A Really Difficult Decision...

As we return to Gabon, we'll have just a few weeks together as a family before driving up to Cameroon and dropping off Joe and Megan for school at Rain Forest Int'l School.


As many of you know, we've been homeschooling for the past two years (Palm Forest Academy!) using SonLight and then AlphaOmega products. Now, as our oldest two will be High School age and have started asking math and science questions that make Alace and I scratch our heads... we have made this very difficult decision.













(Pictures: We left at first light / It was a long, bouncy trip / we found "SAM" along the way!)


As you can guess, this decision, as with all others in our journey, has been one where we invited many to give input and prayer to.










Ultimately, we found that many MK's look back upon their senior high schooling as a very positive time (as opposed to grade school and jr. high away from mom and dad).


(picture: Here's Megan with a new friend!)




We also made two visits, over the past 2 years, to the RFIS campus in Yaounde, Cameroon and saw, first hand, why many of their graduates go on to thrive- some even attending Ivy League schools in the US. The school was established by Wycliff Bible Translators. We can make the drive from Libreville in one day (14 hours).

Another aspect was the offer of low-cost housing and supervision for Joe and Meg when friends of ours who live in Yaounde, offered to house them. They are a family of 6, however, their two oldest are in the states attending college. The younger two, who are also RFIS students, are similar ages to Joe and Meg! This will save us thousands of dollars!

As you can imagine, this is one of the most difficult things we'll ever do as a family. We're happy that RFIS has longer-than-normal breaks throughout the year, but that won't make it too much easier to be apart. Please pray for our family through this transition.

We are thankful that we have found a great school that is relatively close (some send their kids over 5 countries away!) and that our children will be so well cared for.


(picture: Here's an aerial shot of the new campus they're building, opening this fall, just for our kids! How nice of them!)