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…

The curtains are hung, the furniture is in place, the books are in their shelves. It is time to get this ministry party started. This literacy and translation center (“Kwakum House”) is designed to be a hub of Christian and literacy efforts among the Kwakum people. Our dreams for this place is that the Lord would fill it up with education and spiritual truths to bring change among the Kwakum and to bring about worship of Christ. In September, we plan to kick off women’s Bible studies going through Firm Foundations (an evangelistic curriculum that goes from Creation to Christ),…

When I Kissed Dating Goodbye came out, I was fifteen and the book greatly influenced the circles that ran in. I even went to an event related to the book when I was in highschool. If you are not familiar, Harris presented “courting” as a methodology of seeking romantic relationships rather than “dating”. The overall idea was pretty good: dating in the mainstream sense is self-focused and often temporary, but courting allows parents and others to give input while focusing more on the long-term. However, it ended up for many people to be a set of legalistic rules that, in…

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…

Wednesday of this week will kick off an exciting new chapter in our ministry to the Kwakum people. Two of our friends and colleagues with Wycliffe/SIL will be joining us in our village to help launch an Oral Bible Storying project. We plan to have about 30 Kwakum people assembled to learn how to translate and transmit Bible stories orally. The two stories chosen to demonstrate the process are Elijah and the Prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18) and the story of the Pharisee and tax collector (Luke 18:10-14). Our rationale in launching translating and transmitting some Bible stories orally…

My dad recently published a book called When Church Conflict Happens. I have been planning on writing a detailed review, and since Sunday was Father’s Day, I figured it was fitting to do it now. Whereas many of us would like to pretend like church conflict does not happen (at least not in our church), this book demonstrates how to identify different types of conflict, get to the root of it, and deal with it in a biblical and godly way. Keep in mind, the author is my dad, so this is probably not a completely unbiased review, but I…

The other day I was talking to a Cameroonian friend in my living room who told me that she had saved up enough money to go down to a local medical clinic. After a battery of tests, it was concluded that she had malaria and typhoid. She went to the clinic pharmacy, and, in reading the price tags of the prescribed medication, was relieved to find that she had enough money. She started to pay for the medication when the clerk behind the counter increased the cost for no apparent reason. Now unable to pay for the needed medicine, my…

We are currently getting some beach time here in Cameroon (one of the perks of living in the tropics). At the same time we have begun studying the book of Ecclesiastes as a family. These two facts have resulted in many great discussions with our kids. Just the other day we were out building a sandcastle together on the beach. Moats were dug, walls were mounted, and challenges were hurled at the sea. However, it did not take long for the ocean to riposte with a foamy wave of wrath. As our walls tumbled, Makyra, our oldest daughter, cried out:…