Cooking and Preparing Our Food!

Hello everyone! First we ask that you lift Randy's Dad Jim up in prayer!!! I am praying for you Jim, Bonnie, Randy, and the rest of the family! May God surround you with love at this difficult time! 

People have been asking us in emails what we eat. So we have been taking some pictures! Some of the food we tried just for fun and we will definitely never try again and others we really liked! First I will explain "The Market". It is right down the road from our house and it is definitely not Giant Eagle or Martins! On Saturday all the local farmers bring their produce to the market and sell their items. Pineapples, bananas, po-po (papaya), and passion fruit are very plentiful! (And very delicious) This is the best fruit I have ever tasted! They also have apples and oranges but they are harder to find! Mangoes are not in season yet but I have heard they are really good! The plantains are good also! We make fried plantain chips! Vegetables that are plentiful are carrots, green beans, onions, peppers, cabbage, and hot peppers. In Bamenda, we can get lettuce and cucumbers.

 

This is our Market! It is basically a string of little wooden huts that have stores in them. The stores are open during the week also. They sell the basic needs. Flour, sugar, salt, rice, beans, etc. The people bring their produce on Saturday and lay it out on blankets on the ground. We took this picture from the hill above the Market.

After Jen and Randy go to market, everything must be soaked in bleach water for 10 minutes. Here are all our goodies washed, bleached, and drying!! 

Okay here is a food we definitely will not buy again!! The kids were craving bologna. So they were so excited when they found luncheon meat in a can at a store in Bamenda! It looked like bologna on the can! Definitely did not taste like Oscar Mayer on the inside!!!!

Fufu and Jama Jama

This is fufu and jama jama. This is a Cameroonian dish. They eat this a lot! It is made for any celebration or occasion.  The fufu is a lot like grits. The jama jama is the greens. I like both of them. Jen and Randy only like the jama jama! The fufu does not have any taste. It is like white mush but in a good way! Ha!

Elliott likes both too!!

This is Marlis. She is our helper. She has helped us get settled here in Africa and now she is part of our family!!! She is braiding Meg's hair! She is the one who makes us the fufu and jama jama too!

Over the Christmas, we had one of our chickens killed. Young Margret who works at the hostel killed and cleaned it for us! After she was done she wrapped it in a plastic bag and stuck it in the freezer! So Jen got it out and defrosted it! As she was opening the bag, so she could cut it into pieces, two chicken feet popped out at her!!!! So she screamed! But then she looked closer and realized the head was in the cavity of the body too!!!!! We laughed so hard! On the bright side I have never seen a cleaner chicken ever!!! 

Here's the feet hanging out!!

 

The head!! Here they use the whole chicken!!! Not us though!

Our first African Tea Party!! It wasn't the same without you, Grammy!! But the kids enjoyed it!

Here is Gretchen and her chicken!! We have not killed this one yet! The kids think of it as their pet! He follows them around when they try to feed and water him!

Here are Megan and Elliott in their matching African outfits! They wore them to church on Sunday!

We celebrated Randy's birthday yesterday! We had lunch as a family and also some of the kids came too! We had brownie sundae for dessert! Jen made the brownies and I made the ice cream! We used matches as candles on the cake!!! It worked pretty well except matches burn quite quickly!!! 

Megan roasting a hot dog over the flames of our stove!! The hot dogs over here come in a can! There are 10 of them in one can! The can is the size of a regular soup can! So they are pretty tiny! Gretchen likes them! Hot dog and french fries is her go to meal when she hasn't eaten anything else! We have so many more pictures of the food here so we might have to make another post later!!

Prayers for Jen this week as she is in Banso working there! Prayers for us as we miss having her here with us! The kids and I will be going to Bamenda for a two week stay starting February 3rd! The kids are going to a home school group session! It should be really neat! They will attend class with the other kids and also have swimming lessons. The helicopter pilot is doing the special studies for the two weeks. It is on small engines! Gretchen also gets to attend! She will be in the preschool class! I will be helping out as needed! I'm sure they will have lots to share when we get back!!  Prayers for friends and family back home! We miss you!! Prayers for the Muthler family as they are preparing for their trip to Ethiopia!  Prayers for Leevi Steele!!! Again prayers for Jim and the entire Keyser family!!

 

Fear not, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.  Isaiah 41:10

CMF Retreat in Bamenda

Hello everyone!! This past week we went to Bamenda for a CMF missionary retreat. It was for all the missionaries that are involved with the CBC that are in Cameroon!

 We arrived on Wednesday evening. We got settled in our rooms. Jen, Randy, Megan, Elliott, and Gretchen stayed in a room at the Rest House. I stayed at Elsie's house in her quest room. After we got settled in, we had dinner at the hostel with other missionary families. We then had a worship service. 

We had morning and evening worship services everyday.  Our worship services were lead by Pastor Jon Cooke and his wife Pam. They were from the United States. They are here for our retreat and to visit for a few weeks.

The kids met their worship leaders. Jim and Ann Nesbitt were the leaders. They were from Cleveland, Ohio! They picked on Megan for wearing here Steelers shirt!!!

 Uncle Jim had the older youth. So he had Megan. They had Youth Fellowship and bible study.

 

Then Auntie Ann had the younger kids. Elliott was in her group. 

The kids loved it. Elliott had bible study and made crafts. He played games and really had a good time!

 

This was a really great group of kids!

On Thursday afternoon, we took a walk to the Handy Craft Store. It is a store filled with crafts made by local artists. A lot of wood craved items and hand made musical instruments. They also have a restaurant attached to the store. So we went and sat out on the balcony and had something to drink. We also ate plantain chips and potato chips. Their potato chips are actually french fries. We had a nice time just relaxing and enjoying the view.

The view from the balcony of the restaurant!

Waiting for our plantain chips!

Another view of Bamenda!

Before we got here to Africa, I thought that Bamenda was a little village like Mbingo! No it is a big city! The population is a little over a half million people.



Megan also bought a African dress on Thursday from a local man selling his crafts on the CBC compound. The next day the same man had a vest/shirt for Elliott. He said that brother and sister should match! Here is a picture of Megan in her dress. When we get a pic of her and Elliott together we will post it!!!

Friday two of the older kids organized a photo scavenger hunt!!  We broke up into teams. Elliott, his friend Samuel, one of the youth named Tim, and I were on a team. Randy, Jen, Gretchen, and Megan made up their team! Elliott and my team got second place! Not bad! Here are some of the pictures we took!!

Here is my team with Jon and Noah the boys that organized it!

Take a picture of someone with their feet in the air. Gretchen did this one pretty well!!

Take a picture sticking your tongues out at a rival photographer. I think they were just jealous I was a better picture taker!!!

Most unique picture with Jon and Noah!


Saturday was our picnic and talent show! They played picnic games and then had our picnic.

Megan playing the bean game! Megan and Randy doing the three legged race!
 

Randy racing in the crab race!

Some of the local kids came to watch us play the games!

Gretchen playing on the playground.


After our picnic, we had a talent show. Our group from Mbingo sang a song. We sang "Old Mother Hubbard". Megan dressed up as old mother Hubbard and Elliott and Gretchen were her doggies!!

The best doggies ever!!

 

Gretchen and her ears!!!

Well we arrived back at Mbingo today! We had a great time meeting new friends and worshiping with them! We enjoyed hearing about where they are living and the things they are doing for the Lord! I ask that you pray for all the missionaries and their families! Also before I go, we had our first and definitely not the last miscommunication with English/Pidgin English. As you know Elliott's friend Jesse told us he was moving to Bamenda on December 20. Well, on January 3, there was a knock on our backdoor and there was Jesse. He said I am back! He only went to Bamenda for the holiday to visit his mom and dad. He stays with his grandfather during the school year! So he went/moved for the holiday!!! He probably thought we were crazy because we all were so emotional about him leaving!! So all is good! Elliott is very happy to have his friend back again!!!

Please continue to pray for Randy's dad Jim. Prayers for us as we continue our time here as God sees fit. Prayers for Jen as she prepares to leave next Sunday for a week long trip to Banso a neighboring village. She is traveling with another Dr. to work there. Pray also for us as we will be here without her for the week! 

Elliott's African Bugs

Hi this is Elliott! These are some of the bugs I have seen here in Africa!

Unknown red beetle

I saw this bug on my hike to Half Dome!!

It was on Dr. Hayden's shirt!!

Here is a moth that was on our screen!

This is a weevil if you did not know! It was 3 inches long!

This is my Darth Maul beetle!!! (for all you Star Wars fans)

These big spiders live in our bathroom!! They are very fast and hard to smash!! If you see one and kill it beware because he usually has a brother that lives in the other bathroom!!

Green shiny bug! I think I know what this is called Longhorn Beetle!

This of course is a praying mantis, which we have back home! But they are everywhere here and much bigger!!

 A weird moth I found that looks like a tiny hawk!!

These are dragonflies!! We have seen them in about every color possible!! They are neat to watch!

This is a actual glow worm!! Bubba didn't know they existed! She thought they were a plastic toy that helped kids fall asleep by playing music and lighting up!! He is that orange and yellow little worm in between the leaves!

Here he is glowing!!!

Here is a spider that was small but looks big!!!

This is a fuzzy worm but do not touch! It will sting you and it burns!!!

 

This is a wasp!! They are not aggressive like the wasps back home!

There are lots of beautiful butterflies!! They are very hard to take a picture of!!
(Wendy would like all the butterflies here! Especially the big black and white ones!)

Unknown bug, but we call them our squishy bugs!! They are filled with a white goo!! Very Gross!!

Moth or Butterfly?

Carpenter Bee

These are huge and at first very scary but they do not sting you!! I am used to them now! I even named him Kevin!!!

Another view of Kevin!!

This is our Steeler Beetle!!

Here is a big grasshopper! The people of Cameroon eat them! They deep fry them and eat them like potato chips!! We have not tried them yet!!

 Orange carpenter bee! Kevin's brother!! We can't decide if he is suppose to be orange or if he is dusty from the dry season!!!!

 Another dead cockroach!!!

I have know idea what kind of bug this is!!

This is not a bug but a really cool lizard!!! He was hanging out in the tree outside our house! He is right there in the middle of the tree!



This is all I have for now! I can't wait to find more bugs so I can share them with all of you!!
Megan made a bug jar for me and gave it to me as a Christmas present! Goodbye!!!