Volume 4, Issue 2

May 2011
If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one anothers feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. John 13:14-15

FAY FOOTPRINTS
Lutheran Bible Translators

Habba gertogal towta poola Tie up a chicken, come back and find a dove
The above proverb is one of hundreds in Fulfulde, which is the market language in our area of Cameroon. The gist of the meaning is that circumstances dont always live up to our expectations. In this case, something useful (a chicken for eating) turned into something beautiful but not nourishing (a dove). Before coming to Cameroon, we had many expectations about what would happen and what our lives would be like. Some things have gone as expected, other things have not. Our first two weeks here were especially difficult for a variety of reasons. We had planned on driving from the Webers village to our own village and then on to Ngaoundr, but Cara and the children were very road-weary after our long drive to the Webers village. We decided that Kory would follow Martin in our truck for another long drive while the rest of the family would stay a few extra days and then take a small plane to meet them in Ngaoundr. Cara and the children have yet to see Galim because, until our house is ready, there isnt really a child-friendly place to stay. It was a true blessing to spend five weeks in the same place, establish a routine, and unpack a few of our things. We will be going to Ngaoundr once every month or two to get supplies so it was very beneficial to spend some extended time there. Another expectation we had was that Kory would help with the repairs on our house in Galim while Cara and the kids stayed in Ngaoundr, but when we found out that Ron Nelson would be in town for a few weeks and he was willing to teach both of us Fulfulde, we decided that it would be wise to spend as much time as we could with him. Ron is a retired missionary/pastor/electrical engineer who has spent over 50 years in Cameroon and speaks Fulfulde better than many Cameroonians. Kory, Cara, and Kye spent a few hours each morning with Ron while the Webers took turns watching the older two children.

Hidden Treasures: He provides!

One of the biggest challenges for Cara, upon arriving, was lighting a gas oven. It involves throwing a lit match into a tiny hole and praying that it ignites the gas but doesnt singe your arm hair. When we went to look at ovens, the top priority was to try to find one that would be easy to light. Imagine everyones surprise when we got to the store and all that they had for sale were automatically lighting: no need for matches! The very same day of discovering the ovens, Kory received two of his own gifts from above. Both were found in the large containers that were storing many things, including some crates we had shipped by sea. First were 10 brand new copies of the only Fulfulde language learning textbook in existence and audio tapes to accompany them. It was previously thought that there were only 2 copies (and no tapes) and that we wouldnt be able to take either of them with us to study after Ron left the country. We are thankful for this resource because there is still much to learn! The second blessing was key in giving us our water supply. Figuring out how to set up running water in our village house has been quite the challenge. We had talked over several different options and finally decided to have our supervisor bring with him a water pump from Canada so that we could set it up when he arrived in May. Imagine Korys surprise when, next to the textbooks, was a brand new pump of the exact model we were going to order! We have an awesome God.

To a soobri bee waandu sawru ma daggataa dow lekki.

If you make friends with a monkey, your staff will not get stuck up a tree.
This proverb means that if you are friends with the right people, your project will go smoothly. In English, we say the same thing when we say its not what you know but who you know! This is very true here in Cameroon! We have been very blessed by many people weve met here. Other than the people weve already mentioned in this prayer letter, another group of people that has been a true blessing to us are the workers who have been in Galim fixing up our house. Martin Weber, along with a group of 5+ Cameroonian men of varying expertise, have been working hard to make our house liveable. After praying, we felt God leading us to choose the house further away from the Nizaa quarter because the house in the quarter needed too many repairs and was outside of our budget. Since making that decision, we have found that there are a few Nizaa who live very close to the house and are excited to speak their language with us. Our furniture and many of our belongings are already there. Our solar panels are set-up, the bats have been kicked out of the ceiling, the windows and locks have been replaced, most of the rooms have been white-washed, and so-on. After making sure the electrical wiring and the pipes are functioning the way they need to be, we will move in, probably in the first week of June. We praise God that through a few unexpected detours and challenges, these men have worked very hard and done great work on our house. We have spent much of the money in our household set-up fund on most of our furniture, setting up solar powered electricity, and various repairs. We are realizing that we need about $2,500 extra to buy curtains, a double bed, a stove/oven, dishes, flatware, glassware, cleaning supplies, floor mats, and few larger kitchen items that we didnt ship (like a pot to boil diapers and a tea kettle). We are going ahead and buying these items using our own savings because we believe they are needs and not wants, but if you feel so led, please consider giving toward our Household set up fund (by designating gifts Fay Household Set-up). Left: Kory, Martin, and several of the movers on the day we moved our furniture to the village; Above: The electrician, Mr. Bopa, soldering some wire using a candle.

Whats In A Name
Below is an excerpt from a post on our blog, where we have much more space to share stories about life here. You can now sign up to receive email updates when a new post is added by typing in your email address in the box located in the upper left hand corner at http://fayfootprints.blogspot.com Like most parents, we put a lot of thought into naming our children. For Kye, in particular, we prayed quite a bit over the boy's name because we really loved the name Josiah but really felt drawn toward the name Hezekiah (largely because of the meaning the Lord is my strength and what God was teaching us during that pregnancy). We wanted to shorten it since it is four syllables. We liked the sound of "Kye" and spelled "Chai" in Hebrew it means life. We looked online to see if we could find the meaning in Fulfulde but couldn't find anything. I thought it sounded pretty African and I guess I was right. It means "love" in Yoruba, a language in Nigeria (bordering Cameroon). Unfortunately, we found out upon arrival that "kay" (pronounced the same as Kye) has a not-so-good meaning in Fulfulde (which is spoken in this area by many). It means "no way!" and is used in the market to turn down an offer. We can't use "kiah" either because that is a more vulgar form of "no way." For the first few weeks here we just decided to ignore the problem. We introduced him as Hezekiah (which sounds very similar to Ezekiel when said with a French accent) or just "the baby". We had called him Kye for 4 months, which may not seem like a long time but to us, that's who he is and we didn't want to change it. (continued on last page)

Clockwise from top right: Sam ready to board a sixseater airplane; Taking time out for lunch just before hitting the dirt roads; One of the many beautiful flowers weve seen; Lucy turns 2; Swimming at the pool in Ngaoundr.

Praise God for the Webers, Ron Nelson, the men doing work on our home, and many others who have helped and taught us during our first three months here. Praise Him for good health and safe travel (but please keep the prayers coming because these are probably some of our greatest hurdles on a day-to-day basis!) Praise God for His provision in our monthly funding and in many other ways, as well! Praise God for all of our wonderful spring birthday celebrations! Since you last heard from us, Kory turned 26, Lucy turned 2, and Sam turned 4. Pray for us as we move in to our house in early June and establish relationships/routines in Galim. Pray for our continued adjustment (lots of flexibility, humility, patience, and wisdom required!) Pray for us as we study Fulfulde and search for language helpers to teach us Nizaa Pray for our relationships with the Lord and with one another. Pray for wisdom in deciding who to hire to help us do laundry and perhaps other household chores so that Cara can have some time to spend learning the language. Pray for wisdom/provision in the area of cooking healthy meals we have learned that there are very few vegetables (if any) available in our village and are looking into ways of getting the nutrients we need. Pray for friendships for all of us children and adults alike. Pray for wisdom in deciding what is essential for our new home and what we can do without. Pray for the needed extra funds to make these purchases.

Pray For Us...

(cont. from p. 2) The issue got even more bleak when we asked our Fulfulde teacher how "Hezekiah" was translated (since they have the full Bible). There are no z's in Fulfulde so it would be Hejikiah- pronounced Hay-jee-keeah. So our teacher jokingly started calling him "hedgie" I couldnt help but laugh when he said it since he's the sweetest old man you'd ever meet, but I sort of wanted to cry thinking that our son's nickname might refer to a bush. After several language sessions, God worked a little miracle to solve our problem. We were reading through the Gospel of John in Fulfulde and stumbled across the word for "a wonderful thing" or "a miracle": kaayefiwol. As soon as we ran across this word, our teacher exclaimed "Hey! Why didn't I think of this before! When you want to say "wow" in amazement, you say 'kaay!' and it refers to the word for miracle! So if you just say his name a little more slowly and lengthen the a sound, you'll be calling him a little miracle." So somehow we went from no good solutions to a pretty awesome meaning AND a very easy way to say it, not much different at all from how we already were saying it. God is good and Kye really is our little miracle... he's become an even easier baby since being here, especially when he sits in with us for Fulfulde lessons :)

Left: A palm tree on palm Sunday; making cream cheese from yogurt Above: The kids ready for an Easter egg hunt with friends we met while in France

A word about monthly support

Praise God for our supporters and His provision in yet another way! Our monthly support has greatly increased since coming to Cameroon and we are now consistently receiving 100% of what we need! We are truly grateful for the part that you have been playing to bring the Word of God to the Nizaa people!

Write to us at: Kory and Cara Fay c/o ELCA mission in Cameroon B.P. 111 Ngaoundr, Cameroon W. Africa kcfay@lbt.org www.fayfootprints.com

Send financial support to: Lutheran Bible Translators P.O. Box 2050 Aurora, IL 60507-2050 (Make checks out to Lutheran Bible Translators and write Fay ministry or Fay household setup on the memo line)

The mission of LBT is to help bring people to faith in Jesus Christ by making the Word of God available to those who do not yet have it in the language of their hearts. For more information on LBT go to www.lbt.org