Happy 5th Ruth!

3 Continents

5 Countries

3 Children (1 Buried)

3 New Languages

1 Evacuation 

 

I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

love,

-Adam

 



safe

From our new current location of Yaoundé, Cameroon, I thought I'd share a favorite poem with you--written by Rupert Brooke.

Not that I felt particularly endangered several days ago when I was in a "less stable" country...and not actually that I feel substantially safer now that we are in a "more stable" country. But, just that, I have liked this poem for a long time and when it came to mind again tonight, I thought I'd share it with you.

I am often reminded of the fact that we are physically never truly safe, while at the same time we are completely safe from harm forever when "whether we live or we die, we are the Lord's." But this poem says that much more poignantly.

DEAR! of all happy in the hour, most blest
He who has found our hid security,
Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,
And heard our word, ‘Who is so safe as we?’
We have found safety with all things undying,
The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,
The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,
And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth.
We have built a house that is not for Time’s throwing.
We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.
War knows no power. Safe shall be my going,
Secretly armed against all death’s endeavour;
Safe though all safety’s lost; safe where men fall;
And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.

last morning walk through Berbérati

Civil unrest has escalated in our country over the past few days, and we knew we might not have much time left here. So this morning, when the sun was just rising, I set out with John and Sam to visit friends in the neighborhood. Just in case this were our last morning here...until who knows when...

While we were out, I got the call on my cell phone: "We're being evacuated." I enjoyed the next half hour with the boys of visiting and taking photos with our friends before returning to the house to finish packing suitcases. I know I'll be grateful for these parting shots to look at until we are able to return to our Berbérati home:

Well, they're packing up the trucks. It's time to go. Do we know yet where we'll be tonight? Well, not exactly. The next big town the road has already told us there's no room in the inn. Somehow, being that it's Christmas Eve, that seems quite appropriate. We will probably be in Cameroon by sometime later today.

Pray for us. Most of all, pray for peace in this country and for people in the path of the turmoil that is happening here right now.

helpful...and not so helpful...

Days are never boring with a two-year-old and four-year-old enlivening every moment. The other day, Sam surprised me by lending a hand to me in my work. He's started wanting to help with housework, which is so sweet. I filled up buckets to start washing clothes, then went inside to wash dishes. When I turned around to look out on the back porch, look who had started washing clothes for me!

 

I also (still) love how John and Sam carry everything on their heads. To me it's still cute...to them, and to the whole world around them, it's just "the way" you carry things. It helps me remember that they are not little Americans. This is the world they are growing up in--much different from the world I grew up in.

Anyways...in other recent Huntley family history...something funny, yet not so helpful...

See the two little muddy buddies playing together in the garden? What do you suppose happened after I took these pictures and walked out of the bedroom (I took the photos through the open bedroom window)?

Well, right after that, these two decided to fling handful after handful of mud through the open window into the boys' bedroom. Really, it was incredible how far and wide the mud flew. When Adam asked them following the mud attack, "What were you two thinking when you started throwing mud through the bedroom window?" they both looked completely stupefied  Really, I don't think they thought anything beyond, "This is fun!" Best buds.

Tomorrow Adam is driving to Bangui to pick up Tom and Frieda for a visit (yay!!!!!!) John has already promised to be the man of the house and to help me while Papa is gone. He also came up to me today and said, "Mama, I'm not going to steal food from the kitchen anymore. Every day when I'm hungry, I'll just come to you and ask for food."

I love my boys! And I love to see them grow and watch God's work happening in their hearts.

what to do with a whole coconut

One thing I'd never done before moving to Berbérati was really deal with whole coconuts. I have a childhood memory of eating handfuls of sweetened, dried coconut from a bag in the freezer (sorry, Mom--I'm sure I was not supposed to do that). 

But until this past year, whole coconuts (or even the brown ones in the grocery store, with huge outer shell already removed) were a bit of a mystery to me.

In case you would like to learn--as I have pretty recently--exactly what to do with a whole coconut, I thought I'd share the process with you. We just so happen to have a coconut palm in our front yard, and after patiently waiting for nearly a year for the crop of coconuts to get to their full ripeness (where the flesh is hard and sweet instead of soft and less flavorful), we are now being rewarded by the occasional heavy coconut thunking from its high perch to the ground below.

Friends holding coconuts from our coconut palm tree

Then, after expending a bit of effort to get the coconut open (usually assisted by our neighbor Neil who opens the outer shell with  a machete or mallet), we get to enjoy delicious coconut!

So here is what to do with a whole coconut...

First, if you get them fresh from the tree like we do here, you need to remove the big outer shell with a machete or hammer. It takes quite a bit of work to do this part. I haven't actually done this part myself, but obviously I have watched people do it, and taken pictures of it. 

[In case you are not impressed that I left the toughest part of the job to someone else, I will try to redeem myself by telling you that recently I have ground quite a few pounds of beef and pork with a hand-grinder and--along with my neighbor Esther--have push-started our 4-wheel vehicle...okay, no, that still is not impressive compared to eighty-year-old women I see walking down the road carrying what I estimate to be around 100 pounds of wood on their heads]

 

The coconut will then be a more manageable size. See? Like the kind you find in the grocery store. If you are going to buy one, make sure it feels a bit heavy in your hand, and that you can hear the coconut water sloshing around inside:

At one end of the coconut, you'll find three "eyes." One of those eyes is softer, and can easily be pierced by a knife or with a nail. Dig out that hole a bit, and pour the coconut water into a glass. It's so yummy!

This is the fun part. And very easy, too. Wrap your coconut lightly in a rag or old towel, and put it on a good hammering surface. Our cement floor works well for this.

Smash the coconut with a hammer until it breaks. It's very satisfying to feel the coconut squash under the force of your blow.

Unwrap the towel and voila! A beautiful coconut interior revealed.

Though you can dig the coconut flesh out with any variety of utensils, I find it works best to carefully slice around the edge of the flesh with a small, sharp knife. Then you can often pop out a large piece of the coconut meat all in one chunk (easier for grating, etc.)

If your coconut comes out with a thin brown skin attached, don't worry; that part is edible and taste fine.

Now, what can you do with your coconut? It tastes great just plain. You can also grate it, sprinkle some sugar on it, and bake it on a greased pan in the oven (turning occasionally) until you have golden-tipped pieces of dried coconut (out of which you can, by the way, make delicious coconut macaroons).

Another idea is to grate the coconut, pour a cup of boiling water over it, stir the coconut a lot, and then drain it through a cheesecloth. Squeeze the coconut well in the cheesecloth to get the best of the liquid out. Genuine coconut milk! Which is good for so many uses. Some would say especially curry sauce. Some would say coconut ice cream or coconut hot chocolate. I say it's best if you have enough coconut milk to make all of the above.

If you have a blender, I've read that you can blend the hot water with the coconut in the blender, and then drain it through the cheesecloth. I'm sure that would render a much richer coconut milk.

I would love to hear if you have any other ideas for how to use coconut, as I foresee more coconuts falling directly in front of our house, in the very near future!

an African Thanksgiving...{ *and the REAL bushbuck! a bonus sidenote for the Molitors* }

In Gamboula, we celebrated Thanksgiving on Saturday with a huge crowd of missionaries. For various reasons, it worked out that a whole bunch of people were either in town or were passing through for different reasons, and we loved having the weekend of celebrating together--making food, eating, playing sports, singing and sharing the things we are all most thankful for.

Look how many of us there were!

See the huge bowl of stuffing John and I made? Stuffing is my favorite Thanksgiving food (except, maybe, pie), so I always like to ensure that there will be enough of it.

It just so happened that some of the people at the Gamboula center bought live turkeys just the week before Thanksgiving. They are pretty crazy to look at up close!

Sam enjoyed seeing his friend Charlie (Charlotte), who recently moved to Gamboula with her parents Josh and Lori. Sam likes her so much, in fact, that he told me, "I want to give Charlie my blanket." That, believe me, is quite an offer coming from Sam who dearly loves his blankie!

Here's Kim cutting the turkey, which a couple of guys drove a great distance to buy in Cameroon:

Carl, Sam, Adam, Kim and Luke enjoying the feast:

A nice Thanksgiving picture of one of the people I am most thankful for!

And now, the bonus for all Molitors. Do you remember the hours we spent playing "Bushbuck" as kids? Of course you do, I know. What fond memories. But until now, I didn't even realize the bushbuck was an animal! We got to see and hold one that our young friend Timote has been taking care of. The little one's mother was killed by a hunter, so he needs some special care until he old enough to look out for himself:

John is 4 now!

Early in the morning of his fourth birthday, John came racing into our bedroom ready to start his special day, which he had been looking forward to for so long. We are so thankful to God for giving us four years with our loving, active little boy! We started off the day with a special breakfast, then we got in the car to head to Gamboula where we would celebrate John's birthday and, the following day, Thanksgiving.

Once in Gamboula, the boys had fun biking with Louisa in the garden of Eden, and searching for ripe fruit (we found bananas, but they weren't ripe yet...and starfruit, which is tasty even when it is green!)

John got plenty of presents from missionaries who work at the Gamboula hospital and center; here he is with Jan and the frisbee she gave him:

John does love helping in the kitchen, so he didn't mind helping me cut up bread for stuffing for our Thanksgiving celebration that would be the next day.

 And he and Louisa enjoyed helping make the birthday cake  brownies!

In the evening, we ate a spaghetti dinner in the kitchen of the guest house where we and Zubots were staying.

Then John blew out his candles and we enjoyed brownies and pumpkin ice cream (being that it was the Thanksgiving holiday, after all)

 Happy fourth birthday John! We love you so much!

a wonderful week with friends

We had a great week-long visit from our friends Jessica, Anya and Peter. Ken (Jessica's husband) had to stay in Bangui to work with translation teams, but we had so much fun with the rest of the Olson family.

Jessica and Ken were our friends back in Dallas, and we have known each other since all of us were single. To spend time with them in our African home was very special. We're thankful they came all the way from their home in France to spend a week of their lives with us in Berberati!

John and Anya on one of our roadtrip adventures 

Reading with Peter and Sam

Good friends, happy to be together again...

Waiting at the Berberati airstrip for the airplane that will fly the Olsons back to Bangui 

making friends...and the friend who brings milk

Little by little I am making friends in my new home (if I can still call it a "new home" after nearly a year of living here). Friendship-building doesn't happen quickly, and I am finding that I also have to be flexible in my definition of what a friend is.

But gradually, as I spend more time with people around me, the events of life (the planned and the inevitable) happen, and we are together in them. And I find myself beginning to think of this person or that person as "my friend" instead of just "someone I know." It might be washing clothes together, singing and playing music, or crying together at a funeral. But there will be moments where I realize, I'm actually becoming friends with this person.

It's nice. At the same time, I already feel a pang of sadness when I think, "Now, I will be sad to leave this place, too. Because I'll be sad to leave my friends here." That's always the hard part...

But not to turn a good thing (friends) into a melancholy thought (leaving them).

Instead, I'll introduce you to one lady I'm becoming friends with. She is a cheerful and beautiful Fulani lady. Our relationship began when someone told her I was longing to find REAL milk for us to drink, instead of powdered milk. She started coming by our house to sell me bottles of milk from her family's herd of cows. Once we managed to communicate about me wanting fresh milk, as in "milked this morning," rather than the fermented milk they prefer to drink, we had a great business relationship going.

Now, when she comes over, we usually visit for a bit, sometimes over a cup of coffee (with milk in it, of course!) She is teaching me a few phrases in her language, Fulfulde. She smiles all the time, but in general gets this despondent, side-glancing look on her face for photos. It's a cultural thing here, but I really try to overcome it because I like seeing people's natural selves in pictures. I finally got her to smile for a picture...you wouldn't believe how many somber shots there were before I finally got her to show her lovely smile:

before...

after...

See? Doesn't the second photo give you a much better impression of the sweet, fun lady that she is? I know. I have told her I really want to go see her, her family and her cows out where they live. She's told me it is a long way out...apparently wayyyyyy off the beaten path. But she is someone I hope to get to know better, and hopefully continue to have a relationship that grows ever more meaningful as we become part of one another's lives.

Meanwhile, we enjoy the milk. The boys ask me, "Mama, can we have real milk from the cow today?" They too, prefer the real thing. And sometimes we make yogurt...and then yogurt cheese...and then yogurt cheesecake from it...Very nice.