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Dear family and friends,
Sometimes newsletter deadlines really sneak up on us . . . and this is one of those times. I can’t believe we are into the eleventh month of 2024 already. As many of you head into the cold of winter as the year ends, we are heading into the heat of dry season, and I have to brace myself for that more than I ever did for Canadian prairie winters. Jeff, on the other hand, is enjoying the ‘warm’ weather and not having to start his early mornings with sweaters(!!!).
This quarter has seen Jeff and I doing very different things at different times. In August, Jeff did a fair amount of teaching at our local hospital. They invited him to speak at various times, including their Spiritual Emphasis Week, when he often spoke to over fifty staff and other believers who came. He had hoped to go to Nigeria at the end of August to speak at the MBCN General Conference, but our visa applications, which went a different route this time, took very long and he did not get it in time for that. In the end, we did not get what we had applied for, but we did get a twelve-month multiple entry visa, which is something we have been trying to get for a long time. Getting this once should make it easier next time! In the interlude, our friend Godwill Sol, who many of you may know and who was until recently the president of the Mambilla Baptist Convention, passed away from complications related to a kidney transplant. Jeff was able to get to Nigeria, travel to Jos and back with a good friend, visit briefly with people in our main partnering village in Nigeria, get back for the funeral, and then return to Cameroon.
I (Sonya) spent August trying to get some house/yard projects taken care of, as well as help with some school repair and upgrade projects. In the busy-ness, I took one small fall that left me with a badly sprained middle finger on my right hand. To date, this has not healed properly, and I am working with the physiotherapist here to try and correct a misaligned finger that refuses to bend fully. This has seen me lose most of my grip strength and control. Your prayers in this matter would be greatly appreciated, as it is still painful and massively inconvenient for everything from writing to opening containers to playing badminton and everything in between. I’ve been told there is a serious arthritis factor starting up with that finger as well.
I have been very much in school-teacher mode this year. The community in Nigeria asked me to help at their school. So last year I determined an area to focus that help and have been preparing reproducible materials and unit plans that encapsulate everything I have learned about these communities and the teaching challenges I have seen. I have set aside some things I have tried in the past, as some were just a bit TOO different for the teachers here to grasp, and am working to enhance the methods they are familiar with. I still have use for many of those items but am using some of them differently.
I had a chance to play with these things in early July right at the end of the school year in Nigeria. Then I put it in practice again in September with the grade one class here in Banyo, working with the teacher there. I am very pleased with what I saw in that month, and I think the teacher is, too. It’s all a bit easier here because 80 percent of the students in our class here come speaking and hearing English, whereas that is not the case in the school in Nigeria. I took a two-week trip there recently to work with class one and two (mostly), and I finally feel like we made some headway. I am not sure if I will get back before Christmas or not. The trip in and out of Nigeria always affords breathtaking views, and this time was physically much less breathtaking than the July one, but it still usually takes a day or so on either end to recover from six to eight hours on a motorcycle. I told our friends that I felt like I had been wrestling with a crocodile since every major muscle group was sore!! They thought that was a pretty funny description.
While I was there, I also had opportunities to share in two women’s meetings. The second one, in particular, went very well. It looked like it was going to be a bust, but in the end, a good number of women made it, and some things I shared really connected, and we were all really blessed.
At this time, people in Nigeria are experiencing serious financial challenges. We thought 2023 was bad, but inflation is up from 25 percent in 2023 to 34 percent this year, and interest rates are over 25 percent. In order to make travel affordable, taxi drivers now often pack EIGHT people into cars, where they used to put in seven (that are designed for five). Prices still increase daily or weekly, and stress is wreaking havoc on peoples’ lives. Near one of the villages we know, people borrowed money to increase what they could farm, hoping to feed their families and maybe turn a small profit. In one area, the rains stopped for a few weeks and many people lost their crops.
The clinic there is doing fairly well, all things considered. They are still not functioning near capacity, but things are moving the right direction. Patients that might have wanted to go further afield are coming to the local clinic because they cannot afford fuel to travel. Many are very impressed and continue to come back because of the service they receive. There are preparations being made for building of some additional staff quarters that will be a big blessing. We had been exploring getting Starlink to the community to deal with the isolation factor – they are in a dip between the towers of any major providers and have NO cell network or internet. But recent changes to the pricing structure has put it out of reach again.
The water project that supplies the clinic and part of the community is STILL regularly vandalized, and the inconvenience and cost take a toll. While I was there, the 85th vandalism occurred (yes, one of the leaders has been keeping count). They have an additional source of water – a borehole well near the school – but that’s a trek from one side of town to the other that adds to the daily workload, mostly for the women and children.
Construction on the House of Prayer has not moved forward in construction, but the very hard-to-get mahogany timbers for the roof ARE still, in fact, being harvested and prepared. I don’t think we’ll see the roof in this calendar year, but once those timbers get here, all the other materials for the roof are ‘on ground,’ as they say.
The big event on our horizon, coming up as we send this, is a visit from Randall Schmor and two members of Park Meadows Baptist Church in Lethbridge, Alberta, one of our supporting churches. Pray that this brief visit would be a blessing to the national believers and would inspire a greater vision for the people that we work with. Pray for safety as they fly and stay in unfamiliar places and as we drive many, many kilometers. There are often last-minute things that can derail and complicate village visits. We have already seen some of these at play, so pray that the work of the Holy Spirit be accomplished.
Our partners are looking ahead to some very important events as well. Our partner’s accountant hopes to come and work with Walter Grob in early December. There is a major meeting of the leaders in our Least-Reached People Group coming up in mid-December, which is just shortly before the major conferences they hold in Nigeria around Christmas.
Jeff and I been enthralled with very regular photos and the occasional video of our new grandson, Cormack James, born August 9. We go into withdrawal if we don’t see something in two days. His mother, Leah, has had some medical issues unrelated to childbirth that have had her in and out of hospital the last two months, so Robert has had his share of dad time with his new son. I’m very grateful for family on both sides that have been able to help out, especially being so far away myself. I’m hoping to try to ‘pop over’ to Canada early next year to see this little man in person, but that’s another major undertaking. If any churches want to send a couple of members for a visit in February, maybe you can time it to come at the same time I’m going back!! The inland travel here in Cameroon is a major undertaking, and we like to get the best value for the effort. (I’m serious about the visitors, but we’d need to act fast to get it in order!!)
Your prayers for all these items is greatly appreciated, as are your messages sent by email or snail mail. I recently received four very belated birthday and anniversary cards. They took two months to get here, but that is partly because they were still addressed to Bamenda. I’d like to point out that our mailing address for all post should be directly to our Banyo address, found at the bottom of the PDF version of our newsletters.