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Dear Family and Friends,
“That ridge, that’s the summit.” A few minutes later, “No, that ridge, that’s the summit.” 30 minutes later, “that ridge. It must be the summit. But no, the final push to the summit seemed endless. It was a series of rising and falling hopes, with discouragement in every additional ridge that revealed itself above the blanket of harmattan. However, all the kids persevered and reached the 3,435 foot summit.
The running club of Rain Forest International School (RFIS) made the accent to the summit of Mt Cameroon last week. In a last minute development, we were called on to drive half the group to the foot of the mountain in Buea, SW Region. The students worked so hard; training since August with the goal to successfully summit Mt Cameroon. We were so excited they all made it and enjoyed hearing the stories of their 2 day trek.
Since we last wrote we have had basketball and soccer tournaments, Christmas parties, and continued to guide our kids in school work and devotional times. We also gathered in Bamenda with NAB and other partner missionaries for 4 days of sessions, fun and fellowship. We were thrilled to host a team from RockPointe church in Calgary, AB. They provided a super children’s program so all the parents could attend the adult speaker sessions. The team experienced their own series of rising and falling hopes as they battled with booking errors, cancelled flights, altered routing, destroyed luggage and even had to leave one team member behind on one leg of the journey! We were so thankful that despite arriving later than planned they were still a blessing to the missionary family here. They also went on to have a huge impact in a number of schools including the School for the Deaf out at Mbingo. Their gift of sign language dictionaries has opened a whole new world for the Class 6 students there.
We are now in dry season and the daily highs are in the 30’s C or 90’s F. At night, it is still in the 80’s so we don’t worry about getting cold around here! The harmattan is thick now so our visability is limited. Where we would look out and see hills and buildings and trees we now just see gray. Harmattan looks a lot like fog. It is wind that blows in dust from the Sahara desert. We are experiencing a lot of dust on everything! The plants and trees along the roadsides are covered in red-orange colored dust. When we walk, small puffs of dust accompany our every step. We can even write in the dust on items in the house that we washed off just the day before. It can be challenging or amusing to keep things clean – it’s all a matter of perspective. Perspective is really important. It determines how we respond to the hostel kids in our care. It affects how we view another traffic jam on our weekly shopping trip in the city. It affects how we deal with being out of a bunch of ingredients for tonight’s supper and knowing the weekly shopping trip isn’t until tomorrow. (Hungry teens are not into fasting!) Today Maureen wrote a reminder on the hostel white board, “Your day will go how the corners of your mouth turn.” We pray that you will seek God in the morning as your day begins so you will see things clearly from God’s perspective and be a blessing to those around you. Thank you again for your continued prayers and support!
Craig & Maureen Moody
Psalm 5: 3
“In the morning, O Lord, you
hear my voice; in the morning I
lay my requests before you and
wait in expectation.”