Category: Encouragements and Exhortations

Who would have ever thought that our whole lives would be upended by an invisible-spiky-egg-looking-thingy?! This has been quite a month! And I think you would be absolutely shocked at what things look like here in the village. Why? Well, mostly because they look pretty much the same as they did before the pandemic. People are not social distancing, I have not seen much of a change in hygiene, and no one is staying at home. For those of you in Western cultures, or at least in cities, this might be shocking. It might seem irresponsible and inconsiderate, even foolish….

Many people have been asking if and how the Coronavirus is affecting life and ministry among the Kwakum people. Until very recently, I would have said that there has not been much of a change here at all. However, a few days ago, the Cameroonian government closed all land and air borders as well as schools. Since then, there has been some changes. The first change is that people are starting to speculate as to why everything has closed. Unfortunately, due to illiteracy as well as unreliable news sources, people are left with hear-say. People are therefore wondering if there…

Yesterday, we, along with about 50 people, sang praise songs to Jesus and danced in the streets for hours. Why? Like my son Kaden said, it was because we were joining in with the angels in Heaven who were rejoicing over sinners who had repented of their sins. We walked through villages as people came out of their homes to see what all the singing was about until we reached the river where three Kwakum people were baptized (two out of the three are our close friends). Let me tell you how the Lord has dramatically changed the lives of…

The last few weeks have been hard. It has not been one hard thing, or even something major, just a steady beating of difficulty. In this short period of time our washing machine broke, our remaining solar batteries (the others were stolen) quit charging, I messed up our generator, and our water pump mysteriously stopped pumping altogether (meaning no hot water). We have made a lot of good progress in Bible storying and literacy, but the success has also been marred by critique. It seems there is always someone ready to let me know what they don’t like. We have…

In his daily devotional entitled For the Love of God, Volume 2, DA Carson notes three privileges/responsibilities which ought to characterize the ministry of all those who “teach the Word of God to the people of God.” All three of these responsibilities are reflected in the ministry of Ezra who “had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel” (Ezra 7:10). Carson says that all three aspects of Ezra’s ministry are necessary for anyone who teaches God’s Word, but I would say that this is especially…

I have talked to many young women about coming to Cameroon for a year on a short-term trip and, without fail, one of the first questions they have for me is about the state of the local church among the Kwakum. They are curious about what kind of spiritual resources and accountability will be available to them if they were to come. In our circles, there is, rightly, a huge emphasis on the role of the local church in the life of the believer. There are no “lone ranger” Christians – we are part of a body. We are “living…

You may remember from the Voyage of the Dawn Treader by CS Lewis, “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” Eustace mocks the Pevensies for their belief in Narnia, boasts of his many great achievements, and is truly insufferable. It is with great dread that Lucy and Edmond come to spend a summer with him, and he does not disappoint their low expectations. Even in the wonderful kingdom of Narnia, Eustace spends most of his time complaining about and denigrating his magical surroundings. Many of us have a Eustace in our lives (or more…

Speaking from the perspective of one demon to another, Randy Alcorn writes in The Ishbane Conspiracy: “Unfortunately, the Enemy is a subversive opportunist. We must continuously feed them secondary causes. Otherwise, they could see through the smoke and mirrors and turn to His primary cause.”  The other day someone came to my house and told me about a neighbor who had given birth but soon after the baby stopped breathing. The woman telling me this was visibly upset and I too was in shock, having seen the pregnant woman walk by my house for the past few months. In the…

An athletic neighbor once bragged to me that he jogged to a nearby village and back each day. I (a linguist) joked that I only ran when the police were chasing me. He looked at me completely seriously and responded, “Yes, I have seen that you Americans run from the police on TV. Here we just give the police 1,000 francs (about $2) and there is no problem.” It was funny for sure, but also really sad…because it was true. Throughout our entire time here we have heard various stories of injustice. For instance, one of our neighbors was beaten…

A Recap on the Oral Bible Storying Workshop This last Wednesday we spent nearly 8 hours in an Oral Bible Storying (OBS) workshop with about 20 Kwakum men and women. Together we wrestled to understand the context and meaning of the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18. The goal of this meeting was to begin to give our friends an idea of what OBS is going to look like in the future. Particularly we wanted them to understand that it was going to be a lot of work. A goal that was achieved as…