Blending In

Greetings from Pete!  This year is a Centenary Year, celebrating 100 years of faith in the Archdiocese of Bamenda.  There are peak celebrations in different parishes and deaneries and for various ministries throughout the year.  Recently, I participated in the centenary celebration for catechists.

After the Mass, there was a program in the cathedral hall.  Different people shared about the theme verse for the centenary year—“We are fellow workers with God” (1 Cor 3:9).  I got to share about how that very same verse is the theme for Lay Mission Helpers, from a slightly different translation—“We are God’s helpers.”  I shared how very special it is for my family and me to be here as missionaries at this unique moment in the history of Cameroon, and how exciting it is to share in the Church’s call for the New Evangelization.

Then they had entertainment, with traditional dance and drumming.  Various people were joining in, and I was thinking, “I’m not going up there!” though I was enjoying watching them.  Then a priest joined in (to cheers from the crowd).  Finally, the main guy pointed to me to invite me up.  I had no choice.  I danced my way to the stage and joined in the circle.  It was fun!

Later, I was sharing with Joy and the kids about the experience, and how I actually felt pretty comfortable, even though I was the only white person.  At the end of my story, I commented how I just blended in with the others.  Jessica said: “Yeah, you really blended in!”  We all laughed and laughed at that one!

-Pete

So Proud I Could Burst

Sometimes we wonder if we have made the right decision to have our kids in the local school. Today was a day I felt so proud of our kids for trying to integrate with the school culture here in Bamenda.

Jessica and Joshua were selected with ten other pupils from Pledge to participate in a dance competition.  I would describe it as half African dance and half Latino. At first I assumed it was like other occasions where are kids are selected to show off that Pledge has “white kids” at their school.  Josh last year was selected to participate in a bilingual performance even though he was one of the worst French students.  But when I saw my kids dance during practice, they were quite good.

The day of the performance, we had to go to a dusty parking lot and watched an hour and a half of traditional dance which was very interesting.  Then the “ballet” started which was what they were calling this modern dance.  Our kids were one of the last groups to perform and when they started dancing the crowd went wild.  The music was very cool and their dance was lively.  I hope you can see they short clip I sent. 

They danced as well as all the local kids Jessica and Josh both had huge smiles on their faces and I was so proud my eyes just teared up. Pete too was one proud Papa. 

Emily chose not to try out for the dancing, but she did hold the school sign. She is a bit more timid when it comes to public events.  

Our school “took first” as they say here. Pledge is only in their 3rd year of operation and I feel like they are really getting to be known as a school of excellence in all areas.  I am pleased that our family has been able to attend a local school.  We are the only Missionaries in Bamenda that don't home school and I am so proud of my kids for the sacrifices they have made and the extra homeschooling work they do.

Thank you for letting me brag about my kids a bit.

-Joy

Camping In Cameroon

By Joshua Newburn (Age 11)

Just recently my dad and I went on a super cool experience which every Cameroonian has done—sleeping in the wild.  Of course, most Americans know it as, simply, camping.  

I was allowed to miss school on an exam day to meet with some of my favorite missionaries in Cameroon—the Schilinski’s. My two friends Josh and Seth were there with their dad.  We were joined by another missionary from Sierra Leone (Phillip) and his two sons.  This was a pure man expedition.  Only fathers and sons were coming. 

From the “Ski’s” house we took an hour drive to the Mbingo Rest House.  We immediately saw horses standing and waiting for us.  They were being controlled by two Muslim Cameroonians.  These people were our guides.  We played around the Mbingo Rest House for a bit and then got ready for our long ride into the wilderness. 

Just to let you know, reader, I got a camera for Christmas!  All the pictures you see here are from my camera.  So I took so many pictures on the way that my battery was too low to take any more!  I only managed to quickly turn the camera on, press the take-a-picture button, and hope that the picture would turn out O.K. 

Anyway, we found a great place and started to set up camp.  While Josh and Seth broke off some pieces of wood, I started to make a fire.  I gathered some of the wood and put it together in a teepee type way.  Then I curled up a piece of paper like a small pipe.  I lit a match and held it underneath the paper.  Immediately, the paper caught on fire.  I put it inside a small hole in my stick teepee and put in more paper.  (This is how I usually build fires.)  The flame rapidly spread up the teepee, and we soon had a small fire.  But small wasn’t good enough.  We put more and more wood until the fire was so hot that it was challenging to sit by it.  It was a good fire.

While the fire was burning as brightly as ever, my friends and I explored around.  We quickly noticed that there were cow bones all over.  We collected these bones and assembled a skeleton of a cow.  It was like a real cow.  (Well, it was once!)

Soon it was dark, and Phillip (my dad calls him Samson) did something random and awesome.  He pulled down a tree!  You might think Oh, more firewood! right?  Yes, in a way it was.  But not around the fire I made.  We burned the whole tree.  It was blazing before we knew it and I got a few pics.  The fire was about three meters high, nine feet.  It was a highlight of the night.

We cooked some beans, potatoes, and tea-water in some hot embers and we were all full.  Some slept in the tent, but Seth and I were smart.  We slept by the fire. At around four in the morning, Seth and I were freezing cold.  We then started the fire back up and warmed our bodies.  We slept very well. 

In the morning, I woke up to see a blazing fire.  We ate, and then went down to a stream to get drinking water.  “What!  Unfiltered?” you might ask?  Nope.  Jake brought a hand-pump filter and we filtered the water directly from the stream.  It was so cold and fresh.  Yum!

Finally, we packed up camp.  We rode the horses back to the Mbingo Rest House and then drove home.  Reader, you’re lucky we didn’t stay another day—I might have written another hundred words!   So wow!  What an experience here in Cameroon!  Thank God everyone is safe and healthy.  It was super fun, but it sure feels good to have my nice warm bed!

 

Dry Season

People in the States ask me if January is winter or summer here.  The answer has perplexed me for a year now.  It is both and neither.  

I am no climate expert, but I thought because we were above the equator it would be coldest in January here.  But the inside of our house is never below about 70 at night.  It is jacket “cool” outside, but the days are the hottest up to 90 because there is little shade.

So here in Cameroon, we have two seasons:  The “dry” season and the “wet” season.  The dry season runs for about 4 months from Dec-March and the “wet” season is about six months from May through October, with a month or so of transitional weather.

Most Missionaries I know dread the dry season because of the intense dust (and lack of consistent water).  Many local people have no glass on the windows, just curtains and the dust blows in easily into the house and layers of dust accumulate on everything.  Luckily our windows seal well, but I like to keep the windows open for the nice breeze and since we got a screen door, I do feel it is a bit dustier. 

Even the paved roads are dusty and the “green” bushes are orange brown because of the dust.  I was driving behind a truck on Tuesday down a dirt road and couldn’t even see his truck through the thick air so I had to pull over. We are quite blessed to have so many paved roads near us and the compound is quite grassy.

We all feel a bit congested because of the dust, but when I had my cold earlier this month it felt like I had pellets of rice in my nose. I will never again take for granted air moving freely through my nostrils.

Interestingly we just had a bit of rain as I am composing this.  This is most unusual for this time of year.  Some feel this is “Climate Change” but others say it happens every so often that the “season” is a bit different. These rains are “dirty” rains because it pulls all the dirt off roofs and trees etc.

One of the blessings of the dry season is that the kids get to play outside after school.  During the rainy season we rarely go out after 3pm. And since we are on the equator and have no daylight savings the sun doesn’t set until 6 or 6:30 pm. And of course the wood is nice and dry to make our fires!!!!

-Joy

Sky House In Motion

By Joshua (Age 11)

We are building what some might understand as a tree house on poles.  We call it “Sky house”.  It is close to completion, yet I want to tell you a bit about it.  First of all, a missionary named Jessie is here and he is the one who made it possible.  Jessie is the Mastermind of the project and has a bit of experience with this type of thing.  The Sky house has a ladder going up about 8 feet in the air, a tin roof, wall framing, 3 windows, two pieces of bamboo wall, and a very secure floor.  

We have been working on it for about 4 months, and progress is very rapid.  We started by simply marking out where and how big it was going to be.  Then a guy dug holes 4 feet deep into the ground.  After that, we painted motor oil onto the poles and set them to dry in the sun.

The next day, we put and cemented the poles in.  When the cement dried, we made “perimeter joists” all around the structure.  These were the outer boards used to nail “joists” into it.  We then nailed the floorboards to the joists and perimeter joists.

From there we started doing the wall framing.  We did each wall at a time on the ground.  The left wall had a door which the ladder rested against it. The front wall had a window first to spy on the parents and anybody entering the house.  The left wall had another window and the back wall had the biggest window of them all. It was the viewing window for my parents.  My dad saw that the window was too high for viewing, so we had to break down the window board and lower it. Now we will have great sunset views.

From there we gave the structure support by putting diagonal boards from the perimeter joists to the wall framing. We also did slanted boards onto the wall to the other so we could nail on the bamboo raffia.  Just recently, we built on the roof.  It has zinc on it so that rain can’t get inside the sky house.  Today we put two pieces of our bamboo raffia onto the boards nailed onto the wall framing.  We have so much bamboo raffia that we are probably going to make a goat pen, if we get a goat (which I’m hoping for!). 

This sky house will hopefully be a blessing to the Lord. We will try to do Bible studies and prayer times up in the sky.  I always wanted to have a club with a tree house. It will be perfect for my sisters and me to have our meetings.  The making of this structure has been so fun, and I thank my parents and God for giving me the opportunity to do this, what an average Cameroonian wouldn’t even dream of doing.