Conference

Jan 17th Pre conference (George)
Our camera batteries are dead so no more pictures for now.

We woke up to 2 Hursts in our front yard. Later on there were 3 coffins sitting off to the one side. Apparently they were the parents of the land lord and have been dead for 17 years. I don’t know if they do this every year or what, but there was some wailing going on and a lot of friends visiting. The people are Catholic and in parts of the world like this, there is a lot of ancestral worship going on.

For the conference, they wanted to rent a system and I said we should look at our options as I didn’t want to use money for temporary things. What they really wanted was an amp, to go with their new speakers. They also wanted a keyboard as their keyboard player said he wouldn’t play their Casio because it kept cutting in and out. I said that the keyboard could be fixed. One problem was the proper cable to connect the Casio to the main system; the other was a loose adapter. What they really needed was an amp and mixing board. Clever found a really old one for 150,000 fca and while I didn’t like that, I thought it was better than renting. Then I asked how much to buy the sound board and he said 240,000. So I told Clever “I will buy it for 200,000” ($220) so he sealed the deal. It was really new and had a built in Amplifier, just what we needed. God does provide.

Next I still needed the a cable to go from a 1/8” headphone jack to a ¼” mono plug to plug in the new board. I kept telling Clever for the last 2 days that we needed to buy a cable for the keyboard, he kept saying “yes” but we never went. He told me after lunch, and that lunch was in 10 minutes. I said “bien” (French for good) and went into the kitchen and saw 4 raw fish. I asked him if that was for lunch he said “no the chicken is” and I looked at this huge raw chicken in the sink and thought “Great, I get to see my first miracle here; lunch in 10 minutes”. So after more than an hour, we had chicken. I grabbed the plate as I was hungry at this time, took the piece of meat closest to me and offered it to Quinton. It was a foot, that looked you should tie it to a stick and scratch you back with it. He politely said he could fetch his own piece. The next piece I grabbed was the neck and when I offered it to him; he gave me that “don’t bother” look so I put that on my plate too. Next I grabbed a drumstick. You would need 129 feet and 46 necks to fill you up not including the extra you would need to replace the energy to remove the morsels of meet off those pieces. It’s amazing how these people eat every piece. Clever can even be heard chomping on bones.

So I decided to find a flash card for Eunice as they said “$100 USD for 2 Gig” and I said “Then let’s see about a 256K as she had no flash card for her camera. The guy who told me was Boniface as he went and scouted out the land before and told me about the giant prices. So here we are: Boniface 98% French, and me 2% French which makes 100% French and not much English. So we got out of the gate and each mounted a taxi-motorcycle and off we went adding to the craziness of Douala driving. We weave, swerve, get cut off, honked at and sucked in a lot of fumes from the very poor running motorcycle in front of me. But we arrive, in one piece and gave each driver 100 fcf (~$0.22) and were off to a store to buy a card. Trouble with the card was it was a Sony and 3 times the price of a SD flash card so we didn’t buy it. Now I understood.

I saw some musical instruments. An acoustical guitar, an electric guitar, a bass, couple of speakers and odds and ends. I thought “Great, I can get some cables. Surely if they have electric guitars, they have a cable. I wanted to try the acoustic. So after 3 minutes, I finally made myself understood and they went to get it off the rack. It had a layer of dust on it and still had a protective covering over the pick guard so I knew that it was a new one, trouble is that I am sure that it had been hanging for at least 3 years, if not 5. So they placed this brand new relic into my hands and the thing is so out of tune, that I am sure that even the tone deaf shook their heads. I started to tune in when “Twang”, pop goes the 3rd from the bottom string, which is solid string with another really fine string wound around it. So they try to take the string that was wound around the broken core string and was wondering why it wouldn’t work. So I just gave it back.

Next I asked about a cord. I pointed to the electric guitar ¼” jack and then to an Amp and and said “six meter” (in French but pronounced zes).I didn’t realize it until about 7 puzzled looks and some part French part English that they were asking, “You want to try it out?” I motioned “No” and told them I wanted to buy which then Boniface understood and spoke to them. So they agreed and out came the calculator, and they showed me 7,200 fcfa. They took me to the counter and showed me the parts as they had to make the cable up. I said “Okay, but I only have 2,000 and will have to come back. They said for 2,000 they will make it and I could come back and pay the rest. I said no, I will just come back.

We went back on 2 different taxi motorbikes and, while the adventure was the same, I was looking for the next challenge, as I already seemed accustomed to this driving style. (Now back home my wife does 90% of the driving, so you can draw your own conclusions).

I found an 1/8” jack and a ¼” jack and went back with Clever. First I had to exchange money so we pull up to this corner and have 5 eager faces waiting to exchange money. There are a lot of “nos”, Clever puts it in gear, goes ahead twice and finally the exchange is done. This time I got 87,000 fcfa instead of 84,000. So off to the cable store.

We walk in and you would think they would know what I want, but it is the ceremony all over again. This time I pick up the 1/8” jack, join it with the ¼” jack, pull them apart and say “six meter”. They have this “ah ha” look and pull out a roll of cable and cut off 6 meters. They put the 2 ends and the 6 meters in a bag and hand it to a store clerk who won’t give it to me. I already paid the 7,200 fcfa. So I decided “George, just go with the flow”. I follow Clever, Boniface and the store clerk to our vehicle. Apparently we had to drive the clerk to another store so he could solder on the ends. So after much ado, I finally had my cable.

Conference
Jan 17th
We started our conference at around 6pm. As the conference started, I felt flu like symptoms coming on. I did a teaching on the Kingdom and the people seemed to be receptive to the message. I went home that night, missed supper (you know that I am sick when I turn down food) and slept till morning. They woke me up and I definitely was suffering from either something I ate, or something that was eating me. Dr Clever said he would get me some good drugs and they ended up being a very strong anti-biotic. (Twenty four hours later I am feeling 95% of my normal self.) I just wanted to sleep all day as it was my body’s way of fighting what was ailing me. I fell asleep wherever I could. I slept on 4 chairs at break time and then about an hour later, while we were waiting for lunch, I flaked out on the floor. I had no idea, as I was in such a deep sleep, that everyone had to walk right past me to get their lunch. Genevieve took a picture of me with Janet’s prompting, since her camera’s battery was low. I haven’t seen it yet but Janet tells me it was pretty funny. I was flat on my back with my wrists limp in front of me (kind of like when your dog Josh, lays on his back to sleep, with his paws hanging limp in the air). After I woke up from this nap, I desperately just wanted to go home and sleep but we still had to go to the radio where we sat in a small booth with 7 people and a temperature of 92ºF. We got back to the house at 4:40 and the next session started at 5:30, so I only managed to sleep for 45 minutes. It was hard to get up and drag myself to the evening session, but with a few more drugs, I managed. This was the session in which both Janet and I had to speak, each for an hour or more. Janet did a teaching on the five love languages and had the undivided attention of the crowd. It was her first time speaking with an interpreter, which she found a little more challenging. You’re on a roll, kind of thing, but you have to stop after every few words. But I was really proud of her as she did great.