Geocaching
Today Debra and I went Geocaching for the first time. Geocaching is basically a global scavenger hunt involving GPS. A geocache can be hidden by anybody and can contain about anything. You go to www.geocaching.com, find out if there are any geocaches in your area and then use the GPS coordinates to find it. Some are fairly easy to find, others are hidden quite well. We went in search for six geocaches and eventually found four of them. We had a blast and can’t wait to go again! Our favourite was the geocache named ‘Just deVine’. The container was hidden behind – you guessed it – a wall of vines. Even when we realized that it had to be in the vines, it took a few minutes to find the well camouflaged container. Here are a few pics of our finds:
Emmaus’ Birthday Pictures
We had a blast last week celebrating Emmaus’ birthday. Here are a few pics of Emmaus enjoying his very own cake:
Happy Birthday Emmaüs!
Today is Emmaus’ first Birthday! We’re shocked and amazed at how fast his first year of life has gone by, but equally surprised at how much has happened in that short time. Emmaus has lived in four different places in three countries since his birth! To celebrate this milestone Debra made a couple of gorgeous cakes last night. One is for us to eat, the other is for Emmaus to smash all over his face! We will definitely post picture tomorrow of his Emmaus enjoying his very own cake.
Merci Beaucoup
The day before we left we recorded this message from our host, Pastor Samuel that he wanted me to share with our support team back at home. That’s you!!
L’Église d’Enta-Fassa
During the last sunday at our Guinean church before we left I took some video of the service to show our friends and family. The video below contains little clips from the service that I’ve labelled incase it isn’t obvious what is going on. The service usually lasts 3 hours or so and most of the parts in the video were repeated a few times before the morning was over.
Hope you enjoy!
October 2009 Newsletter
We finished this newsletter a few weeks ago but it was delayed because of all the recent activity. We’re really enjoying the time we have right now to catch up on things like this. Hope you enjoy! (Refresh your page if the newsletter image is from our May 2009 newsletter)
Let the Travelling Commence!
I thought that it’d be a long time before I was boarding another
airplane, but here we are again. We have been here in Guinea for
almost three months now. It’s difficult to leave after that amount of
time because we feel like we are just getting started and at the same
time enough time has passed that we are really beginning to form
strong relationships with our Guinean friends and neighbours. It’s
been tough to get the house ready for our departure so soon after
getting everything unpacked. Thankfully, we didn’t have to pack
everything for a big move, but just to protect it from the dust. Most
of our belongings will just be covered with a blanket. We had a ‘thank
you’ dinner on Wednesday for all of our friends who have been so
welcoming and so helpful. We will put up some pics and video of that
next week when we are settled into the land of good internet! The fact
that we are returning soon has definitely made this an easier time of
change. We’ve made sure Canaan understands that we are just going for
a visit and then coming home to his ‘Africa house’ as he calls it. His
bed is here and his toys are here which helps affirm to him that this
is indeed home. He’s happily accepted all of this and is doing quite
well, a little emotional at times but that is to be expected. We leave
at 2:40pm PST and will arrive Saturday afternoon in Los Angeles. I
will try to send twitter and facebook updates while we are travelling
so keep an eye on that.
to represent you in Guinea and can’t wait to come back to continue the
work that God has given us. Thank you for being a part of reaching the
people of Guinea for Jesus Christ. http://www.twitter.com/normc
http://www.facebook.com/norman
Important Announcement
Dear Friends and Family
Greetings from Guinea! Many of you have probably heard about recent events that have taken place in Guinea. On September 28th, a march and rally organized by those in opposition to the current government were held in Conakry. Government security forces responded with force against the assembled crowd, resulting in a large number of deaths and injuries. While there have not been any serious or violent events since September 28th, political and ethnic tensions have risen. Many embassies have sent their personnel home as well as many other missions operating within Guinea. Elections are scheduled for next January and the situation is not likely to improve before that date. We have spent a lot of time watching the situation, talking to our leadership and praying. We did not want to decide to leave out of fear of danger, but to simply do what God wants. After much discussion and prayer we along with our mission and church leadership have decided that it would be wise to leave Guinea for a number of months to monitor the situation before returning early next year. While we are saddened to leave Guinea so soon but want to follow the Lord’s leading in this. We hope to buy tickets in the next day or two and depart as soon as possible (likely in a weeks time). We are buying round trip tickets with a return date of mid February.
Because we will be purchasing round trip tickets, we obviously need to arrive at and depart from same city in North America. Though we are not yet completely sure, it is likely that we will fly into Los Angeles, spend a few weeks there before flying to Canada for six or seven weeks. Mid January we will fly back to California and spend a few more weeks there before boarding a plane mid February for our return to Guinea.
Over the last three months God has allowed us to develop very close relationships with our Guinean neighbours, host family and host church. We are saddened to be leaving them and have seen the sadness on their faces as we shared our news. We encouraged them by reminding them that we will be returning soon. It is hard to leave friends who do not have the choice to leave or not.
Though this is not what we would have ever planned, we are excited to see what God does with this and how He will teach us.
Thank you so much for all of your prayers, encouragement and support! It has been an interesting year as we prepared for our journey to Guinea, have been learning French, battled malaria and dealt with political instability. Please pray for us as we return home for this brief period. Pray also for the country and people of Guinea. We pray for a stable nation that will be receptive to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We hope to see you soon!
In Summary:
• We will be leaving Guinea in the next week or so.
• We will spend time in California and Canada.
• We plan to be returning to Guinea in February, 2010.
• We need to be praying for the nation of Guinea.
• We are still active missionaries and members of New Tribes Mission and the field of Guinea, West Africa.
Merci Beaucoup!
Guinean Wedding Crashers
Last Saturday we had the opportunity to visit no less than TWO Guinean
weddings. The funniest part was that we didn’t know the bride and
groom at either wedding. We went with our pastor, Samuel Kondano who
knew the first couple though not the second. I enjoyed the second
wedding much more than the first. The first was trying very hard to
mimic European/Western weddings while the second seemed much more real
and in tune with Guinean culture. The ceremonies were much more
animated than ours are, with people singing and dancing all over the
place. One traditional joke during a wedding is for many people to
come to the front and claim to be already married to bride or claim
some sort of attachment to her. They will bargain for a while and then
finally the family of the groom will have to give money to the people
who came forward. It is just a joke and the amount of money given is
small but everyone gets a good laugh out of it. We are looking forward
to our next Guinean wedding!
Canaan’s Nasty Fall
Two days ago Canaan was pushing around a toy around the living room when suddenly the toy slipped out from infront of him and his face slammed into the tile floor. Blood was flowing and we were certain that he had lost a tooth or two. Thankfully, he still has all his teeth, albeit a few wiggly ones now. His gums are pretty torn up too but it looks like everything will heal up. We will keep an eye on the loose ones and see how they do. Below is a video of Canaan the morning after the accident a long with a link to some pictures. And no, don’t ask me how long it took to upload a video with my ‘dial up at quarter speed’ internet!
Welcome to the Copeland Ramblings. Explore our site to learn more about us and our ministry with NTM in West Africa
