Mark and Jessica Spangler

When I started my day early this morning, I thought it was going to be fairly easy and routine. I was just going to fly some doctors to a clinic, then go pick up the Director of a partner organization and take him to a meeting, then go back to get the doctors and get them home.

Well, I made it to the clinic with the doctors, early even, it was a good start. I then made it to pick up the director, this is when the plans started changing.

Once he got in the helicopter he mentioned he needed to visit his sister in the hospital in a town along the way. I said, ” Ok, I will get some gas and then come back for you.”

So I dropped him off, went and got gas, and then came back. Then he mentioned that he only wanted to stay in the town I am dropping him at for 2 hours instead of for the night. This is when it started getting interesting for me. Staying in one place and watching the clouds grow during rainy season is a bit nerve-racking as a pilot. I was going to be in the place where the weather always seems to start building and just had to wait until his meeting was over. I did it, but it wasn’t easy. About an hour and a half in to waiting I had to text him to ask him to come early so we could leave. I was hearing thunder is the distance. So he came back to the helicopter and we took off back to the south.

The clouds had built so I only had a couple of options to get over a ridgeline to go south. Thankfully, God left one hole in the clouds for me this time, so I get through and back to where I was headed.

After this I got the doctors back where they belong, and I made it back to my home as well.

Nothing today was extra dangerous, or challenging, it was just typical. Even all the changes is kind of typical. I think that is what I love most about working and serving here. There is no such thing as typical. Things are constantly changing and I get to constantly be adapt to serve others who are serving even more people. I feel honored and blessed to be serving in Cameroon.

Mark

Summer break around here is also known as rainy season.  While the kids help me out in the garden in the mornings and play with friends in the afternoons no matter what time of day when the rain comes they are off to the slip n slide.

My friend Eunice and I along with some others teach the youngest children in Sunday School. Here are some few pictures from one Sunday. We really enjoy seeing these kids learn and grow.

We had been teaching on creation.

This is all the Sunday School teachers at the time minus our fearless leader who was taking the picture.

This is the two classes. We shared this small space and the two groups faced out so they wouldn’t be distracted by the other group.

These two are so smart and have great parents who love The Lord. I enjoy watching them learn and grow and will continue to enjoy watching them grow up.

It has been too long since I’ve updated my blog. Time to get with the program. Let me start with a post about Mark’s birthday dinner and birthday present. I had a stone fire pit made on the mountainside behind our house. This was his birthday gift. Probably the best one I’ve ever given him :).
We live on a mountainside that overlooks the valley below. The weather is almost always cool in the evenings. This is perfect for year round fires in our fire pit. Mark also bought a grill a while back. It it supported by a stake and can swivel back and forth over a fire or hot coals. It has been so long since we’ve been able to grill out. This is an exciting addition to our lives here!
So last night we ate four steaks we brought in from ten capital city along with a chicken that Mark cut up and marinaded to grill. There were the six of us and three friends over. The meat was so delicious! None of us have had grilled meat in so long. We just ate and ate without even touching much of the side dishes. We laughed as the kids just devoured the meat because the past few years they haven’t mad many opportunities to just eat meat. We really enjoyed it. I hope to be able to do that a couple times a year from now on. It only takes four of five months to fatten a chicken. I could name it BBQ.
After we ate dinner and cake we went back up to the fire and enjoyed a nice quiet time overlooking our small town spares with lights. The moon was high and filling out so we didn’t even need our flashlights to walk the trial back to the house. As we were putting out the fire to go watch Germany trash Brazil in the World Cup, we heard a horrible screeching noise. The others just ignored it but I was a bit worried. It sounded unnatural! Not only is our house seated on a mountainside but it is surrounded by thick wilderness just outside the small hedge that surrounds our yard and small farms. At times there are mysterious animal prints or food missing from our garden that the wilderness is blamed for.
The strange screech came again and this time the others heard it loud and clear. I just knew it was a dinosaur swooping towards us. It was surely a pterodactyl and we were going to be his dinner. Ok, so obviously I wasn’t eaten by a dinosaur but you can never be too sure these days. Anyways, I’m sure most people haven’t made it this far in my birthday ramblings. The point is, we had a great time with our new fireside and we didn’t get eaten by a dinosaur. Happy Birthday Mark. Way to get old!

As we crested the top of the hill to come down the other side we were faced with a big truck driving in the middle of a not so wide road with sloped sides and ditches on either side. Mark hit the breaks and tried to maneuver around in the few seconds we had before a head on collision we would surely lose. The loose dirt and sloped sides on the road did not help. He barely missed us as we went sliding into the ditch. We hit the wall of dirt on the other side of the ditch with much force. I was shocked we were okay and also stunned that we didn’t flip until I realized we were saved by the dirt wall.
We had already had a much too eventful drive including a pulley from our A/C falling off of our truck never to be seen again. We were on the roads with many crazy, speeding, swerving drivers trying to get somewhere in a hurry on bad roads for the holidays. We had been stopped at a police checkpoint. We had to wait for so many passing herds of cows that I thought there must be a cow Christmas party somewhere. I have not experienced driving craziness quite like today. I could go on.
This my friends is just a small sampling of what one deals with when traveling here. This my friends is what you should be thinking of when praying for your friends who live and travel in underdeveloped countries. But, let me tell you, our truck has come home in worse shape. So, we really did receive “journey mercies” from The Lord.
When you play chicken with a BIG heavy truck on a small dirt road and come out alive. It is a good day. Here are some pictures to help tell our story.

Somehow I had the sense to take a few pictures. This was my view.

I climbed over Micah and out of the car. It wasn’t nearly as easy as one might think to hoist yourself out of the car.

The bank kept us from rolling over for sure. We carry straps so Mark asked the nervous truck driver to help pull us out.

So then, this is Zoe looking awfully cute. She was hanging out at the airstrip when this photo was taken.

This is our church, worshipping under our new roof. We are currently digging to extend it about twenty feet.

These are the men who helped deliver Ali and Zoe’s new bed. It is a double full bunk bed. We can easily sleep a family or all our kids in here and do so often as people are passing through.

This is Ali with her bible study girls.

More of them. This is our classroom.

When friends pass through the airstrip we like to head up there as a family to see them all. This day was such a day.

Everyone is standing around as Mark puts in the last of the bags.

Trying to be artistic here. The sky seemed huge and beautiful.

The kids are the little dots at the top of the hill/runway. They were playing and enjoying each other oblivious that we are screaming their names to come back so that one of them can get loaded up.

The helicopter is taking off and gaining speed, right past out truck.

Here the kids who are left and playing and enjoying themselves in the hangar. Good friends. Good memories.

This was the kids first day of school with their friends in Yaounde. We go there twice a year to do school and lots of fun projects with the other homeschooler and such.

Red dirt and tropical foliage. We live in Africa! Here is our new family photo.

I love my family! I am so blessed.

This is our first mother hen and her chicks. I’m sure I’ve posted plenty about chickens cause they are so interesting. These little ones were a delight to watch.

This is Mark posing in front of a mammoth sunflower. It grew way out of this picture and had a huge head of seeds for us. If I have a picture it will get posted later. I have more growing in my garden behind the house right now. We could see this grow from our dinning room table.

I surprise Mark with five coffee plants for his birthday. Here he is touching one so you can see it in the photo. We won’t get coffee for five years. These may have died. We will try again and again if we have to. Maybe fifteen next time.

These are evil army ants. What makes them so evil is that they will crawl up your body, back arms and be all over you before they all start biting. They bite and walk and bite and walk. There pinchers are huge. They also make what looks like a highway. I posted a picture about a year ago of one of these highways. This is on our patio. Oh no!

This is a picture of me weeding in my garden. I love to get out there even in the rain and mud. There is something to say about gardening. It is therapeutic.

We happen to live in one of the most beautiful countries on earth. And the joys of being here is that we have lots of extended family. Two such families made such a memorable birthday for our dear Ali. She and her friend K happen to have birthdays just days apart. So her friend and friends mom and I took our 4×4 truck about thirty minutes down a muddy, slippery, bumpy, windy road to some other folks that live on a ranch. We saw their gorgeous cows. These looks nothing like the cows they breed and eat here. There were lots of baby calves so we couldn’t go to near. Also, we checked out their chickens, donkey, horse and veggie garden. They fed us and even made the girls a cake. It was such a memorable day and we even got to ride on the horse. The girls took turns for ever.