Posted in Africa Bible Translation The Hare Home

Can We Come to VBS?

by DaveWe had a request from one of our churches (Grace Church Frisco) to have four short videos for VBS this summer. They are extremely simple and mostly just introduce our kids and our ministry. If you are doing VBS this summer, please feel free to use these videos as a way of introducing missions into your material. *Disclaimer* I did not have a ton of time to work on these, so they are extremely simple. Hopefully they can still be helpful. Video #1: Introduction to the Family Video #2: The Need for Bible Translation Video #3: The First Steps…

Continue Reading...
Posted in Adoption Africa Culture Shock Encouragements and Exhortations The Hare Home

When People Say Stupid Things: An Alternative Response

by Dave Do you ever get asked stupid questions? Try this one on for size: on a market trip the other day the meat vendor saw Stacey, Elias and myself and asked, “Hey, where is your black woman?” Polygamy is not rare here and he assumed I had another wife, or at least another woman on the side. This type of question is the norm as we walk around here, not the exception. Adoption outside of the extended family is rare in Cameroon, multiple women/wives is common, and seeing us with black kids leads them to certain cultural assumptions. But…

Continue Reading...
Posted in The Hare Home

“He is just a bad kid”

By Stacey I had a church history professor in seminary who said that Pelagius did not believe in original sin because he never had kids. Had he been a father, he would never in a million years say that people were born basically good. I could not agree more. That’s Just the Way it is… I think the new air that we are breathing here in Cameroon may have a slight twinge of fatalism in it (although that depends on the people group). For example: “Can you come pick up so-and-so and take them to their village to die?” (um,…

Continue Reading...
Posted in Africa Christian Missions The Hare Home

Family Update: Light and Not-So-Light Things

by Stacey      In celebrating Thanksgiving this week, I sat down and asked myself what I was thankful for here in Cameroon. Although there are many things to praise God for, I think one thing that I most appreciate about my life is that everything is new and very different. We thought we would share a couple such experiences…     On the lighter side of things…Snakes. When you think of Africa, you think of snakes right? Well, if not, you should. We are currently living in the middle of a rain forest and have seen a green mamba,…

Continue Reading...
Posted in Africa The Hare Home

Canine Redemption

As many of you know we are currently living out in the forest with a team of missionaries among the Baka people. In recent days, the Baka laugh at me pretty much every time I go out of my front door. Why would they laugh at you? You ask. They laugh at me because about a week ago I bought a sick, skinny and injured dog named Police. Why would you buy a sick dog? Well, that is what the Baka are asking and why they laugh at me. But let me tell you the story. I was in our…

Continue Reading...
Posted in Culture Shock Current Events The Hare Home

House Construction and the Kids in School

By Stacey This past week has been both exhausting and exciting. About a week and a half ago, Dave and I realized that the construction of our house was moving way too slowly and that we needed to be on site to supervise the progress. Thus we moved into the bush to a little camp that is about 15 minutes away from our soon-to-be house. Although we miss living with our Cameroonian roommates, we think this has been a good move. For starters, we are living in a more isolated location and thus do not have people around our house…

Continue Reading...
Posted in Africa Culture Shock The Hare Home

Daily Challanges and Joys

by Stacey   I met an American Peace Corps worker today who had also just arrived in country. When I asked her how she was adjusting she said that she goes through one emotional extreme of feeling like she is seeing progress in adapting to life here to the other emotional extreme of feeling like she is completely lost all the time. And, since the days feel so long, usually she goes from one emotional extreme to the other several times in a day. We both nodded our heads as we listened to her as we could very much relate….

Continue Reading...
Posted in Africa Culture Shock The Hare Home

Where We Have Been and Where We are Headed

by Stacey What We Have Been Up To Living in an Airport It has been a little over a month since we arrived in country and I think it would be safe to compare this last month to living in an airport terminal: we have been carrying our luggage around everywhere we go, checking often to make sure we have our passports for when we get stopped by the authorities, while all the while counting our children to make sure we did not lose any of them. We are in closer proximity to other people than we are used to….

Continue Reading...
Posted in Common Objections The Hare Home

Am I a Horrible Parent for Moving my Kids (back) to Africa?

If anyone has ever asked us about what our family life will look like in Cameroon, you probably heard “Oh we have no idea.” Or if you asked how exactly we would manage to homeschool the kids and do a linguistic analysis of a language, we likely said “Oh we’ll cross that bridge when it comes.” Not worrying (or thinking) about tomorrow has more-or-less been our modus operandi these past few years as we’ve sought to conquer one stage of life at a time. But the “tomorrow” of Cameroon is less then a month away and thus I am forced…

Continue Reading...
Posted in The Hare Home

Hare Family Update (With Prayer Requests)

by Dave With a little over a month remaining in France I thought I would do a short update on the family. Kaden Kaden has had a great year. He enjoys school so much that he has actually cried about having to stay home for vacation. This is particularly amazing being that when we lived in Chambéry he cried everyday when we got to school and said he wanted to go home. In a recent parent-teacher conference his teacher said that he speaks French fluently. He also had to get glasses which actually seem to fit his personality well as…

Continue Reading...