A new adventure to experience and a Mt. to conquer!

Hello. I don’t have much time right now. The group of 14 of us leave for our Mt. Cam. Trip in about 3 min. But I wanted to say hello and ask again for your prayers. Today we have a 6 hr. drive and will stay in a hotel tonight. Tomorrow, Saturday, we will start the climb and camp in a hut on the mt. that night. We will then get up at 3am and climb to the summit then descend all the way. We will stay in another hotel that night and return to Yaounde on Monday, arriving in the evening. There are 10 students and 4 staff. Pray for safety and endurance. But also for good fellowship and conversation. That lasting relationships can be built and that we will see God’s glory around us and feel his presence among us each step of the way. Thank you. I look forward to writing you with the result of our climb. God Bless!
Amy

A Faithful God

Greetings on this somewhat cool day in Cameroon. I will start with the news that I completed my 10k run last weekend and as long as I stay healthy, will be going up Mt. Cameroon next Sat. and Sun. Thank you for your prayers.

I love the way God wakes me up and reminds me of his faithfulness is small personal ways. In chapel worship yesterday I momentarily got distracted from the songs and started praying about where I will go next year and what I will do. I confessed that I want to do what is familiar but I new I couldn’t serve myself and had to follow Him. Then the next song was on how life without Jesus would be nothing and that anything but serving him with my life would be useless. In that moment I was reminded that in following Christ here I have been so blessed. Life this year is not easy, but it is so full of blessed moments with God. Silent tears fell down my face as I praised God for his faithfulness.
I hope you can experience God in little moments like that.
If you have any brilliant ideas for what I should do next in life I would be willing to hear them.
But for now I am still here teaching in Cameroon. I started to do a New Year’s evaluation of where I have come from in the last year and what I have gone through. I got overwhelmed. I changed jobs, homes, countries, cultures, languages, fellowship and gone through many personal battles with God. God has sustained me and been my strength. I can credit it to no one or nothing else. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Well this entry will be short today. Someone eat a yellow bell pepper for me please. I miss them, the red and orange ones too.
As always, I love to hear from any and all of you.

May you know God’s blessings today,
AMY

Hello again! Sorry I have not posted for the last 2 Fridays. I was off traveling with my family. We had such a great time together. They arrived 2 days after Christmas safely and with all their luggage. We stayed the first 2 nights at an apartment on a missions training center by my school. Then we flew north and traveled around there with a van and guides and stayed in 4 different places and saw many beautiful parts of this country. The landscape and way of life up in the far north is very different than here in the south and city. Here it is rainforest and there it is dry and hot and brown, but it still carries it’s own beauty. We went on a safari and saw African animals in their real habitat. It was lots of fun. Then after a brief stop back in Yaoundé, we headed west to the beach. There we stayed in a nice hotel and spent our days swimming, reading and relaxing. We also had a very interesting bush taxi experience on the way back. A bush taxi is a big bus or van that you buy a ticket for, but they sell way more tickets than actual seats, and every ticket owned gets on. On our 30 person small bus we counted about 40 people plus the back row full of luggage! This is the Cameroonian way of doing things. It was crazy, but we made it. Praise God that he kept us safe the whole time with no major illnesses or injuries. A few colds and stomach problems, but we all pushed through. It was a short time with a lot of traveling, but it was such a blessing. I am so glad they could come and see where I work and live and meet some of my friends, both missionaries and Cameroonians. I will send out my next newsletter with more stories and pictures at the end of January.
Now it is back to school. This semester seems so much less intimidating to me! I now know people, the culture, some of the language, my students, how to teach, what to teach and other things that I didn’t know starting off last semester. I need to remember to still seek God’s strength in all I do and not my own. It is a lot easier to depend on him when I can’t depend on myself. But when I gain self confidence it is easier to try to do things in my own strength. I do still feel stretched and challenged in what I am doing. I am not a pro at living here or teaching yet. You can still pray for wisdom and discipline to learn and be organized as I teach.
Today I have a big challenge in front of me. I wrote a while back about the running club I am in. We run together twice a week to train for climbing the tallest mountain in western Africa, Mt. Cameroon. While the climb is on the 25th and 26th of January, so it is coming up. As a test of endurance we are supposed to successfully complete at 10k run round our dirt driveway/circle/track here on campus. They have a whole event to cheer us (10 students, 4 adults) on. They play music, make a slip-n-slide and provide food for those who come to watch and cheer us on. This event is tonight at 5:30, which is 11:30 east coast time. I have to run 23 laps around, which makes 10k. I am a little nervous and anxious. So if you read this in time you can pray for safety and endurance for me and the other runners. With God I can do all things! Right?

Well, I hope this finds you all well and refreshed and blessed after your Christmas and New Years. Seek God and be blessed!
Peace,
AMY