Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas!!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Ours was very nice! Different but nice! We woke up bright and early, thanks to Elliott!! We actually had to make Gretchen mad to get her awake! She did not want to get out of bed!! After we opened some presents we went to church. After church we had Christmas dinner at the Palmer's house.  

On Christmas Eve, Jen, Megan, and I went with the other missionaries caroling around the hospital! We went all around to the different wards and sang about 3 to 4 songs in each ward! I enjoyed visiting the children's ward! The little children and their parents sang with us and the smiles that the kids had on their faces!! Everyone wanted to shake your hand or give you a hug. Meg and I saw things that Jen sees everyday but it was a real eye opening experience for me!! Megan and I definitely want to go back to the children's ward and visit with the kids soon! We also got to meet and see some of the people that Jen has been treating! It was nice to see faces of the people she is helping. 

Meg and Elliott with their "socks"!!

The kids opening some of their presents!

Gretchen liked her cow!!

Jen and Meg outside Nancy and Dennis' house.

Elliott liked playing with Archer!

Although Archer was less then thrilled to play with him!! Ha!

Nancy and Dennis Palmer, Carolyn and Jim Brown, Ben, and all of us

Megan and Elliott both got new walking sticks to use when we go hiking! Megan and Gretchen both got African baby dolls. It was a very nice morning. While everyone back home was getting snow, we had sunshine and 80 degree weather!!! The gift that all the kids are enjoying is the swing set! Jen and Randy had Rene a local carpenter make the kids a swing set for Christmas! Our house is quite popular with all the local children! They like playing with Megan and Elliott but the swing set is a plus!!

Rene, Meg, Elliott, Gretchen, and Jesse

It was a rough week for Elliott last week. Elliott's friend Jesse moved to Bamenda right before the Christmas holiday! They had become very good friends! Elliott liked teaching Jesse all about Star Wars. We are hoping that Jesse can come back for a visit before we leave in July. But God answered Elliott's prayers and about 2 days before Jesse left 4 children showed up at our house and have been coming to play everyday since then! Elliott still misses his friend but is actually having a good time getting to know all the new kids! Now we have about 6 to 8 kids that come to play every afternoon!! Jen and Megan have taught them how to play kick the can!! That is a new favorite game!! Although we had to stop Elliott and the kids from hiding in the tall grass by our house! We were told that some of the other missionary families have started seeing snakes around! They said in the dry season that they are hiding in the tall grass and bushes!!!!! We have not seen any ourselves and really do not want too!! The most common snake is the green mamba, but there are also cobras, pythons, and bush vipers! None of them are cute and cuddly!! 

The week before Christmas, the kids and Randy went on a hike to Half  Dome! Jen and I went to Bamenda shopping for the day! We had a nice girls outing with Carolyn another missionary here at MBingo! It was my first trip into town. Here are some pics of the kids and Randy's hike.

Some of the hills they climbed!

 The view from the top of Half Dome

The kids at the top!!!

Keith and Hayden at the top. Keith and his wife Kaye are from Australia. They have been here for a little over two years. 

Here is Kaye with the kids! Megan and Kaye are hiking buddies! She really helps Megan up and down the mountains!

Jen and I didn't take any pictures in Bamenda. It is illegal in Cameroon to take pictures and your camera can be confiscated by the police if they see you taking pictures! 

Well I finally went on a hike too!! I went with the kids, Randy, and Kaye the week after they went on this hike! Kaye told me it was the easiest hike to take so we could start with that one!! Well I made it!! It was crazy and about the last 10 minutes of the hike I kept telling Randy I wasn't going to make it!! It was shorter than the other hikes that Randy has been on but it still was about 3 hours long! I definitely have to work up to the other hikes but I had so much fun! Oh I only fell down twice too! Anyone that knows how clumsy I am knows that is not bad!!! I did take Megan out on the first fall though! Lost my footing and fell and she fell on top! We were laughing so hard!

This is Mbingo 2. It is across the road from the hospital and Mbingo. We are just starting out on our hike.

This was on our way up the mountain. They are red clay bricks drying out in the sun. They use these to make their houses.

On our way up we picked up a few more people. The local children were going to work in the fields and decided to walk along with us! It made me realize that these children walk this trail 2 to 3 times a day!!! I could barely make it once!! The corn field that they were walking to was at the top of this mountain!

The view from the top!!! It is pretty hazy due to the dry season! The buildings are the hospital, Mbingo and Mbingo2.

Still smiling!!! (Really red but still smiling)

 Gretchen had the best way to travel!! As we were walking through the village of Mbingo 2, little kids were running out of their houses to see us. They would start giggling and laughing! I couldn't decide if they were laughing at the big white woman who was out of breath or Randy carrying Gretchen!! Turns out they were laughing at Randy! They would run along beside and point a Gretchen riding on Randy's back! See over here the women carry the little ones on their backs not the men plus some of them have never seen the backpack thing she was riding in!! Gretchen just smiled and waved!! 

We really enjoyed seeing all our family and friends on Christmas day using Skype! It was nice to see both my Grandma Pepple and Grandma States! Also my Aunt and Uncles and Cousins too!!! We ask that you continue to pray for us and also Randy's dad Jim.  

Elliott is already planning our next post! He is going to do a Bugs of Africa post! He has been busy taking pictures and learning about all the bugs!! Hopefully on Sunday we can post that! Goodbye for now!!

December already!!

First the kids wanted to say a special Hello to their PapPap Jim! We are praying and thinking of you!

We went on our first hike. Well, it was more of a walk! We walked to the airstrip! It was a nice walk down but the way back up almost killed me!! It was worth it! It was very pretty!  

Gretchen and Dad getting started on our walk!

This was about halfway down to the airstrip! 

This was at the airstrip! Still okay in this picture! Thankfully nobody took any pictures on the way up the hill!!

Elliott made some new friends! Their names are Godlove and Jesse! They are all boy! Elliott has been more dirty and muddy in the last 2 weeks than in his entire 7 years of life!!! Elliott also likes telling them about Star Wars! The boys like to play with the lightsabers that Elliott brought with him!

Megan and I have finished our first rugs! I made mine for Elliott and Megan made her own! We now are going to start working on some for the rest of the house! We are going to make some little ones to use as potholders too! I am going to try to make a Mickey Mouse head rug for Gretchen's room! I am going to try it as a potholder size first to see if it works! I will post a pic if it turns out okay! 

Here they are!!! I am really proud of Meg! She worked hard on hers! I think Grandma Pepple would be proud!!!!

Randy went on a "real" hike with some of the other missionaries this week! It will be a little while before I can or the kids can take these hikes but we are determined by the end of our stay to do it!!

This is a picture from on top of the mountain! Our house is one of the little tiny specks in the valley!!

Here is another view!!

Here are some cows! The cows over here just wander around! They have no fences! Randy saw these on his hike! He also saw wild horses!!

Jen, Randy, and Megan went to Bamenda shopping this past Wednesday. While they were in town they found a little Christmas tree!! So last night we decorated our tree! 

Megan and Jen made popcorn strings for our tree!

Everyone helped to decorate it!! Elliott turned his Lego Star Wars people into the ornaments!

And here is our end result!

Our Christmas tree!!!!

It has a little bit of everything! Star Wars, Mickey Mouse, and Steelers!!!

Thank you for all the emails and prayers! 

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!

Well it was our first holiday here in Cameroon and first holiday away from home! We had Thanksgiving dinner with the other missionary families that are here at the hospital! There was about 26 of us! It was interesting cooking for the dinner. Jen made glazed carrots, herb chicken, and gravy. I made stuffing and a pineapple upside down cake. I think we did pretty well for having to make everything from scratch and use a gas stove and oven!!

 

 

We had so much good food!

 

 

 

Gretchen got to play with Issac and Cathen tonight! Issac is Gretchen's age and Cathen is a little younger! They had so much fun!

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see we had plenty of food!

 

 

 

 

We went for a walk on Wednesday! This is right by the hospital. I know Gretchen and Elliott are hard to see but wanted to get the whole palm tree!

 

 

 

One last picture!!!

 

 

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAPPY!!!!!(Dad)

Miss and love you!!!

 

 

Our first week

Hello everyone! Well the kids have their first week of homeschooling done and all is well! The kids and teacher have not lost their minds yet!! Both had tests today and did really well! Jen has her first week in at the hospital and she is finding her groove. She was in the OR today and did surgery on a 4 year old boy who was hit and dragged by a motorcycle!! He is going to be okay but has a long recovery! I never tell my sister this enough but I am amazed at what she can do! Randy has been getting the hang of going into town to get our supplies! It is a very tiring job because it is an all day trip and very stressful! Besides helping the kids with school work and playing games, I have been working on my rugs. Megan is making one too. When we get them done we will post pics of them!  

        This was in Douala. Our first day here. We left here and traveled by car 6 hours to Mbingo. No that is not a banana tree, for some reason they had the bananas tied from the branch of the tree!

This is our home for the next nine months! It is a very nice house much nicer than we expected. It is very roomy! 3 Bedrooms, a school room, living room/dining room, and a kitchen  The kids have already decorated their rooms! Elliott has half of a bedroom decorated as Star Wars of course. Megan has the other half decorated with flowers, a guitar, and lots of peace signs. Gretchen and my room is decorated with Mickey Mouse. Both rooms found space for the Steelers Stickers that Uncle John gave us!!! (and they didn't save me any stickers for Randy and my room so ours is bare)

Everyone likes the Star Wars room!!

This is after we decorated our room!

This is the view from our front patio!!! We can go hiking to see waterfalls on these mountains! We have not done that yet, but soon!

Here is one of the cockroaches that welcomed us to our house on our first day!! We are happy to say that we have gotten them under control!! Maybe one or two a day instead of 100 like the first day!!! 

(this is the best kind of cockroach----dead)

We have gone on little hikes or walks! This is a road out past the hospital and the church.

Meg made friends with a local girl. Her name is Chi-Livette. She is deaf and does not speak. She knows some sign language but she communicates by reading and writing!! Meg and Chi are learning some signs together. She lives in a small town not to far from us. 

Jen and Randy bought the kids some musical instruments! Gretchen loves the drums!! It looks like the Eckenroads have another person that would like them to teach them how to play the drums!!

Well, I better stop for now!! I have so much more I would like to show you all but there will be time later!! Thank you for all the prayers! Please continue to pray for our journey and that God uses us as he sees fit! 

We arrived!!

Hello from Cameroon!! We have arrived and are getting settled in! Jen started at the hospital today and the kids started school! We are trying to get the hang of things but we are still learning! We have many stories and pictures to share already. We are trying to get them loaded on the computer. We will post again soon!
Megan, Elliott, and Gretchen have been seeing and learning so many new things! We have seen some crazy looking bugs and also big bugs! The kids really like our house and have decorated their rooms already! We attended our first African church service on Sunday! We finally found prayers that are longer than Pastor Mark's!!!! Ha!ha!!
Please continue to pray for us as we continue our journey.

Hey Everyone,
We are busy getting ready to leave next weekend!! We fly out on Sunday, November 4th. Where has the time gone!!!! A few things have happened since the last post. We had our auction. Jen and Randy's house did not sell but the rest of the auction went very well. Elliott had his follow up MRI in Pittsburgh and was cleared to leave. The growth has not changed or grown so he will not have to go back until we return around August. Megan and Elliott are officially done with school. Well, public school. Much to Elliott's disappointment we will start home school very soon!!!

We took a couple of days to spend sometime together as a family and spend sometime with my Mom!! It was nice to get away but also made me want to hug my Mom and never let go! Since moving back home from Atlanta, I have taken for granted that I see my family everyday. I forgot that feeling we had every time we would get in the car to head back to Atlanta! 

  Gretchen decided that the cats needed mouse ears too!!

Please pray with us this week as we pack and also as we get ready to leave family and friends. Pray for our travel to the airport and our plane ride over!

     Elliott and Meg with a 30 foot snake!!!