Thanksgiving at Christmas
A quick update on our Christmas plans. Many of you have been asking us by email what we’re doing, so here’s the answer. Tomorrow, Christmas Eve, we’ll go to church as usual (Charlie’s preaching at a small French-speaking house-church at the nearby tea estate) and then have lunch with the new vice president of CBTS, Joshua Webnda and his family, and then spend the evening together at our house. Our cook, Pa Zachieus, has invited us to come to his house for lunch on Christmas Day and eat Cameroonian food with him and his wife and children. (Charlie and I will wear our new “saros,” a traditional formal kind of gown that men wear on special occasions---pictures to follow!) We’ll end the day with the Yongs, eating leftovers, hanging out, and maybe watching a Christmas movie or two.
Charlie, Tommy, and I had the idea that maybe we could close the year on the blog by each writing “top ten” lists of things we’ve experienced so far here in Cameroon that we’re especially thankful for. So, without further ado, here’s my list, in no particular order:
1. My prayer partner Ngankeng Divine. It is great to have an opportunity to “go deeper” with one of my students, sharing and hearing prayer requests with him every week and in the process developing a good friendship.
2. Pa and his cooking. Conscientious and cynical, protective and fatherly, talented and occasionally humorous in a wry and dry sort of way, Pa looks after us in more ways than one. His hamburgers and French toast and banana bread and chocolate chip cookies and pizzas sometimes make me forget that I’m in a West Africa, not an American, kitchen.
3. Visits to Cameroonian houses. Some of the most memorable and influential experiences I’ve had here are when I’ve had the chance to spend time with Cameroonians in their own natural environments. I especially remember visiting our friend Emmanuel’s sister’s house and holding her newborn baby in her tiny, cramped living room, and, just this week, visiting the village of CBTS student Shifu Elvis and hearing his father tell us about the struggles of trying to eke out a living and give his children educational opportunities in the midst of poverty.
4. Koni Francis and Ndu coffee. When we first got here, I didn’t know whether I could keep up my coffee addiction. I’m glad to report that that hasn’t been a problem. Between Starbucks beans that have arrived here in packages from home and our Cameroonian friend Koni Francis who brings us burned beans roasted at his brother’s house, I’m well taken care of. The Ndu stuff isn’t bad at all. The sludge at the bottom of my cups of French-press coffee has become my friend.
5. The chance to see the gospel lived out creatively in a very different cultural context. I’ll mention just one example: the way I’ve seen Cameroonian Christians wrestling seriously with the gospel’s demand for peaceable living. One of my students wrote recently: “When the Moslems attacked the Ndu Fon Palace [just a couple of months ago], I was so disturbed that the government did not send forces of law and order to arrest them and torture them. I even contemplated that the Ndu people should have gone down to attack them. After reading Raymond [Lull]’s story [in history of missions class], I see that this will only harden their hearts and make it difficult for them to accept Jesus Christ in the future…. In mission, one will need to show love even to the point of death as Christ did.” Or, similarly, when Tommy’s and my computers were stolen, one of our (Christian) friends said, “The only way to deal with thieves like this is to hunt them down and whip out a knife and teach them a lesson.” But most people we have gotten to know here at CBTS told us they were praying, in love, for the boy’s repentance and salvation.
6. The Yong family. Philemon and Linda have been very generous and helpful to me (and Tommy and Charlie), in dozens of ways: showing me how to get more malaria prevention medication at the nearby health center, inviting me up to their house for (chewy!) brownies, talking with me about making class syllabi and grading papers and dealing with sticky issues of students plagiarizing, etc., and, not least, lending us their “LOST” DVDs!
7. Emails, letters, and packages from home. There are few things more encouraging than this. Getting your weekly email updates, Liz, or over 100 of your incredible photographs, Joel, in the package you sent, that are now gracing the walls of my bedroom---these kinds of things remind me that there are friends and family back home who are “holding the ropes” for me.
8. Students’ questions in class. Sometimes they seem pointless, as in my Acts class: “Sir, I wish to know what it meant in that time in history for Peter to ‘look intently’ at the lame man he was about to heal?” But most of the time they’re thoughtful and born out of serious concerns and prove to be hermeneutically illuminating for me, their teacher. They may be what encourages me most in the classroom.
9. Charlie and Tommy. It’s been almost three years now since I first met these guys in Minneapolis, and I’m more grateful for their friendship now than I’ve ever been. It’s a sign of grace, I think, that instead of wanting to kill each other, as we literally spend almost every waking moment together, most days we like each other a lot and support each other well in the continual effort to figure out how best to serve and love our students and other Cameroonians we come into contact with.
10. Sunday night spaghetti dinners. The one day of the week Pa doesn’t cook for us is Sunday, which has caused us to develop a little tradition of sorts. About 5 pm every Sunday, our friend Ally will come over, and we’ll slice tomatoes, onions, and cloves of garlic together, sautee and stew ‘em, add some tinny-tasting tomato paste, paprika and basil, a dash of salt and sugar, and, voila, it somehow usually turns out pretty well. We’re working on perfecting it…
Thanks, Cameroon and CBTS, for a great experience so far. Thank you, Lord, for being with and in and through and under and over our time here. Thank you, family and friends, for supporting us and keeping us in your thoughts and prayers.
Merry Christmas,
Wes
Charlie, Tommy, and I had the idea that maybe we could close the year on the blog by each writing “top ten” lists of things we’ve experienced so far here in Cameroon that we’re especially thankful for. So, without further ado, here’s my list, in no particular order:
1. My prayer partner Ngankeng Divine. It is great to have an opportunity to “go deeper” with one of my students, sharing and hearing prayer requests with him every week and in the process developing a good friendship.
2. Pa and his cooking. Conscientious and cynical, protective and fatherly, talented and occasionally humorous in a wry and dry sort of way, Pa looks after us in more ways than one. His hamburgers and French toast and banana bread and chocolate chip cookies and pizzas sometimes make me forget that I’m in a West Africa, not an American, kitchen.
3. Visits to Cameroonian houses. Some of the most memorable and influential experiences I’ve had here are when I’ve had the chance to spend time with Cameroonians in their own natural environments. I especially remember visiting our friend Emmanuel’s sister’s house and holding her newborn baby in her tiny, cramped living room, and, just this week, visiting the village of CBTS student Shifu Elvis and hearing his father tell us about the struggles of trying to eke out a living and give his children educational opportunities in the midst of poverty.
4. Koni Francis and Ndu coffee. When we first got here, I didn’t know whether I could keep up my coffee addiction. I’m glad to report that that hasn’t been a problem. Between Starbucks beans that have arrived here in packages from home and our Cameroonian friend Koni Francis who brings us burned beans roasted at his brother’s house, I’m well taken care of. The Ndu stuff isn’t bad at all. The sludge at the bottom of my cups of French-press coffee has become my friend.
5. The chance to see the gospel lived out creatively in a very different cultural context. I’ll mention just one example: the way I’ve seen Cameroonian Christians wrestling seriously with the gospel’s demand for peaceable living. One of my students wrote recently: “When the Moslems attacked the Ndu Fon Palace [just a couple of months ago], I was so disturbed that the government did not send forces of law and order to arrest them and torture them. I even contemplated that the Ndu people should have gone down to attack them. After reading Raymond [Lull]’s story [in history of missions class], I see that this will only harden their hearts and make it difficult for them to accept Jesus Christ in the future…. In mission, one will need to show love even to the point of death as Christ did.” Or, similarly, when Tommy’s and my computers were stolen, one of our (Christian) friends said, “The only way to deal with thieves like this is to hunt them down and whip out a knife and teach them a lesson.” But most people we have gotten to know here at CBTS told us they were praying, in love, for the boy’s repentance and salvation.
6. The Yong family. Philemon and Linda have been very generous and helpful to me (and Tommy and Charlie), in dozens of ways: showing me how to get more malaria prevention medication at the nearby health center, inviting me up to their house for (chewy!) brownies, talking with me about making class syllabi and grading papers and dealing with sticky issues of students plagiarizing, etc., and, not least, lending us their “LOST” DVDs!
7. Emails, letters, and packages from home. There are few things more encouraging than this. Getting your weekly email updates, Liz, or over 100 of your incredible photographs, Joel, in the package you sent, that are now gracing the walls of my bedroom---these kinds of things remind me that there are friends and family back home who are “holding the ropes” for me.
8. Students’ questions in class. Sometimes they seem pointless, as in my Acts class: “Sir, I wish to know what it meant in that time in history for Peter to ‘look intently’ at the lame man he was about to heal?” But most of the time they’re thoughtful and born out of serious concerns and prove to be hermeneutically illuminating for me, their teacher. They may be what encourages me most in the classroom.
9. Charlie and Tommy. It’s been almost three years now since I first met these guys in Minneapolis, and I’m more grateful for their friendship now than I’ve ever been. It’s a sign of grace, I think, that instead of wanting to kill each other, as we literally spend almost every waking moment together, most days we like each other a lot and support each other well in the continual effort to figure out how best to serve and love our students and other Cameroonians we come into contact with.
10. Sunday night spaghetti dinners. The one day of the week Pa doesn’t cook for us is Sunday, which has caused us to develop a little tradition of sorts. About 5 pm every Sunday, our friend Ally will come over, and we’ll slice tomatoes, onions, and cloves of garlic together, sautee and stew ‘em, add some tinny-tasting tomato paste, paprika and basil, a dash of salt and sugar, and, voila, it somehow usually turns out pretty well. We’re working on perfecting it…
Thanks, Cameroon and CBTS, for a great experience so far. Thank you, Lord, for being with and in and through and under and over our time here. Thank you, family and friends, for supporting us and keeping us in your thoughts and prayers.
Merry Christmas,
Wes
posted by Charlie, Tommy, and Wesley | 12:09 PM
1 Comments:
Merry Christmas Charlie, Tommy, and Wes!!!
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