Nous sommes toujours la!

Kristen and our new puppy, Bruster. Well, he is a lot bigger now. This was when we first got him a few months ago.



Well, we are still here! Sorry we haven't updated very much lately. We have been staying pretty busy with ministry here in Cameroon. We are still working with the new church plant and things are going well. We have had the opportunity to reach out to a lot of people in our neighborhood and they are now coming to the church. God also provided the money for us to be able to buy some land to build a structure for the church. We have been meeting in one of our friends and deacon of the church's house. So we were so happy when we were able to purchase the land. God is so faithful! So after the first of the year we will really begin to clear the land and prepare it for a structure.

Thanksgiving was really fun. We spent the day with the Lemons, our missionary friends and mentors. We ate lots of good food and had a good time of fellowship. Joel was able to ride their motorcyce while Cynthia and I worked on preparing the food. He always looks like a little kid in a candy store when he is riding. He really loves it. Well, we were really glad for the time we were able to spend with the Lemons while they were here. We took them to the airport the last day of November for them to return to the States for furlough.

I can't believe that it's almost Christmas and that this year is almost over. God has been so faithful to us this year to provide all of our needs and take care of us while we minister here in Cameroon. We praise Him for all He has done in our lives and for choosing to use ordinary people like us. We are so thankful for Jesus coming to this earth only to be rejected, suffer and die on the cross for our sins. What amazing love!!!

We pray that the Hope and Love of Jesus Christ will fill your heart during this Holiday Season!

September Update a few months late!!!

Ok, well I know that it is now December and I am posting an update on September. Yeah, so we are a little behind here! I actually put this post together in October but never had the opportunity to post it with our internet being so slow. We stayed busy in September with our church plant and we also had the opportunity to work with Jim Byh, the Book of Hope director for West Africa. We were able to go into some neighborhoods and hand out the Book of Hope books and then show the "God-Man" film, which is now translated in French. This was the first time they had shown the film here in Cameroon and it went really well. So I have been meaning to post these pics for several months, but they are here now, so hope you enjoy!




Lydia handing out BOH books


The kids were so happy to receive their own Book Of Hope books


Kristen and Lydia, the Book of Hope Coordinator for Cameroon


The girls and their BOH books


Joel with Jim Byh and some of the neighborhood kids


Getting ready to show "The God-Man" film in French!


One of the little girls at the Book of Hope distribution. Isn't she precious!

Mefou-Gorilla and Monkey refuge

So for our free day for the team, we took them to the Mefou refuge (It's a Jane Goodall sponsored reserve). It was really fun to see all the monkeys and gorillas and also take a small trek through the jungle. This is actually the first time we had been there ourselves, but we really enjoyed it and would go back again.



A nice picture of a baby gorilla

alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5110378818091786738" />
Silly Monkey!!!


Kristen in front of one of the really huge trees of the rainforest.


Joel holding some beans from the coffee family that grow from long vines from trees in the rainforest.


This guy kept throwing sticks at us. He definitely wanted us to know it was his territory.


One of the gorillas


Here's a baby monkey that had been shot and almost died.

What's for Dinner?

Viper...the other white meat! Here's Janet and Kristen holding dinner. Viper and peanut sauce, it doesn't get much better than that.


So we picked-up a viper on the side of the road that had just been killed....Yummy fresh viper!



Have you ever wondered what the inside of a viper looks like....Well, here you go!



Here's the viper skin!

Team Pictures

Janet sharing with the women of the church on mother/baby health. Janet is a midwife in the States.


Bob, Mark and Joel working on putting the solar oven together. Bob and Jacquie brought a solar oven to give to an African to help them with cooking. It really works! Thanks Bob and Jacquie.


Jacquie sharing her testimony and Joel translating


Mark and Joel shoveling dirt


Pastor Simplice, the pastor of the church in Ambam, with his youngest son, Jean-Christ


Bob and Jacquie putting bolts into the frame of the tabernacle



Kelly and Kristen were working hard to move the dirt and flatten the foundation of the church



Here's the tabernacle in Ambam that the team paid for and helped build. It is such a blessing for the church of Ambam to finally have a tabernacle after 5 years.


This is a picture of the team

Some pictures at the beach in Kribi

Here's a sunset


Here is a picture from the dug out canoe in the Lobe River.


The Lobe Falls make for a nice view.


Here we are in the dug-out canoe


Joel and I with the chief of a pygmy tribe


Here's Joel playing Tarzan


We really enjoy the beach at Kribi. It is always a nice get away for us.

Some photos of our church

Here's me and Brigitte with a few of the children of the church




Here's Joel and I with some of our church members

Hello World!!!

Yes, we are still alive! I know some of you were worried that we got lost in the jungle or eaten by a hippo or something, but we have just been extremely busy. We just had a team here for several weeks. We were able to construct a tabernacle in the village of Ambam as well as hold several evagelistic meetings. Things went really well with the team and we really enjoyed their fellowship and all the ministry they were able to do here.

We are now getting back into the swing of things with our church plant. Satan has really been trying to discourage us and attack a lot of the people in our church, but we know that God has great plans to prosper this new church. We are really trying to give a good foundation and disciple the people here. The people of this province are so religious but they have no substance to their faith. Most of the people have been in churches a lot in their lifetime but have no foundation in the basic things of living a true Christian life. Most of the children don't even know the ten commandments or have even heard basic Bible stories, like Noah's Ark. But what is even crazier, is that a lot of the children have more knowledge of the Bible than the adults. A good majority of the people here go to church, but they have no idea what it means to really have a relationship with Jesus and truly live their lives for Him. We just pray that God will use us to see individuals really surrender their lives to Christ and know Him in such a real way. Anyways, we are encouraged because we know that God has greater plans than we could ever even imagine. He is so good and faithful!

Well, it is always an adventure living in Africa. We recently had the opportunity to take a dug out canoe through the jungle to meet with a small pygmy tribe. It was a beautiful trip down the river and very interesting to meet some pygmy people. Joel and I look like giants compared to them! We will try to add some pics, but our internet is very, very slow. We will try to update more often, but as I said, our internet is very difficult to work with blogging.

Thanks to everyone who keeps up with us. We love hearing from all of you and covet your prayers.

Back to Cameroon!

Well, we are actually sitting at the Birmingham airport right now getting ready to leave to go back to Cameroon. We had a great visit here in the States. We enjoyed just seeing friends and family and shopping and eating out (yeah we gained like 10 lbs each since we got here, but maybe we will work it off with a sardine and monkey diet or something).

We have to say a great big Thank You to Pators Sims, Mrs. Peggy and all the MC's for honoring us during the graduation ceremony and with the presentation of the Legacy Award. It was such a huge encouragement to us and we will never forget it. Thank you guys for everything and for the picture too. I have it in my carry-on right now with us so we will know that you guys are praying for us and behind us. We love you and appreciate all of you!

We also had a great time going out to the Melting Pot with Clark, Kelley, and some of the MAPs team. It was a good time of fondue and fellowship. Thank you guys for including us.

Well, it was great seeing everyone. We will try to keep in touch as much as possible. Gotta get ready for some long travel time. God bless!

SWEET HOME ALABAMA!!!

Yes, we are in the States! We arrived in Alabama on April 23rd, after about 35 hours of travel time. We had planned to take a vacation to the States in May, but our plans changed a bit when we got some bad news. Joel's brother, Andy, died of respiratory failure at the age of 42. He had been having some health problems and had just been released from the hospital. Everyone thought he was doing better and was going to pull through, but he unexpectedly died. At first we didn't think it was going to be possible for us to get back to the States for the funeral, but God really opened the door for us to change our flights. We changed our tickets on Thursday and we flew out on Sunday. We arrived in Birmingham on Monday night and went straight to Wal-Mart. Of course I couldn't resist. We were in Alabama for two days and then we drove to Shreveport, Louisiana, where Joel's family lives. They had the memorial service on Saturday afternoon for Andy. We are so thankful that Joel was able to be here for the memorial and be with his family during this time. It also helps him to get some closure. It would've been really hard for him to be so far away during this time. Thank you so much for all of your prayers for Joel and his family during this time.

We have been in Shreveport for almost two weeks now. It has been a bitter-sweet time here with the death of his brother but also enjoying the fellowship with the rest of Joel's family. We will be driving back to Alabama on Thursday and will be there until June 2nd. We can't wait to see everyone and spend some time just hanging out. If you haven't been able to get in touch with us and would like to hang out with us please just leave a comment and we will try to hook up with you while we are here. We can't wait to see you!!!

We'll miss you Andy!!

Joel with his parents and his brother Andy

Ministry Update

Well, it's been a while since our last post, but we have been super busy and our internet and power situation in Cameroon is not so great.

We have been busy doing lots of ministry stuff. We had a 4 day campaign in Ma'an and a lot of people gave their hearts to the Lord during that time. Joel was able to do his first two baptisms in the river there and we had the opportunity to try out all sorts of new foods like lizard, some huge bird, more viper, and lots of monkey(it tastes like roast).

We will never forget this years Easter Sunday. It was quite an adventure. We were having church in our new church plant and during the time of worship we heard someone yelling and throwing rocks at the church. We thought that someone was just trying to disrupt the service, but Joel stuck his head out the door to see what was going on and about 3ft away was a black cobra. It was about a 6 foot cobra that was trying to get into the church. It had tried to go in through the back door but it was a neighbor who was yelling and throwing rocks at it. When the cobra didn't succeed in getting in the back door, it tried to go right into the front window, where 25 people were praising God, with their eyes closed. We would have never seen the cobra coming in if it weren't for the neighbor throwing rocks. Needless to say, our worship was interupted and the men of the church grabbed their machetes to go after the cobra. Finally, after a couple of minutes they killed the cobra.

This could have been a major catastrophe. The cobra could've come into the church and killed someone. It was definitely a spiritual thing. For one, a cobra would not try to get really close to a lot of people make noise and clapping their hands, especially in the morning time. Also, this type of cobra doesn't even come from Cameroon. It is from southern Africa. We think that a sorcerer raised it and sent it to the church to disrupt the service. Lastly, one of the ladies in our church said that she had been having dreams of that exact snake. In her dreams, the cobra was trying to climb a tree and eat all of it fruit. So we are so thankful for everyone who prays for our protection. We would have never expected something like that to happen on Easter morning, but God protected us and we also had a newcomer to the church, who gave his heart to Christ that morning. We also had the opportunity to show "The Passion of the Christ" and 200 people from our neighborhood showed up. Well, it was definitely one of our most interesting Easter Sundays.

Well, we will post some pics of our time in Ma'an and try to post some pics of the cobra. Again, thanks for reading our blog and leaving comments, and also for all your prayers.

Cobra Pics

Here are some pics of the cobra that tried to come into the church Easter Sunday.

Pics of Campaign in Ma'an

Here's some pics of us holding some of the bush meat we picked up on our way to Ma'an.
Yummy!!! Lizard and viper make for some good eatin'

A couple of pics of some of the people who came forward to receive Christ

We spent Saturday working on the floors of the tabernacle. We filled in the floor and flattened the dirt to get ready for the first service.

Joel giving a message before the baptism

Joel did his first baptism during our time in Ma'an. This is in the Ntem river which is close to Equitorial Guinea border.

Joel doing his second baptism in the Ntem river. Sorry the picture is so blurry I was trying to take pics and video at the same time.

Here's Joel praying for people to be healed after one of the night services.

This is was baby crocodile that someone was trying to sell us to eat.

This was the first service in the new tabernacle we built

This is a picture of the installation of the new pastor, Isidore, and also the dedication of the new tabernacle.

Loading-up to go back to Ebolowa! Thank God for STL!