Classes start tomorrow!

Well, we just finished dinner at our house and are settling in by the fire in our fireplace (yep, rainy season is still here in full force, which keeps things wet and chilly, especially the asphalt floors in our house) to do some last-minute class preparations. Tomorrow's the official big day. We're all a mix of anxiety and eagerness. All are syllabi and schedules are printed out and copied, sitting in stacks on our desks. We've met a lot of our students already too, since Friday was orientation and today was "Spiritual Formation Day," both of which all new and returning students are required to attend. So all that's left to do is teach!

Life here this week has been slow and easygoing, as Charlie described our first week in the last post. We've been on long walks and a couple of jogs around some backwoods paths around our house that wind their way through nearby thatched-roof villages that overlook some of the most spectacular views you're likely to see anywhere in Cameroon (so we're told).

We've spent quite a bit of time with the Yongs, learning more about the quirks---some of them endearing and some not so much---of CBTS culture (such as lengthy faculty-meeting disputes over the finer details of tea and coffee breaks each day for the faculty and staff---nope, not kidding!). They've been very hospitable and helpful as we continue to settle in.

We also met a Peace Corps volunteer this week who has become a new friend. She's 23 years old, from Colorado, and now lives just across the valley from CBTS' campus (about a 5-7 minute walk from our front door). She hangs out with the Yongs quite a bit and has another 15 months here in Cameroon, so I'm sure we'll be seeing more of each other.

Some other news: We're still not able to email. Hopefully (and I know every post has said the same thing for the last couple of weeks) we'll have it up and running within the next few days. The hold-up has to do with the Baptist center in Bamenda needing to coordinate with an office in Douala (one of the major coastal cities in Cameroon) in getting us set up with a Cameroon Baptist Convention corporate phone account. We have been able to call our families though, so that's been a blessing that has tided us over until we have a more reliable communication system.

Our fridge broke down---twice. Our cook, Zaccheus (we call him "Pa," a name Cameroonians use as an affectionate title of respect for older men), has taught us how to make do without one, but---again, hopefully this week---we'll get it fixed. :)

And, maybe the best news of all this week, we got to meet up with our friend from last summer, Tamfu Dieudonne, who's now a pastor in Limbe, another coastal city in Cameroon. Some of you will know that he applied to The Bethlehem Institute and got accepted. He's hoping to attend next fall and enroll at Bethel Seminary for an MDiv as well. It was so cool for Charlie and I to see him again, and Tommy enjoyed meeting him for the first time. He is doing great, leading a men's discipleship group (going through, I think, Paul's letter to the Ephesians), and preaching Christ-centered sermons to his growing, mainly-newly-converted flock. We got to hear him preach at Ndu's First Baptist Church on Sunday. His text was Matthew 5:13-16, and he made the point that Christian's being the light of the world and a "city set on a hill" is not owing to some natural light of our own. No, he said, we are a light only because Christ has invaded our lives and shared HIS light with us. It was a powerful sermon (in the middle of our a three-hour[!!!] service), and we all three came away encouraged.

Well, I think that's all for now. Obviously, we'd covet your prayers for tomorrow. I think the classes we're most nervous about are Exodus (Tommy's), Research Methods (Charlie's), and Acts (mine), so please pray especially for those. We want Jesus and the gospel to become more precious and exciting to us and those of our students who already know him, and for those of our students who perhaps have not yet come alive to the wonderful reality of grace, we want Jesus and the gospel to stun them irresistibly for the first time. So please keep praying with us that God will do amazing things through these classes.

THANKS to all of you who have been leaving comments. We haven't read a lot of them (yet!), because we're sending our blog posts to our friend Alex Kirk via email and not logging onto the blog ourselves, but when we get our email set up, he'll forward the comments to us so we can see them. So keep 'em comin'!!

Much love to all of you.

grace+peace,

wes, for the team

Life at CBTS so far

Hello from Ndu! Here is an excerpt from an e-mail that I sent to my family earlier today:

So, life is a little different here. We flew into Yaounde on Saturday the 12th, and on the 13th we left at 6:30 am to drive cross-country all the way to Ndu. When we arrived, there was a large crowd gathered to welcome the president and his wife back (they had been on sabbatical in Minneapolis), and to welcome the "three new missionaries" (a title I would happily jettison had I the chance).
So, from then until now, well, we have been doing odds and ends. We had a fridge shipped to our house, then it broke. We bought a bunch of power adapters, then they didn't work. Our water has stopped twice now for a couple of days. Etc., etc. But life is at least progressing in a routine manner: we eat three meals a day (all very large), and go to bed around 9:00 each night, and wake up about 6:30.
My body isn't really sure what's going on, but I think it is pleased with the new schedule--sleep, not too much coffee, good food.

We have shaken more hands than I could hope to remember, and nearly everyone here goes by their "Christian name," like Emmanuel, Divine, Grace, Mercy, Hope, Godwill, Godwin, Spinoza, Goodness, Patience, etc.
One of my students this year is named Corinthians. Dead Serious. I have also met an Ephesians. I thought about making up a Christian name for myself like 2 Chronicles, but then I realized that I already had one! It has been pointed out to me on more than one occasion that my last name is Shepherd, usually said in an informative manner ( i.e., "In case you didn't know it, your last name is Shepherd"). Yep.
Yep it is.

One thing I have thought about a bit this trip has been the health of the Church in Africa. I know that a lot of people say that the Church in the third world is flourishing amidst her poverty exponentially faster than the Church in the West amidst her affluence (see our May 6 post). Christ's power is really displayed and seen here, while it is somewhat removed in western churches. Well, so the argument goes. I think I like it, but I always wondered how CBTS fit into this. We don't see anyone here being raised from the dead or anything, and no one really speaks in tongues or prophecies too much. So is CBTS the exception to those sweeping statements about Africa? And then last night we were out chopping wood (or learning how to...) and another young Cameroonian teacher came to our house with his wife--Joshua and Patience (!) Webdna. They walked all the way across the muddy campus of CBTS to pray with us and to encourage us. And man, were they encouraging. After their visit I couldn't help but reflect on the number of people that we had/have met of this caliber. It really is amazing. Christ is central in the lives of these students and teachers in a way that I have not previously known. For them, Christ is everything. He is everything. He defines the world they live in, and defines them amidst this world. I know, we have only met a small sliver of people here, but that seems only all the more telling. So maybe CBTS isn't such an anomaly after all to those generalizations about the growth of the Church here. Maybe we are actually in the midst of it. I think I could certainly say that along with the roads, food, smells and culture, the health of the church here is something I hadn't seen before (well, I guess that's not entirely true...right Blake?).

Well, I have heard from some missionaries here that we are in the "honeymoon" phase, and soon enough frustration will set it. Maybe.
But we'll enjoy it while we can!!

Charlie, for the team

Safely Arrived

Hey friends!

Sorry it's been a while. We still don't have a cellphone (though we're buying one in Bamenda tomorrow, Lord willing), so we can't send or receive emails, which means no blog posts. :(

We've made it to Ndu; we're all settled into our house. We're healthy, we're eating well, and we're still pumped about teaching. Everyone has been so welcoming and hospitable. We already have tons of stories for the blog, but they'll have to wait until we get our house outfitted for internet.

Thanks for praying---keep it up!

We'll be in touch soon.

From cold, rainy, muddy Ndutown,

Wesley, for the whole team

The Adventure of the Airports

We're in Brussels, Belgium! It's almost 8 pm Central European Time, and all three of us are together at an internet cafe downtown. We had numerous delays State-side, as you probably guessed. In addition to the tight security that made for lengthy lines at the airports, we had to sit on our planes on the runways for several hours because of severe weather. Charlie ended up meeting Tommy and me in Brussels, not in NYC as originally planned. "In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps" (Proverbs 16:9). And we all three missed our flight to Yaounde! American Airlines, though, quickly and helpfully worked it out for us to catch a 10 am flight to Zurich tomorrow morning (the 12th) and then a 12:15 flight to Yaounde. So please pray we make that connection! In the meantime, they booked us a room at a Holiday Inn here in Brussels, so we've spent the afternoon and evening enjoying the city and catching up with each other.

All in all, we feel safe and sound, though tired and exhausted. God has been very good so far, and we're trusting him for "more grace" (James 4:6).

Greetings especially to our families! Hopefully the next time you hear from us, we'll be in Cameroon!

--Wesley, for the team

P.S. Charlie wants the world to know he had bouillabaisse for dinner tonight.

P.P.S. Tommy had to be taught by the busboy (to the amusement of the family sitting next to us) how to eat escargot.

Countdown

Tomorrow's the big day!

Travel schedule

FYI, here's a more detailed outline of our travel plans:

Tommy and Wesley will fly together to New York from Chicago at 11:47 a.m CST. We'll arrive in NY at 3:02 p.m. EST. Charlie will meet us there at 4:32 p.m. Then the three us will leave for Brussels at 6:05 p.m. EST and arrive in Brussels 7:35 a.m. Central European Time on August 11. Lord willing, we'll meet up with the Fons and fly to Yaounde at 10:40 a.m., arriving there at 4:25 p.m. (UTC+1).

That evening, as we mentioned, we'll stay overnight at a rest house in Yaounde. From there, on August 12, we'll take a van or bus to Bamenda in the Northwest province of Cameroon (you can find it on most maps of Cameroon) where we'll stay at a Cameroon Baptist Convention center. Then it's on to Ndu!

I love Sheldon Vanauken's phrase "under the Mercy." I'm glad we'll be traveling "under the Mercy" of a loving heavenly Father.

--Wes again, for the team

Prayer for our travel

"Brothers and sisters, pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honored, just as it was with you" (2 Thessalonians 3:1). We ask you "by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit to join [us] in [our] struggle by praying to God for [us]" (Romans 15:30). The three of us feel gratefully dependent on your prayers for us this week. "The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective" (James 5:16). God is able to make all grace abound to us through the prayers of you, his saints.

So here are some specific ways you could be lifting us up in the next few days. And we want you to know that we appreciate it so much.

-For good fellowship with the Lord and with each other as we meet up here in the States and fly to Belgium, then Cameroon, together

-For smooth transitions at the airports: that we would make our connections

-For health, (some!) rest, and safety on the planes and vans/buses we'll be riding on

-For all our luggage to arrive at the airport in Yaounde (especially the luggage containing the textbooks we'll use)

Leaving on Thursday!

Friends,

Sorry for the long silence on the blog! I've had several of you this week ask me when there will be a new post, so here it is!

This is the big week. I think I speak for all three of us when I say I've been feeling a jittery combination of nervousness, excitement, inadequacy, fear, faith, hope, and anticipation. Isn't it great that one of the things people who go to the mission field can know for SURE is that He is with us (Matthew 28:19-20)?

So here's the schedule. We fly out from the States on Thursday of this week. Tommy and I will meet up first in Chicago (I'll be coming from Little Rock, he from Evansville). Then we'll meet Charlie in New York and all three fly together to Belgium where we'll meet Wilfred and Angelica Fon. Then it's on to Cameroon! Once we land in the capital city of Yaounde, we'll stay in a "rest house" (kind of sounds like something out of a spy movie, doesn't it?) for a night, then take an all-day bus trip to Ndu and CBTS!

Please keep us in your prayers this week especially. We'll post some specific requests in the next few hours.

What an encouragement you all are to us. We appreciate so much the partnership we share in the Gospel of Jesus who was crucified and raised from the dead for sinners!

Wesley, for the team