Trust

I woke up this morning and was asking God, "What are we here for? Will we even know what our purpose was? Are we even making a difference?" Almost immediately a word picture of life being like a strategic chess game came to my mind. I sometimes feel like God is this Master chess player and he can see the whole "game" - He has each move mapped out and strategically places each player right where He thinks best for the whole game. Then I had to laugh because it is not really like that at all. Can you imagine this amazing chess player trying to play this perfect game but all the pieces can decide for themselves if they want to trust the Master and do what he says or not. The pieces can only see what is right around them and could easily get discouraged without the view of the whole game. If one piece was in a place where there wasn't much action, he might think that the Master didn't know how valuable he was and go looking for some action. On the other hand, pieces that were on the front line might just bale out and leave valuable pieces vulnerable. I know this is a silly illustration but it did get me thinking about trusting God each day, that He knows better than I what is good for my growth.

In talking with some of the other missionaries around here, there is a common thread of discouragement and wanting to "go home". Please pray for the missionaries here at CBTS. Pray that they will trust that God's timing is perfect and wait for His hand to move them. There is a very real spiritual battle going on, as well as the rainy season is coming in and it is cloudier than normal. Pray that we will be an encouragement to them these last weeks that we are here.

Please Pray

I'm feeling sad today. We found out this morning that a 9 year old girl of one of the students here at CBTS was raped just outside the campus fence last night. The family brought her to Bamenda today to get her checked out at the hospital there. Please pray that she has not been infected with the HIV virus and for her physical, emotional and spiritual healing. What a horrible thing - I can not imagine the pain her parents must be in at this moment. Pray that God would comfort them. Pray that they catch the man that did this. Pray for safety for all the other little girls (and boys) that have to fetch water for their families, or be home alone because their parents have to work. Pray for safety for us too as we more strictly enforce the "no walking alone" rule that we had gotten a little lax on. Please lift this family up as you have been so faithfully lifting up our family in prayer.

Perfect fit for Drew

Going on a missions trip is always a lesson in flexibility.  You may go into it thinking you have an idea of what you will be doing and it won't look anything at all like you imagined.  That is part of the excitement of it all.  I'm a planner so this is not easy for me.  It's interesting because you send your information out of all your skills and talents and then you wait.  Every now and then I get an email that lets me know that they are working on what we will be doing and give me just a hint of what is to come.  Drives me crazy as I try to read  between every line to see if I can eek out just a tiny bit of  information that isn't being said.  In the end, I'm left trusting the people in charge - most whom I have never met.


As the days get closer to our departure I have had to ask a few questions about the plans for our family.  A little over a week ago, we still needed about $3000 in our account.  This was a lot of money to have to take out of our savings.  We could do it but it would leave us with very little upon our return.  I emailed to find out more specifically what we would need to pay for housing while in Cameroon.  The email I got back just made me smile at how well God takes care of us.  Found out the housing where we are going (Ndu) is half of what we were thinking.  That was a savings of $2000!  Shortly after this we were given gifts in person and more deposited into our account.  Financially it is all falling into place - Praise God!


The other cool part of the story is also evidence of God's hand in this whole journey.  Our family has been part of an AWANA program at Faith Baptist church in Minneapolis.  Over the years we have heard about missionaries that they support in Cameroon and their church has also sent short term mission teams to Cameroon.  I was thinking about one family in particular that homeschool their children and work full time as missionaries in Cameroon.  In one of my emails to Wycliffe I asked if we would be able to get gifts to this family from their support church in Minneapolis.  I was informed that we probably wouldn't see them because they lived in the mountains but the gifts could be sent on to them. 


 I guess within an hour from that reply, the person in charge of our assignment received a request from the Cameroon Baptist Theological Seminary (CBTS)  in Ndu.  The request was for a job through Wycliffe Associates to do construction work - mainly concrete.  My husband has been finishing concrete for 20 years.  It ends up that this is the same place the missionary family I had just asked about lives and works.  She too saw this as God's hand and forwarded our name on to  Eric Hagman, the Africa Area Director of Wycliffe Associates.  Eric and his wife Tracey were long time members of our home church before moving to Africa, not to mention good friends of ours.  Eric immediately replied that our family would be a perfect fit for the job.  I still don't know what part I will be playing while in Ndu but I'm convinced it will fit me just as well as this job fits Drew.  


This kind of thing makes me so excited.  It's obvious that God cares about the details and was working out the pieces to the puzzle far before I ever even had a thought of actually going to Cameroon.  Now here we are just one month before leaving and a few more pieces are revealed to me.  I have no doubt we are right in the middle of God's plan for us as we prepare to live for 10 weeks in Ndu.