Well, the little guy is growing up! Sam turned 6 on October 2 and had a dinosaur party with 5 of his little guy friends. One boy is from Canada, one from the Netherlands and the other three are American. It was a lot of fun and he was really blessed. They played games outside and inside and we ate hot dogs, chips and cupcakes…can’t get too much more American, huh? Oh well…it was fun!
On a second note, today, the 12th, he lost (or rather pulled) his first tooth. He started to notice it was loose yesterday while eating an apple. He was thrilled as he has wanted so badly to catch up to Gaby and Josh…He didn’t want to go to sleep last night for fear he would miss it if it fell out. Today, he worked it all day and after Tae Kwon Do, he beefed up the courage to pull it out on his own. (He is of the belief that if you pull it out on your own – versus someone pulling it for you or letting it come out on its own – that you get bigger “bucks” from the Tooth Fairy. There has been entirely too much inflation since the Tooth Fairy visited me…cut the jokes about my age, ok!!) So, you can see the pic of Sam “sans” his front tooth.
Unfortunately the rest of his day wasn’t so super. He and Josh were playing on the new skateboard and he got his hand run over by it and has virtually pulled of his nail on his right ring finger. It is very gross and looks extremely painful. We are just praying that a new one will grow once this one works its way out and off.
Exciting things on the horizon for our youth ministry. This Saturday is the first monthly meeting of all the youth involved in the Nav Bible Studies here in Yaounde. We are expecting a turnout of about 30-50 kids. This is a time for large group fellowship, games, hanging out and a themed discussion with activities geared for that. This whole concept is not very Cameroonian and yet the young people seem very excited about the prospects of it…have we hit on a need here in this youth culture? Well, pray with us for this day and for God’s plans.
We have also booked the Scripture Union Camp here in Yaounde Dec. 29-31 for a weekend youth retreat. Ndoune and his wife, Marie Paule will be playing the role of Camp Director and so Gilles is working with them to get them equipped and prepared for this.
We have been through a challenging season personally. We had an unfortunate and untrue accusation made against Gilles and have spent the better part of the past three weeks trying to get it all sorted out. Solely by God’s grace we are seeing the end! It has been a very good lesson in “taking every thought captive” and also a real training ground for Philippians 4:8 and choosing what to have our thoughts dwell on. If God hadn’t led us to those passages, we could have been totally consumed.
Blessings and much love…thanks for all the prayers…we are humbled and blessed.