Click here to view this newsletter as a PDF.
Dear Friends and family,
Greetings from VERY hot, dry, and dusty Banyo. I must admit, this is probably my least-favorite time of year in terms of weather – this prairie girl wilts in extreme heat and misses winter, and I am almost envious of all the crazy winter weather stories I’m hearing from North America. (Almost!) I’m grateful I don’t live further north in Cameroon, where it’s even hotter.
Jeff, on the other hand, loves the heat, although he’s in Nigeria right now, up on the plateau where it IS a bit cooler.
So, clearly God answered one prayer request we shared last newsletter . . . we DID get our Nigerian visas for another year. Jeff’s asked for prayers on this trip – there have been a lot of moving parts and details that are still coming together.
He spent a week at one seminary on the plateau and is going to our favorite village (his home away from home, he calls it). The other teaching session he was hoping for has been postponed for a few weeks, so he’ll likely be traveling for the whole month of February. He could have come back for a few weeks, but I suspect the prospect of that long motorcycle trip an additional two times in quick succession is a factor in his decision to stay. I might try and escape there as well later this month.
As mentioned last newsletter, we’re trying to connect with supporters more frequently and in a variety of ways, so we did both get on Instagram last year. If you want to stay a bit more connected to with reels from Jeff, find him on Instagram @jeffreyjames4966, although he is somewhat off grid in his current location.
My life since coming back in December has been based pretty close to home. I got back into the local school after my return. Since the headmistress is also the Class 1teacher, and December and January are kind of hectic. I’ve been in there almost every morning. I’m still helping the Class 2 teacher a bit and also trying to get some badminton teaching in at the grass roots level – Grade 3–6 PE classes. And last year, I started teaching kids church to the few kids in our small congregation, so I picked that up again in time for teaching parts of the Christmas story.
Christmas was a smaller affair this year, but we still had a crowd of over 20 for potluck lunch after our worship service.
Early in the new year, Jeff went out to visit a handful of villages here in Cameroon. He and S, our ministry partner here, had opportunities to teach on different topics that each communities had questions about, so the level of engagement was very high. We’re reminded how much baggage comes with people when they come to Christ and how much teaching is needed. Change and growth come gradually in new individuals and cultures that encounter Jesus.
I stayed in Banyo that trip to keep some work around the compound on track. Even though we were only out of Cameroon a couple of months, some things got put off before that, so it’s been one maintenance project after another. We’d been planning for a year to replace the bamboo and grass roof on one of our outbuildings, and this was preceded by removing the branches and cutting down two trees inside the walled compound that are disturbing the sidewalks and foundations. It was a bit of tricky physics to fell them without destroying any walls or roofs. Jeff managed to oversee the end of that project before he left for Nigeria, as well as negotiate the skilled labor for the roof work, but I have been living through the chaos as the work progresses in his absence.
An earlier task, a major one as we went into the depth of dry season, was an additional repair of our faithful water tank. It’s still not perfect, but this week I was super glad it was functioning.
We had a grass fire run right up to our small firebreak boundary, and having that water made all the difference. The fire also damaged the waterline from the catchment on the mountain to the hospital, so at the end of the day, there was no water in the neighborhood until hospital maintenance climbed up to the mountain to fix it all.
You can find pictures about these projects and other life around here in my Instagram (@sonyakilmartin). My focus is more about day-to-day life around the house here in Cameroon. You have to request to follow me, as my account is private, although I cross-post some posts to Facebook as well.
I want to mention how grateful we are for those mission advocates, regional ministers, pastors, and other church staff who worked with us to make our short home assignment enjoyable and effective. We experienced a bit more winter by December 1 than Jeff hoped for, but we also experienced great connections with new and existing supporting churches. And while we are still not at 100% support, we had a good bump upward. If you, or your church, would consider supporting us – or increasing your support for us by a few percentage points – it would go a long way to getting us closer to full support again.
AND – please consider supporting the Least-Reached People Group. This project funds very effective, locally driven ministry and aid in both countries.
God bless you all as you partner with us and our brothers and sisters in Cameroon and Nigeria.