This past week was one filled with opportunities for flexibility and faith. Wendy was pretty sick with a head cold that went down into her chest pretty nastily, the first part of the week. Towards the end of the week, Sam started. You know and are praying for Sam’s asthma, so you can imagine that my anxiety mounted. On Saturday, we took the bush taxi (or rustic bus) to a neighboring town called Obala. We went with 6 other people and enjoyed the market. We could tell that we were the oddity and got lots of blank stares of marvel at our white skin. The challenge was that the town is very dusty (no paved roads) and therefore it was a huge difficulty for Sam. Saturday night he had quite a trouble breathing and it quickened us to remember how powerful our God is to heal and take care of us far from “home.” We made it through the night and Sam has improved since. The best part of all of this is God’s miracle. We are in the dry season here in Yaounde which brings maybe 4 days of rain in the course of three months. Since Sunday we have had 3 large thunderstorms!!! We know that God sent the rain for our family to help with all of the dust in the air. He is so faithful and we see His rain as our special gift.
This past week we had quite a bit of teaching on malaria, snake bites and basic first aid in a third world country. For the malaria teaching, we learned how to do a finger prick and make a blood slide to take to the lab for testing. We have put a picture of this process so you could see what a joy it was! We were big boys and girls and it was relatively painless. We also continued shot #2 in our Rabies series and the kids are becoming champs! There are some amazing snakes here, none that we have seen! We made a trip to the pharmacy to get the medicines we need to stock our first aid kit. All meds here are available without prescription. It is a blessing and I am sure one that must not be abused!
We have been busy planning for our 5 day primitive camping phase to Kribi. This has been described to us, by a fellow American, as the “most beautiful beach I have ever seen.” We are excited. Now, “primitive” does mean no running water, electricity or toilets. We will bathe in a fresh water stream, a la Jerry Lake (for my family!!) and use the potty in a pit latrine (a la Jerry Lake again!!). We will take lots of pictures and look forward to sharing our experiences.
Please continue to pray for our health!! We love and miss you….wanna vacation in Africa??? C’mon down!