Ha’b’ba gertogal towta poola (Tie up a chicken, come back and find a dove), by Kory and Cara Fay

Here is your chance to follow LBT missionaries as they arrive in the field for the very first time! Kory and Cara Fay will have a translation ministry among the Nizaa people of Cameroon. They arrived in country back in February and have recently sent us accounts of their first days.

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 don’t 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 fellow LBT missionaries Martin and Joan Weber’s village to our own village and then on to Ngaoundéré, but Cara and the children were very road-weary after our long drive to the Weber’s 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 Ngaoundéré. Cara and the children have yet to see Galim because, until our house is ready, there isn’t 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 Ngaoundéré 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 Ngaoundéré, 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.

Visit us again next Wednesday for more first impressions from the Fays. If you would like to follow them even more closely, check out their blog: Fay Footprints.