2008 MK team

2008 Missionary Kids Team

Fresh into our new home in Bamenda with little to no furnishings we walked through the new door that the Lord had opened for us. This first team was made up of teenagers (mostly from the missionary community) who attended a boarding school in the capital city of Yaoundé (about 6 hours away). The teenagers spent several weeks practicing dramas, music and puppets with 2 leaders (who were teachers at the school). For the most part, these were more seasoned MK's (missionary kids) who had experienced life in the village. Once they reached our home we started in on our projects. One of the first places was a boarding school for orphans--at least one parent had died (most went home during the holidays, but some were permanent boarders). Here we painted the main outside walls, made and hung several blackboards and did puppets for the children. It is amazing what a coat of paint can do for a place! Our second project was at a nearby school for handicapped children. Here we put up gutters, cleaned the area, dug out trenches for water runoff and repaired the path from the main road to the school (made it more wheelchair friendly).

We also had a great chance to interact with the children...do songs with them, puppets, drama, handed out handmade stuffed animals from America. What a special group of children! After several days there we went on to our village part of the projects. First stop Bambalong where we partnered with translators out there through EV programs. We drew crowds through puppets, drama, music and games...the translators were then able to share some of the Bible stories that had already been translated with the villagers. What a blessing for them to hear the Word of God in their own language! We were also blessed to help an elderly woman with her crops (we cleared and weeded it for her). Next village was a Muslim village where we helped with a water project (clearing out the stream area and trough where the cattle were watered).

The team put up a fence around another compound. We also repaired a widow’s roof, cleared another widow’s garden and planted for her and repaired the fence around that garden (there is a tradition that a widow spends 3 months in mourning and is not allowed to do any work during those 3 months). If we had not done the work she would have been without crops for a season. Here the team members were blessed to have horses for some recreation. We also were able to partake of the evening fellowship time which took place in a special hut. This is usually reserved for the men but in our case the female members of the team were invited. Here we sat around the fire and shared the day’s events (the head-elder of the village watched over this time). What really blessed us, was while we were not allowed to witness and do open evangelism, we were free to share our day. As Christians we walk with the Lord and what we shared in the evening was our personal relationship with a living God who cares about us and leads guides and strengthens us throughout our day. Out of the village and back in Bamenda where we finished up with a football (soccer) camp and VBS for neighborhood children. WOW! It was a busy, but rewarding 17 days! Many hearts were won for the Lord and special projects were done that blessed, in some cases, whole villages.