Travels and ceremonies

Last night CBTS held the 60th annual Senior Dinner for students graduating from the Certificate, Diploma, Bachelors degree, and Master of Arts programs. True to form, the program lasted over four hours, and that includes a lengthy delay when the decorations hanging from the ceiling fell down on the head table where the president and other school administrators were sitting while two fluorescent lights were changed by the station headman (with a little help from Charlie's dad) standing on a wobbly chair. Sometimes you just have to sigh, shrug your shoulders, and laugh. Despite the length of the program (6 pm to a little after 10), it was a special occasion. At a couple of points in the evening I felt my throat getting tight and my eyes getting teary with gratitude and sadness. I'm so grateful for my students -- for the lives that have intersected with mine, with the impact going both directions -- and I'm sad to be leaving them in less than a month.

The official CBTS graduation ceremony will be on June 1, in a large Baptist church here in Ndu. If the Senior Dinner last night was any indication of what is to come, the commencement ceremony will be uncomfortably long, filled with rhythmic music, dancing, speeches, acknowledgments, endless thanks and honors bestowed -- and, yes, emotion and flashes of delight and thankfulness to God for what has happened at the flawed yet powerfully effective institution of CBTS.

Before graduation, Charlie, Tommy, and I -- together with Earl and Denny, Charlie's parents, and our faithful friend Ally -- will travel to Bertoua, a smallish village in the East of Cameroon where some missionary friends of ours work with the Baka (spelling?) pygmy people. On Wednesday, we'll head down to Yaounde, spend the night, then travel on to Bertoua and spend a couple of days with our adventurous, fun-loving friends the Conrods, and then head back north to Ndu. It will be a whirlwind trip but also a nice break for us, since by that time we will have administered our last final exams and officially concluded our second semester of teaching here at CBTS. SO hard to believe, let me tell you!



Here are a couple of pictures. One of them is of Charlie, his folks, and Emmanuel ("Emma"), our tailor friend in town. If it looks like he's beaming in the picture, that's because he's just gotten a lot of business from the Shepherds!



The second picture is of Charlie and me dressed in our most formal Cameroonian attire -- "saros" -- for the Senior Dinner.



And the third picture was taken on the first night that Charlie's parents arrived. We went out to dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant in Douala immediately after picking up Earl and Denny at the airport. Here we are with another missionary friend, Elsie Lewandowski.

God's peace to all of you, and thanks for reading, always,

Wes