Dear Family and Friends,

We are in Cameroon!!

Those last 24 hours everything went so fast; we got the plane tickets, finished packing and cleaning our room and were on our way to the airport! It still felt unreal until we were actually taking off on the first of 4 flights.

When we arrived Los Angeles another quite unusual thing happened. Jackson was following behind Hope and myself when a man approached him and while putting 100 dollars in his pocket said, here, you will need this money for your trip. Jackson wanted to call for me to come and thank the man, but as quickly as he had come, he had gone. We think he was on the flight with us, but we certainly didn’t talk with him. Just before we had left Kona a friend had also given us 100 dollars for our trip as we were leaving. It is just amazing to see God’s provision continue as we started travelling and that he was using even a stranger to provide for us!

After a 32 hour trip on 4 different airplanes we finally landed in Douala, Cameroon. The connections were smooth and baby Hope was showing us she is a born traveler! In every flight she nursed as we were taking off and landing and then she would fall asleep the rest of the journey. During the Intercontinental flights the crew brought a bassinet for her that they attached to the wall and she slept really comfortably in that.

We spent a good two hours going through baggage claim as unfortunately one of our bags did not arrive. Then we spent another 3 hours driving home with a heavy traffic. So when we arrived at our host home we had dinner around midnight which wasn’t a problem for us (as it’s lunchtime in Kona J), but that was quite a challenge for all our friends waiting for us to give us a warm welcome. We thoroughly enjoyed the Cameroon food of which Jackson had been dreaming, and then we finally went to bed.

Together with baby Hope we are going through the 11 hour time change which means we are all awake very early in the morning and like to enjoy a good series of naps in the day time.

Tomorrow we will be celebrating Hope’s first Easter with the family!

Right now we are enjoying a good time of rest before we will meet all our friends here. Hope is loving the attention she is getting from the two boys in the house here (3 and 7 years old) as well as grandma who is equally enjoying baby Hope!

Looking forward we are planning to travel to Nigeria on the 17th of April and will arrive in the Netherlands end of May!

Blessings,

Jackson, Anneke, Hope