him a dirty look and tries to walk away. The only time she really gets grumpy and grows or bites is when he tries to eat her food! Hopefully he will be a quick learner with that! Andrew and Emily were so excited to realize that both of the dogs love to play fetch with a tennis ball.

We are finally getting settled into our new home. It is starting to feel more like ours. Andrew and Emily are loving all of the outdoor space. We have a very nice porch! I enjoy working out there when I have computer work to do. We have a decent size garden. I am trying to decide what we want in it.

I think that we are getting accustomed to life here. Jeremy was attending night classes here at the school. He was just getting a feel for how they teach and run the classes. I have been teaching at the ladies meeting. It has been interesting as it is my first time being interpreted. It is nice being able to be involved with the students here.  Jeremy starts teaching April 5^th. It will be many hours of teaching, but it will be good for him!

Andrew just turned 9 last week. I can’t believe that he is growing up so fast. We had a nice dinner with pizza and cake for dessert!

Often, you do not realize how long things take to do here. Simple tasks of filtering your water. You have to make sure that the filter is filled throughout the day and then fill bottles to put in the refrigerator. Doing the dishes…No, we do not have a dishwasher unless you count those with two hands! You have to either heat water on the stove, or go get hot water from the bathtub to do the dishes. Spaghetti sauce is made from fresh produce…Oh the fresh produce has to be washed and soaked before you can use it. This is to kill anything that may be on it. Peanut butter- this is a very long process. You buy the peanuts. Then, they are brought home and sorted. After sorting them, they are soaked in boiled water with salt for about 15 minutes. You then have to sort them again and then dry them in the sun. This can take up to an hour. Once they are dried, they then cook them in a skillet on the stove. This is a process that takes about an hour each batch of peanuts. Then, you must remove the skin from the peanuts. Finally, we are ready to make the batch of peanuts into peanut butter or ground nut as they call it here. We brought a Ninja blender with us that makes very nice peanut butter. That is just a small glimpse into some of the time consuming processes that we go through here!

Andrew and Emily are doing well with their schooling. We have friends that have loaned us text books for school! This has worked out very well. Andrew says that he really likes the new math because they do review. Emily has learned to love reading. She often grabs and book and comes to read it to you. It is so neat to see them excelling in their school work.

About twice a month, I will venture out and go to the market. There is a shop that we go to where we get most dried goods. (I will have to take a picture of all of these places and post them so that you can see what we have here!) There is a clothing market- this all is outside- do not think of stores at home J Think more of a flea market! Sometimes you can find clothing for about a dollar, other times you don’t find anything, but it is nice to get out. You will hear people trying to get you to come and buy their goods. “White Mama, White Mama! ”The famous line to use is, “Thank you, I am just eye shopping!” That means we are window shopping! This past week, I ventured to the market with our friends. We went to a restaurant to eat for the first time. I had French fries with an omelet that had veggies in it. It was a huge plate of food for only $1.50. It was very good. I kept burning my tongue on the food. As I sat there eating, I look under the table next to me and there sat a rat! My feet went up on my chair, and I kept thanking the Lord with every bite that my tongue was getting burned. At least any germs were killed in the food!

That is about all that we have for this time! Trust that each of you are doing well. If you have a chance, feel free to drop a line to us! It is always nice to hear from friends and family! Thank you so much for all of your prayers! We love and miss you all.