Family Update from Alace

I hijacked an email that Alace wrote to a friend (with permission, of course!) to serve as a bit of an update on how things are going for us, here in Cameroon.  Enjoy reading about things through her eyes!

We have very active lives these days caring for 12 teens in the dorm house, called "UBAC".

4 of the "UBAC'ers" acting a bit goofy

We have kids from 3 different cultures living together - American missionary kids, Cameroonian UN worker kids and one Korean missionary kid.  We are enjoying hanging out with the dorm parents next door, they are very fun!  They also have 12 students in their home- 2 of which are their kids.

I help with a...

...high school foods class (3 times a week) taught by our neighbor dorm mom.

Inside the "foods" kitchen... kinda like IRON CHEF!

I help lead a small group of 6 eleventh grade girls.  I am in a Beth Moore bible study video series once a week with a group of other moms.  And we have just begun a ladies tea with all the women on our campus once a week to have a short devo and connect (5 ladies).  

We are attending an international church which meets downtown at a Hilton Hotel.  Last Sunday our hostel led worship.  Steve got to help lead with 6 of our kiddos, so fun to engage with a church!

Does your Hilton Hotel come with a worship team?

We also have epic grocery shopping trips with the other hostel parents once a week, feeding 14 people requires a lot of food!!!  We usually have to go to at least 2 stores which takes an average of 4 hours.  

The traffic in Yoaunde is pretty hair-raising.  Taxis and motorbikes are weaving drunkenly all over the road, people cross and walk along side the road and the road conditions and traffic flow are dizzy-ing.

If there's space, a taxi will take it.  If there's less space, a moto-taxi will take it!

Just in the last two weeks we have had the school (RFIS) next door robbed by 7 armed masked men who took our guards from our compound and tied them up with the school guards while they spent hours robbing the school in the dead of the night!  Fortunately school was on break and no one was around except our family and the families living around us on our campus.  The guards got free after the robbers left and were able to push the panic button which sent the emergency response team to our compound.  The guards were shaken up but unharmed!

One of the trashed offices.

The school lost an entire safe and they had just gone to the bank so our hostel money and other monies were stolen.  We slept through the whole thing!  

Also just days before a huge tree split and fell across our property during a HUGE storm.

Again it didn't damage our home or the house next door, it fell in the only place possible to not damage anything!  Praise God for taking care of us in these things!!  

Also pray for our current plumbing problems which raw sewage is draining in our boys main bathroom.  Right now we are down 4 toilets and 4 showers until this problem is taken care of.  It may require jack-hammering through floors and re-doing major plumbing lines.  Our 7 girls are sharing one toilet and one shower for the time being and our 5 boys are sharing one toilet and one shower as well!!!  The house is just over one year old and we are still working out the construction kinks.  We spent a week of our fall break with construction going on!  

I have had a series of maladies which have been very discouraging.  I had a lingering cold that drained me for just under a month and then during break I had 3 days of a migraine and then after a rough night of sleep I had a crick in my neck that was so painful I had a hard time dressing myself and sleeping for many nights.  I am just now getting over it but I still have to be careful in turning my head and can only lay on one side.  These things have been very frustrating as Steve and I have begun walk/jogging 3K four times a week together.  I have a goal set to jog the whole 3K each time by Christmas.  With all these setbacks with my health I am having to stay home and not get to walk/jog.  Please pray I will stay healthy and strong!  

We have some students that are being very challenged by their classes this semester, so we are very engaged in helping with homework most evenings.  Also, some of our students are all new to the school this year and it is a difficult adjustment to make living away from their families and attending a new school in a new country.  Please pray for these young people.  

We are loving being with Sam and Megan full-time!!  

Steve and Megan on Mont Febe- one of the hills that surrounds Yaounde.

We skype with Joe regularly but are missing him greatly.

A slightly blurry pic of Joe at the Moody Bible Institute mission fest.
When they didn't have the Gabon flag, he grabbed Cameroon.

He is doing so well!  Pray for him as he just informed us he left his wallet in a bag after a conference and lost his ID's and money and bank card.  He lost his Cameroonian ID which cannot be replaced!  Please pray that his wallet will turn up with the ID's in tact, he only had $10 in his wallet.  (UPDATE:  5 hours after this was posted, the wallet was found!!!)  Otherwise he is loving life in Chicago and thriving in his classes and making great friends.

I think that should do it for now!  Thank you so much for the prayers.  Overall we are happy to be here and loving being with the hostel kids and this missionary community.

Much love,

Alace