Dear Family and Friends,
It seems like only a short while ago that Sonya and I were down in Roseville, CA, at our NAB International Office being interviewed for our mission position in Cameroon. In fact it was back in the middle of May. That was a special time for Sonya and me, as we were able to meet all of the support staff there, pray with them, and experience their wonderful hospitality.
The next Sunday we made the official announcement in our home church, Wiesenthal Baptist (near Millet, Alberta) beginning a journey that is still in its very first small steps. Our church responded in different ways to the announcement, though we heard many times people tell us they were not too surprised, since they have always known we had a passion for the work we have been doing in Western Africa.
When we reach West Africa we will be living on the Seminary compound in Ndu, Cameroon. That is right across the border from where we used to live, in Gembu, Nigeria. I will not say too much about what we’ll be doing there now (otherwise this letter would be far too long), but will leave that for our next quarterly report. Suffice to say at this point that we will be primarily engaged in teaching (at two seminaries, a Teacher Training College, and various villages), and evangelism (again, at various villages).
While we are preparing to leave the church to go to Cameroon, the last of our four children are also preparing to leave home. Our two older boys, Robert (24) and John (23), have been out of the house for a while now. Robert is living and working in Saskatoon, SK, while John lives in a house we bought in Winnipeg (affectionately known as the Griz Den) while we still lived in Manitoba.
Now their youngest brother, Daniel (18), has gone to Manitoba after finishing his schooling in Leduc. Dan drove out to Manitoba with Sonya a few weeks ago to go and work as a Cabin Leader at Lake Nutimik Baptist Camp. At the end of the summer he will move in with his brother John and begin his post-secondary schooling in Winnipeg. Meanwhile our daughter Cari (20) is also preparing to move away from home at the end of this month. She works at the Edmonton Airport and will be relocating to Leduc to be a little closer to work.
So, by the second week of August, Sonya and I will officially be ‘empty-nesters.’ We are a little undecided about all of this. On the one hand, it is a tough thing to see your all-too-young children leave the home and to be without them. They are a lot of fun to have around, and we will seriously miss all of them. On the other hand, by the time we reach Cameroon, they will have had plenty of time to acclimatize themselves to living more or less on their own, and we’ll know by then that they can take care of themselves pretty well.
Meanwhile, we have slowly begun the process of raising support for our work in West Africa. Sonya drove with Daniel to Manitoba, and in between working on our fixer-upper house there and some time at Camp Nutimik, she was able to connect with several of our NAB churches there. Since we lived in Manitoba for 12 years, we know some of those churches pretty well, having visited them for one event or another and the response was very positive.
The support we are looking for is manifold, of course. We hope and pray that by the time we are ready to leave for Cameroon that we will have many individuals and churches praying for us, giving financially, engaged in the ministry we’ll be involved with, and ready to truly partner with us while we are on the field. I have been telling pastors I talk to that our hope is that once we have been on the field for a year or so, that we might begin hosting individuals from our supporting churches to come and experience West Africa and the ministry for themselves…meet the people, eat the food, live in the villages, travel the roads, preach in the squares, worship in the churches, pray in the compounds – and be able to bring all of these things back to their home churches!
While we have begun the process of raising our support for the mission work, we are still very much involved in the work of our community and church, where I am the senior pastor. My Job #1 right now is to finish well here at Wiesenthal. Just a short while ago we had a whole week of Vacation Bible School, which many of you can relate to. Also here at WBC, our Canada Day Picnic and Farmer’s/Father’s Day BBQ and Baseball are big events. This past weekend the City of Leduc hosted our province’s Summer Games and Sonya, along with others from the church, volunteered to help to host that very cool event.
Our church will be participating in a community worship service in Millet in August, and I am a part of the ministerial that will host that event (as part of the town’s Harvest Fair). As well, I belong to our Association’s GO Team, which is all about Global Outreach. We hope to participate in several events around Alberta, and my team members have graciously asked me to speak at some of those events in order to highlight our upcoming mission.