Dear Family and Friends,
By the time you are reading this, I will be back in Cameroon! Yes, I am still short on support, but we are moving ahead in faith that God will finish working out those details.
I returned safely from France just before Christmas, and it was such a blessing to be with family to celebrate the birth of Christ! In the days between Christmas and New Year’s I was able to make a quick trip down to Kansas. What a joy to see the Rundus family (also ‘home’ from Cameroon), to visit and worship with my church family at Highland Baptist in Junction City, and to have the brief opportunity to catch up with so many dear friends in that area!
Early in January I was able to make a trip with my parents out to New York state to visit my brother and his family. While we were there, they announced the official beginning of their journey onto the international mission field! They are now in the beginning stages of partnership development with the Reformed Church in America to begin work in Naples, Italy with the rapidly growing immigrant and refugee population there. (You can check out their blog at http://teejtc.wix.com/italy.) What an amazing journey God has been taking my family on in the past few years! In July of 2010 I left for Cameroon, in March 2011 my parents moved in to full-time ministry with Winnebago Reformed Church on the Winnebago Reservation in Nebraska (www.winnebagoreformed.org), and now my brother and his family are moving from full time ministry in the US to develop a new ministry in Naples, Italy. It’s a good thing God has all this figured out, because I don’t think ANY of us would have guessed, planned, or predicted our current journeys! As a kid, I didn’t fully appreciate the tremendous heritage of faith that has surrounded me all my life, but whenever I stop to consider it, I am utterly amazed! Growing up I often bemoaned the idea that my little Christian community was sheltered or not what I considered the ‘real’ world. However, to have grown up in the church and been surrounded during my formative years by Christians who knew the TRUTH and walked the balance between protecting me from the lies so accepted by much of society without sheltering me from reality or expecting me to blindly follow was a gift I didn’t appreciate at the time. It was those godly men and women who challenged me to question ‘reality’ and ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ as presented – whether presented by secular society or someone in the church – and evaluate it according to Biblical standards rather that accepting it blindly. The value of those foundations is immeasurable!
When I returned the US in December I didn’t know if my return to Cameroon would be a couple weeks or a couple months away, so I have been in a sort of holding pattern. Waiting. I have never been very good at waiting, but even that has been a blessing. Not only was I able to visit my brother’s family in New York, my friends stationed at Fort Lee, Virginia, and my church family in Kansas, God also opened the doors for me locally in my parent’s community. I have been able to share about the ministry of Rain Forest International School with two churches, had the opportunity to work a couple of afternoons with my dad at the Eastern Thurston County Ministerial Association’s food pantry, and have enjoyed becoming more a part of the Winnebago community here. As much as I wish I could have returned to Cameroon in time for the beginning of the semester, I am so glad that God’s timing allowed me to spend such valuable time with my family and friends!
Progress is continuing on my apartment in Cameroon, and though it probably won’t be quite done when I get there, I have a place to stay for a couple of days (or weeks?) until it is. I fly out of Omaha on February 12, and am hoping to be back on campus by the beginning of the next week.
As always, thank you so much for your support and encouragement! Please continue to pray, especially as I head into another major period of transition. Keep an eye out on facebook and on my blog (www.tenclay.org/cameroon) for more updates. Hopefully I will have apartment pictures to share soon!