Blown Away

Added new pictures to this post

I am sitting in the dark outside, stealing some neighbour's wireless at 1 mps and i may have to finish uploading tomorrow (pictures and video) at an internet cafe.

Jan 14th by George
Today blew me away. We went to Kribi to visit the vineyard there. They were the first plant, 2 years ago, and are the largest and are self sustaining. It was a 2 ½ hour drive and we left at 5:50am to beat the rush hour. There are only a few main roads leaving the city so getting out is hairy as all the street vendors like to take advantage of the slow traffic trying to get by. Even at 6am, it was starting to get hairy. In all our busyness, we forgot to deal with our anti-malaria drugs. Janet had been gotten bitten and they highly suggested that we get on some drugs right away. So we started last night and it caused me not to be able to fall asleep till about 3am so I only got about 2 hours of sleep. I asked them what percentage of the mosquitoes carried malaria, thinking like 20 in a thousand. They said it was low - about 40%. That is 400 out of a thousand and seemed pretty high to me. The mosquitoes are different here. They are very small, and you don’t feel them bite and the bites don’t swell up or get itchy. Janet knew she had bites, but didn’t realize they were mosquitoes bites till Genevieve told her and that is what got us on the anti-malaria drug thing. We had to take it last night, this morning, tonight and then once a week. So while it was a great day, I battled sleepiness all day. We arrived in Kribi at 8:30 to about 20 young leaders, all standing in a row with yellow Vineyard T-shirts on. Then we went into the house and saw them cooking breakfast for us. Before we started to eat, we did some worship and they started worshiping the song we know as “Come reign in me” in French. The Spirit of God really hit me with that and it was so awesome to hear a group of young Vineyard leaders worshiping our songs in their native language. Next we ate fish for breakfast. They plopped a whole fish on Janet’s plate; head, body and tail. She is more worried about her upbringing where you have to eat everything on your plate than their generosity. I took part of her fish and added to my own. Instead of coffee, we were presented with a Coca-Cola. We also had fried plantain (a variety of banana but more starchy) and bread. While I am used to more of a “bacon and eggs” type breakfast, it was very good as the fish was caught that morning.

Next, we get into the pastor’s car, for some reason, instead of Clever’s 4 wheel drive. We drive slowly to the church and notice people we recognize that were at the house earlier, taking videos of us as we drive down to the church. Janet said “I feel like Lady Di” as we had a taste of paparazzi; and that was just the beginning. As we arrive, we hear music and then pull up to see 150 African Vineyard folk, singing traditional African music and dancing and all singing at the top of their lungs. All to honour us! I just stood there in shock and wept. I wept for one, because I really felt the Holy Spirit and two, because I felt like they were giving us way more honour than we deserved. They grabbed Janet into the dancers circle and she did the best job she could to mimic the natives. We once took ball room dancing so she could learn to dance in public. Well let’s just say those lessons didn’t help.

They presented us with a small gift of a carving of a small dug-out canoe with a fisherman and there were a few speeches. Next we went into their existing church building and we had a service where I was asked to speak for 1 hour. I spoke mostly encouraging words and on Vineyard values.

The chief (see the picture of the chief and me) then got up and said some words to us to encourage us. He stated how he really liked the Vineyard and everything they stood for. He donated a large piece of property, which he was going to let them use to grow food. He also wanted them to use his wood working shop to teach the younger men skills. I was so tired at this point, in a small church with 100 people inside (150 outside) that I nodded off twice while he was speaking which I felt bad for as I knew what an honour it was that he was speaking to me and to the Vineyard. If he noticed, he didn’t let on that he did.

The land he donated was to build a new church and orphanage and after the service, they wanted me to lay the first stone. I couldn’t believe that they waited to start construction till I could lay the first stone. So I took the stone, took the mortar, and used the trowel to cement it in place. After that, we had another African shindig in which they pulled both Janet and I into the dancing circle. Janet said that my dancing lessons were a waste of money. Needless to say, it must have been pretty bad because the natives were all laughing. Another sermon illustration on judging. I (Janet) am just inserting a little more on the chief story. He had originally rented his building to the Vineyard, so they had a contract that he couldn’t legally renege on. But after renting it to them, he became very annoyed with the Vineyard (he was a nominal Catholic) and he became a real pain in the butt for them to the point where he went to higher officials to try and get them out. Last year he became very ill and was told that he wouldn’t live. He went through 4 surgeries and to make a long story short, through this God changed him and now he is totally for the Vineyard and doing everything he can to help them. Clever and Genevieve did not know about this change of heart and when Genevieve saw him in the service, she was quite taken aback. When he got up and said that he wanted to say something, she was a little nervous, wondering what he was going to say. As George wrote, he donated some land, which is a different piece of land than the one they are building the orphanage on. He is now very excited about what God is doing through the Vineyard and wants to help in any which way he can. Cool, hey?

After this was all over, we went to the sea and saw the Limbé waterfalls, where the river dumps into the sea. We put 10 people in our jeep-like vehicle and traveled for about 25 minutes. It was beautiful to see and it was neat to see all the dug-out canoes and fishermen on the beach bringing in their catch.

The picture above from left to right is me, Annie (the journalist), Clever and Mama Marlise (pastor of the Kribi Vineyard). On our way back, we stopped at a picnic area and had a mademoiselle cook us up some fresh fish (Ber and Rock fish) which we ate with our hands. We also had some semi-fermented Cassava to go with it. Janet got to drink fresh coconut milk from a new coconut.

On the journey home, we almost smoked a motorcycle guy who decided to just cut in front of us as we were going around 90 km/hr. We had to do quite a high speed cut to the left and then back to the right. I wondered for a sec if our vehicle’s four wheels were going to stay flat on the ground. We had been spared within a split second of what would have been a bad accident. I had been sleeping for the past hour in the vehicle and that event was enough to keep me awake for the rest of the trip.

Jan 15th
Today is a rest day. We had a pretty good rest day as I had gone to bed at 10pm and got up at 8am; normally I only need 6 hours of sleep. This is the first day I didn’t have to preach. We are resting up for a 6 hour journey to Bafoussam (be there for 11 o’clock) to do a 2 hour service at a Vineyard church, and then return home. Apparently this place is quite high up into the mountains and Clever keeps saying that it is very cold there. We keep chuckling at him saying that it is very cold. I think that we are going to welcome the cold. (23 degrees-it sounds like heaven as everyday it has been about 36 degrees here-I have not worn my leather coat since I got here. It is unbelievable I know, but true.) I will take my leather coat along though.

Quinton from Johannesburg South Africa came to join us. He is a Theologian that works for VBI (Vineyard Bible Institute) and is here to do some teaching and work with the VBI students they have here. We knew instantly that he was a fun-loving guy when in all seriousness he told one of the pastors that he had just been introduced to, that he had 2 little girls and four wives (in his Afrikanse accent). I had to chuckle as the pastor did not know how to respond. You see, here polygamy is maybe not common, but definitely not uncommon either. Eunice from Lagos, Nigeria will be joining us in Douala tomorrow.

We purchased some sound equipment for them today. At this point, we have purchased 2 speakers. All these places need a lot of help with just basic clear sound. So we will hook up everything they have in the house and see what we still need.