March 10, ‘10

Dear family & friends,

It’s March now and already over a third of it has passed. It’s less than two months before Carol and I leave our home in Lassin for our home in the good ‘ol USA. Honestly, the struggle of the week is to remain focused on the work at hand. Carol has her teaching, but I seem to have become stuck waiting between projects. The lumber to build the desks, etc. has not been delivered to Lassin yet. The school building is completed, but the well project threatens to take over our wallet. It seems somehow larger than our limited time; although probably not. Bible studies continue very well with a few friends: Devine (“D” of D’s 5 & dime, card house and pub across the street from us- Sunday @ 1, plus a couple times a week), Emanuel (nurse at the Baptist Health Center of Lassin- when work permits), Shey John (owner of the finest general store in Lassin and ‘Shey’ (ambassador and advisor)to the Fon (top man of the village)- Wed. mornings), Franklin (our carpenter & his family and a few neighbors- Thursday night), and Moses (the school tailor and his whole family- Sunday night).

Have some of you been praying for Shey John? Likely. Here’s what happened today. Our New Beginnings bible study was entitled ‘Fooled by a Myth’, the last lesson about the Sabbath. Let me interject some of the events of the day. This morning, I stopped in at ‘Brother John’s’ store to drop off some government documents pertaining to our school staff and enrollment statistics, and to inquire where I could find running water. Lassin has been having water difficulties recently. Our ‘tap finish flowing’ two days ago. The faucet at our next door neighbor’s back yard was one of the last to dry up. John told me where to find the last faucet that still had water flowing in town. I drove to it with a 20 liter (5+ gallon) jug and ten 1.5 liter plastic bottles; 35 liters in all. After filling them and driving to the school, enjoying Carol’s program, and returning home as ‘school bus driver’ (Carol & me, plus 15 school children in our Corolla Tercel- 2 on Carol’s lap, 6 or 7 in the back seat and 6 or so in the luggage area. Don’t worry, we blaze along for about 3 miles at about 12 mph on a virtually empty dirt / sandy gravel road. What a gas!) After arriving home and munching some food with Carol, I shouldered our Toshiba lap-top and trundled off to Shey John’s store for the second time today. I took a seat on the raphia bench across from his ‘check out’ desk and listened to the animated conversation between the Shey and a few of his customers. After about a half hour and a dozen customers and visitors, John followed the last person to the door, and proceeded to close and lock the store. That was my first clue that he had time for a bible study; remember, friendship is so important that bible study or not, just hanging out is a big deal. We watched the lesson on ‘the Sabbath’. As the lesson concluded, I felt compelled to ask John if he would like to join us in worship on Sabbath. He explained that he would love to, and in his heart he is an Adventist, but that his wife and entire family structure (minus his sister Elizabeth and brother Jeffery who were baptized Adventist in ‘08) do not support his decision. We read the story of the ‘rich young ruler’ of Luke 18. We learned that God is inviting us to ‘follow’ him, and that with God, even the things that seem impossible become possible. We prayed that God would perform the impossible in John’s family and give John courage to stand for Him.
When John opened the store doors again, the first heavy rain of the rainy season was falling. The raphia benches lining the front porch of the store were occupied by people waiting out the steady heavy rain well punctuated by thunder. One of those just happened to be brother “D”. We were all invited in from the weather. For the next hour, the conversation was light and funny. “D” and Shey are best of friends (both are very friendly with distinctly varied humor- “D” is very dry and forthright letting the humor of the story stand alone, and Shey loves to listen, smile, then make some funny crack then laugh or chuckle). After a particularly long stretch of stories in the Noni language, the conversation broke into English and I became included in the fun. It seems that an amazing event occurred December 17, ’09. I had invited ‘brother John’ to accompany Carol and me in our Toyota from Lassin, over the mountain and down across the wide plain to Bamenda. John was our navigator. Well, on the morning of the trip, John stopped in at D’s pub for a last cigarette. John did not want to smoke in our car and discussed the problem of the 10 hour trip with D. D suggested that John quit his 2 pack a day habit that day. John agreed. The laughter resumed between the two of them as they retold the story. “I quit that day”, John said. “I have not smoked since then and it’s because of you! I save 1,000 franks a day.” (This is about the ‘wallet impact’ equivalent of $10 a day.) I had no idea of the event. Amazing!
The heavy rains had changed the dry, dusty main market road in front of John’s store into a swift little stream. When they let up, D & I excused ourselves and walked home together. “Hey D, how about a bible study tonight?” “Sure.” Just as amazing as the last story, just before study time, Emanuel showed up at our back door and was very interested in staying for the bible study with D. New Beginnings ‘After the Smoke Clears’ was next for D. They each learned how brief the final cleaning of the earth will be.
Again, let me assure you that not all of our time is spent this way, but when it is, it is incredibly enjoyable!

Have you noticed that I don’t spend much time telling you what goes wrong? There are reasons for this. If I tell you of every pot hole in our road of life, every cloud of road dust that we breath, every cloud of the neighbor’s cooking fire that we inhale, I may scare off some unsuspecting volunteer that may have come out to teach in the school. Well, I’m going to let you in on a secret. Carol and I have a new sport. After just a couple minutes of it, our hearts are pounding and we are giggling like little kids. We play it in the evening about 7 PM. We both play on the same team. It lasts between 2 and 5 minutes each evening. Required equipment? A fly swatter each. Okay, it is at this time that the bats that have begun roosting about March 1 in our eves begin to take to flight. Between 1 and 6 of these flying wonders will enter our living room one at a time. We calmly turn on both lights, take up the swatters and the game begins. We always win. The solution? Start a fire in the house at night, smoke up the rafter area and the bats find a new home. I haven’t had the nerve to light a big fire yet; so far, just a couple old rags. I don’t like smoke either; especially near bed time. Your serve.

News from the “Adventist Medical Automotive” project. Five transports so far. The last two were women; one with severe ‘stomach’ ache from PID, and the most recent with severe ‘pleural effusion’. As I was driving the lady with pleural effusion to Kumbo, her husband was sitting in Shey John’s store telling of how he was going to have to sell some corn to pay for his wife’s medical condition. As he was talking, someone entered the store to tell him that his wife had just been driven out of town on her way to Kumbo. He was shocked. He didn’t even know that she was that bad or that she was planning on leaving. (Life without phones is different here) I had no idea of who she was, only that I had been asked to transport her. Later I learned several things. In Kumbo, she had 3 liters of fluid drained from her lungs. She farms very near our school. I had hired her husband to dig the toilet pit at our school. He was also one of the first farmers that I met on my December ’08 expedition to Lassin. He carried a ‘huge knife’! (farming ‘cutlass’) He really had me worried back then- certainly not now. I saw him a few days ago at the bustling Lassin village market. Our eyes met, he took my hand and earnestly told me how thankful he was for the kindness we showed to him and his wife. “Thank God. Thank God.”

Aside: “True & Sierra”, my heart really goes out in appreciation to you two. Even with all these exciting experiences, there are still times that I’m ready to bag it all and head for ‘home’. This has been an incredible character development project; God has been an excellent instructor. The other day, Carol’s 4 month old avocado pits finally began to sprout in the garden. We had lost all hope of ever seeing sprouts. We never know when the seed of God’s word will sprout in the heart of a person; it could be long after we’ve given up hope. I’m glad you spent years of sowing out there in You-land. God bless you.

There are more stories, but only our closest friends are still reading.
Next ‘issue’: “I’ve known about Seventh-day Adventists and the Sabbath for 20 years. I just never knew where one of their churches was.”

Time feels as if it is really flying now. Pray that we do not let any of it pass without caring for the future of our neighbors. Thank you!
Steve & Carol