La Casa De Sinclair | Part 1

Have you ever wondered what a missionary home looks like?  Of course missionary homes across the world are quite different, but how about a home located in the interior of Cameroon? I know that when people think of homes in Africa, they often think of grass-roofed mud huts. And while you will find grass-roofed homes in certain areas of Cameroon, we are surrounded by homes with tin roofs that are constructed of either cement, or mud blocks ...with the latter being most popular due to the low cost.

The search for our home began very shortly after we moved here. We were living with the Needhams and Tom was taking Ben and Matt around the Bamenda area looking for housing.  We had about exhausted all of the possibilities in Bamenda, when one day Tom suggested that they check out the "old Crawford house." What is very interesting (and I might have already told this story...skim past if you've already heard it) is that Ben and I stayed in this very house when we visited Cameroon during our college days and before we were even married.  Former GFA missionary Dale Crawford and his family lived and served here until health problems required them to return to the states. We spent a weekend with the Crawford family to get a glimpse of their ministry. The day that Tom suggested they stop by this house nobody was around. They peeked in the windows and weren't able to actually see anything, so Tom suggested calling the landlady, Susan Tebong.  She informed them that a tenant had recently moved out and she was in the process of fixing up the house to rent it out again!  They arranged a day to view the home with her and on that day Ben made an offer. Evidently she'd already received an offer from some Catholic nuns looking to rent the home, but Ben's offer happened to be higher, so she accepted!

Even though our landlady had painted and cleaned, the house was still in rough shape. I actually came down and cleaned and scrubbed some more before we moved all of our things in over Thanksgiving weekend.   The last tenant had raised pigs and chickens in the house, so you can imagine all of the filth!  It took me a very long time to feel like I was living in my own dirt, and not somebody else's, if you know what I mean! Slowly but surely we worked on the house and it eventually came to feel like home.

It honestly is a continual work in progress.  We are constantly painting and working on home improvement projects. The most recent was to add new doors and screen to the house.  But, I thought it would be a fun blog series to give you a tour of our absolutely gorgeous home. So, today I'm going to start with a diagram of the layout of our house!

I will explain a few things about this (very bright!) diagram. As you can see our house is in a "U" shape.  The courtyard portion is outside. All of the black lines signify the location of doors that enter the interior of the house.  The big black line at the front of our courtyard is actually a large iron gate that we slide open and shut for an extra measure of security. Half of the courtyard (the front half) is covered by a roof.  We have a table, grill, containers for water, etc... all stored out there. The back half of the courtyard that is butting up to the house is mostly open. There is a little garden in that section.  In a future post I will share photos and it will give you a better idea of what I'm talking about.

The "outside laundry/store room"  is the only room that is not connected to the inside portion of the house.  It is kind of like our garage, but without the car! Ben keeps all of his tools in there, and my washer and dryer are in there as well.  I have to go outside the house to do my laundry, but I'm always under a roof, and the gate is locked, so I'm completely safe.  

We have four doors that actually enter the inside of our home.  The kitchen door is the door we primarily use.  The two doors at the back of the courtyard have just been redone.  We added metal doors there and changed the wood doors that were there into screen doors. This is SO nice because I can open up the metal doors during the day and the screen doors allow a breeze to flow through the parlor!  The metal doors are also added security. The door at the front of the parlor is a big double wooden door on the inside. and then a big iron door on the outside.  We recently added screen to the iron door as well, so during the day we open up the big wooden doors. I really love it!

You can't really tell from the diagram, but our house is big.  It is HUGE actually.  I will never forget the first time my mom and the Whitely's visited.  It was time for bed and Kathy asked, "What time does the shuttle leave for the bedrooms."  We still laugh about that. :) Our home is almost 2,400 square feet (not including the courtyard, but including the outside laundry room), with all of that being on one level.  Another thing that makes our home appear so big are the high ceilings. As you can see from the diagram, the parlor is the biggest room. The portion of the parlor that butts up to the office is where we have our big dining room table. One gorgeous feature of the parlor is the (almost) floor to ceiling windows that run down both sides of the outside facing walls.  Our view is breathtaking! During the rainy season you can see a big waterfall flowing down the mountainside from the front picture windows. The side picture windows give you a view over the whole village of Bambili. 

The house was built back in 1976 by the late husband of our landlady, but sadly he died before they were ever able to live in the house. Our landlady has a very unique heritage. Her birth parents are British. However, she was adopted as an infant, and her adoptive mother was British and her adoptive father Argentinian. She spent much of her childhood years in a German boarding school in the country of Argentina. She went to university in the U.S. which is where she met her husband...a Cameroonian.  Susan's many European influences can be seen in the building of this house.  The fact that this house has an inside kitchen with cabinets is one influence as most African homes have outside kitchens.  All of the bedrooms have floor to ceiling built-in closets, which is another feature you don't often see in homes here.

I'm so thankful how God orchestrated events and led us to this home. We are so blessed and I'd love to share this blessing with you. So, please stay tuned, because I'm planning to do a post each week, with pictures, about all of the different rooms in our house, so you can actually "see" where we live.  This will have a couple benefits. One, you will get to see our beautiful home. And two, it will give me a reason to deep clean each room and make it presentable for viewing! :)  

Summer Busyness!

Whew, the last several weeks have been very busy ones. I feel like I can finally sit and relax. Here are all the things we have been up to!

Emma celebrated her birthday near the end of June (the 23rd).  When Ben visited the states in February, I had him bring back some gifts for my girl's birthday.  Missionaries have to really plan ahead like that.  Emma is a horse lover!  So, I planned all things horsey for her birthday. :)  The big, wow gift was the American girl size horse that my mom got her!  She was over-the-moon!

She also got some other horse gifts.  Her birthday fell on a Sunday, so we celebrated after church as a family.  I worked all day Saturday so that we would be ready to just come home and have a party. It actually made that day very relaxing for me since I'd already completed the work!

After Emma's birthday, Faith Ann began the countdown for hers, knowing that it was just a few weeks away. We made a paper chain for her to keep track of how many days she had left until the big day.

While counting down, we managed to keep her busy by hosting our summer Vacation Bible School...referred to as Holiday Bible School here in Cameroon.

The first week we held our HBS in Bamenda. The school where we hosted it last year wasn't an option this year. The big field we used to play all of our games is now occupied by an "up-story" building - as it is referred to here. We didn't plan enough in advance to find another location, so we held it at our church and just played games in the small church yard. The kids didn't seem to mind at all. We had a high of 72 kids on one day. The other days averaged slightly smaller.  It was a great week though.

We rounded it up with a parent's program, but that was a bust unfortunately.  It was raining cats and dogs and while the kids managed to make it out, the parent's didn't want to brave the rain. We had only four parents come. While no parents made any salvation decisions on that night, we did have several kids trust Christ through our program during the week!

During that week of HBS, the Needham family (missionaries that live near us) had a church group of 22 people visiting. After hosting a large group last year, I knew how much work cooking for a group that size actually is, so I offered to prepare a couple of meals for Barb. On Monday of that week, I brought up a huge taco-inspired meal, with a taco casserole, homemade chips, and a huge bowl of cookies. Barb prepared some carrot sticks.  Then on Thursday of that same week, I invited the group down here on the fourth of July and prepared pizza on the grill! Whew - with the visiting group, our family and the Needham family I fed around 35 people.  I was SO tired.  I actually missed our HBS on this day since so much work went into preparing the meal. We had sausage pizza, a salad bar, and brownies and ice cream! Yummy!

One more interesting thing happened this particular week (to add to the already crazy stuff taking place!). Our neighbor, Bless, who is about Drew's age, came up to our gate with a friend. I came out and greeted him and asked him if I could help him with anything. He showed me a bucket that he had in his hands and he told me that he brought me something. I looked down in that bucket and squealed. I quickly ran inside the house and told Drew, "You've got to come outside and see this!"  He was pretty pumped to find the bucket crawling with 6 little, bright-green chameleons!

As of right now, we have 5 of those little chameleons in a cage that we had built.  One escaped out of the bucket and we never did find him. The rest are thriving. We have the neighbor kids help us hunt for grasshoppers to feed them! 

So, after that fun filled week we hosted our next HBS here in Bambili. This was a bit more relaxed as we live in walking distance from our church. We had a good group of kids, with just over 50 being our high on the last day. We also hosted a parent's program again.  Ben and I had already discussed that if this parent's program was a bust again, we just wouldn't do them in the future.  I expected that no parents would attend. O me of little faith!! We had 7 parents come, and it was the first time for 6 of them to enter the doors of our church. Ben presented the gospel at the end of the program, and three people raised their hands. He explained to them right before we dismissed, that if they were serious about accepting Christ they should come and talk to him or me and we could show them from the Bible how to know for sure that heaven is their home. Honestly, I wasn't expecting anyone to speak to us. However, one lady approached me immediately and said, "I was one that raised my hand. I want to know how I can have eternal life."  I sat down with Carine, and showed her from the Bible how she could be saved. She put her faith and trust in Christ alone that night, as did the man Ben was able to meet with.  I walked away from that meeting on cloud nine. I was so sure that nobody would show up...and it was so wonderful to see God prove me wrong!  We decided that from now on, we are doing parent's programs. If only one person hears and understands the gospel, it will be worth it. 

HBS ended on Friday, and on Saturday I spent much of my day preparing for Sunday, because we had another birthday in the family. Faith Ann turned 7 on Sun. the 14th of July. Like Emma's special day, Faith's birthday landed on a Sunday and in order to be prepared I needed to work ahead. I made her cake and made up the pizza dough (she requested Pizza for her birthday). The cake took longer than I'd anticipated, so I didn't get as much accomplished as I would have liked to.  It all worked out in the end. Sunday we came home and I worked on the pizza, while the kids cleaned up the parlor.  We ate our lunch and afterwards we brought out the presents and cake.  

A former Cameroon missionary posted on my facebook post regarding Faith Ann's picture, saying that in Cameroon we don't always have access to a lot of gifts for birthdays, and the cake is part of the gift.  It really is. I have always tried to make my kid's birthdays very special. One of the big parts of our birthday is the cake reveal. They can't wait to see what theme I've picked and what it will look like. Pinterest has given me a lot of great ideas, but for this year fellow missionary and friend, Rachel Barilla, helped out by letting me borrow some of her Wilton cake pans! :) I thought this would definitely streamline the cake making, but honestly these pans are very time consuming!  The form and shape are very helpful in decorating, but all those frosting stars! Whew!

So, that pretty much brings us to the present.  With HBS behind me and the summer beginning to dwindle down, my thoughts are now focusing on school.  I'm anxious to get organized and plan out my school year.  The kids...not so much! haha!

Our next countdown is for our visit with Mimi. She has plans to visit us with the Whitely's some time in October. We can't wait! She is going to be a world traveler this year. My brother and his family are in Costa Rica for language training in preparation to move to Venezuela for full-time missions.  Mom and Dad are visiting them in August.  I doubt I'll ever get my dad out here to see us, though I wish I could. But, after conquering her fears on her first trip here, my Mom makes plans to visit us every term.  If she doesn't come soon, Drew might be taller than her the next time she sees him!

Ndawara Tea Plantation

Until recently, I had no idea that within a couple hour's drive from our house there is an amazing tea plantation enterprise. We live in the "interior" of Cameroon (as some have been known to refer to it).  Booming businesses are not generally what you think of when traveling through the tiny villages and towns in the area where we live.  In fact, beyond Ndop (which is about an hour from our home), the main road is not even paved. I would have never thought it possible to travel beyond the tar road and find a massive and successful tea plantation.  Our friend and fellow missionary, Rosemary, offered to take us up there this past February to tour the Ndawara Plantation. I thought it would be the perfect educational field trip!  

After traveling to the end of the paved road I previously mentioned, we continued on for about 10 more minutes until we came to a faded and dilapidated sign board announcing the entrance to the plantation. If you weren't actually looking for the sign it could easily be missed. In fact, we thought we'd passed it and almost turned around at one point. We took a left at the sign and traveled a very rough and rocky road up the mountain for about 20 minutes or so.  The view was gorgeous as we seemed to climb to the top of the world. I can only imagine what it would have looked like in the rainy season. 

We arrived and set up a tour of the entire operation.  Our guide came out and began to lead us through the factory.  Beyond the buildings full of machines are lush hills, green with the growth of tea leaves. They hire locals to hand pick each tea leaf. They toss the leaves into the handwoven baskets strapped to their backs. The work is incredibly tedious, but I can't help but think of all the jobs it creates for people. I doubt they mind the monotony so long as it puts food on the tables to feed their families.

They collect bags upon bags of tea leaves. The strong tea fragrance fills the factory. By the end of the tour we all smelled of the aroma of tea and had tea dust somewhere on our body!


After they spend their day collecting,  a new set of workers then put the leaves on conveyor belts. The leaves travel slowly around the factory as they are chopped, processed, and dried. Following the belts you can see the leaves change color right before your eyes from a bright green to dark brown.

Once the tea has been thoroughly processed, they package it. They fill large sacks full of loose tea to ship to customers worldwide who will then package it with their own company labels. They also package the tea with the Ndawara company name to be sold right here in Cameroon and possibly other parts of Africa.  I was amazed at the high quality machinery they had here to package and seal their tea. They can fill small bags with loose tea, and we also watched a machine fill individual tea bags for just a cup of tea.

There were a handful of ladies there boxing and packaging the individual tea bags as well as boxing up packages of loose tea. The entire process was really fascinating and we all walked away with a box of Ndawara Tea!

The next part of our tea plantation tour was the kid's absolute favorite. It seems that the owner has been trying to build a small menagerie of animals for his guests to see. This isn't like any ordinary zoo. We are in Africa, and there aren't any strict safety regulations like you would find at a zoo in the states!  We were led to the animals and this is what we saw!
Oh my goodness...is he not cute!?  These little guys were just roaming around. We were all a little timid actually. At the back of my mind was the story of the lady that had her face ripped off by a chimp.  I wanted to go home with all of my body parts on this day. We were told to walk on by them for now as we were led to the back of a large field where all the birds were held.  Gorgeous peacocks and huge Ostriches were wandering around behind a fence.  We were careful of the ostriches too!  They were looking for something to eat and I didn't want it to be our fingers!

This picture just needs a caption!

After the birds, there were a couple of caged monkeys. They were both chained and sitting in the darkness. I felt bad for the little things. I don't think they see the light of day very often.

Then the Boa Constrictors were the last thing in this section of the "zoo". They were very large and very ugly, and I don't think it is even necessary to post a photo. :)  We were all pretty anxious at this point to get back to the adorable Chimps!  

By this point we were kinda warming up to the chimps (all but Faith Ann and Daddy). Kate, Emma and I really wanted to hold one. Daddy said no, however and I can understand his decision. Wild animals are wild and unpredictable. I'd rather go home with my face in tact than say that I was able to hold a chimp for the first time.  We were able to shake Billy's hand at least, and he was trained to make kissing noises when greeting people. It was really cute. The smaller ones were wild and crazy. They kept fighting with each other like a couple of toddlers. It was so funny to watch. 

We stood around and watched these little guys for probably an hour. This was the end of our visit to the Tea Plantation and it was such a full day! We definitely made some wonderful memories and plan to go back again. We now have two incredible places to take our guests when they come to visit us here in Cameroon. I plan on bringing my Mom here when she comes out in October. We also love taking our visitors to the PresPot, which is a pottery place where you can watch them form pieces from scratch out of clay. They explain the entire process of forming and firing the pottery. One day I'll do a post on that - it is pretty amazing!  

So, if you want to see how pottery or tea is made...we are your one stop shop! Come and visit us here in Cameroon! 

From the Missionary Kitchen | Ricotta Cheese

Over the years I have learned some tips and tricks in the missionary kitchen that have been "Aha" moments for me. When we first moved here nearly 9 years ago, my menu was very small. I got so tired of cooking the same things over and over and over again.

People would come and visit and share a trick now and then and my menu grew longer and longer.  One thing was still lacking for me though - and that was cheese. I started out on my cheese making venture by browsing the web. The New England Cheese Company stood out to me, and I ordered a ricotta/mozzarella cheese making kit.  It came with everything I needed to make those two types of cheeses. I decided to attempt ricotta first, since mozzarella seemed a bit trickier of the two.  The first batch looked gorgeous and I longed to make a pan of lasagna with it!  I had no lasagna noodles though...so what's a girl to do? Improvise of course!

When I was newly married I'd once tried my hand at making crepes (I know there is supposed to be a french accent in there somewhere...).  I figured that making crepes was the easiest way to get a noodle type texture for a pan of lasagna rather than attempting to roll out a pasta dough to a paper thin consistency.  The result was actually very tasty! With the addition of my new-found ricotta, the recipe was a hit!  Shortly after that attempt at lasagna, I actually found boxed lasagna noodles in Douala after one of our trips there, so I've never had to make crepes again.  However, if there is ever a shortage of lasagna noodles here in Cameroon, I wouldn't hesitate to try my crepes version again!

The ricotta method was a tiny bit tedious having to keep track of the temperature and adding the certain ingredients at the right time. It was a few years later, that a fellow missionary was visiting and I was talking to her about making ricotta. She told me her method, which is infinitely easier than mine!  I will never look back!

So, I thought I'd quickly share how to make some ricotta cheese in a pinch! Here is what you need:
1 gallon of prepared powdered milk
3 TB white vinegar
Cheesecloth

I have never tried a gallon of processed milk like we would normally buy in the states. We only buy powdered milk here. You could give it a try and at worse you'd be out few bucks, or you could just buy some powdered milk to keep on hand.

Put the gallon of milk (I make it full cream, or whole milk version) in a large pot and turn on the stove.  I let it heat until it is just boiling. Once it is boiling pour in your 3 tablespoons of vinegar and you will see the curd instantly separate from the whey.

I immediately turn off the heat, and then let it sit there for a minute or two. Next, I line a colander with my cheese cloth. Let me quickly stop and talk about the cheesecloth. Make sure you get the finest weave there is otherwise you will lose the majority of your curd down the drain! My cheesecloth is actually called butter muslin and the weave is very fine. I still double it over when draining my cheese just to make sure I don't lose any of my wonderful cheese! I once was out of cheesecloth, and used one of my husbands t-shirts instead!  No worries - it was clean, and it worked like a charm. :)  

Ok, back to cheese making. Once you line your colander with the proper cloth,  pour the curds/whey mixture inside.  Now, I've read about the wonderful things that whey can be used for. Google it and you can learn too. If you want to reserve this miracle liquid, then be sure to drain your cheese into a bowl.  

Once I've drained the majority of liquid from the cheese, I take the corners of my cheese cloth and hang it up. I have a very handy place to do this as it can just drip right down into my drain.

You can let it drain as long as you like. I actually don't drain mine very long, especially when making lasagna. Once it drains a bit, I add my egg, and some parmesan cheese and salt, since it hasn't been salted at all yet.  

I have no idea how much ricotta cheese costs these days, but this is an amazing substitute if you have these ingredients on hand. The price of powdered milk would determine whether you are saving money or not. It is the only option I have since we can't purchase ricotta cheese here.

We are definitely a cheese loving family and the options for purchasing cheese have increased since our first move here. We used to be limited to Edam. Edam is good and I like it, but eating pizza with Edam just isn't the same as mozzarella. We can get Edam as well as Gouda, Swiss, and Mozzarella fairly regularly now. We can also get Cheddar and Feta in the big cities like Douala or Yaounde.  Edam and Gouda are both great substitutes for Cheddar though, so I never buy it.  And even though I can get it in the big city, my next cheese making venture will be one of my favorites...Feta!  I have all of the ingredients I need (purchased from the New England Cheese Making Supply company), I just need to motivate myself to do it.  I'll be sure to let you know how it turns out!

Welcome to Chez Sinclair

Last night we did something pretty crazy and I thought it would be fun to record it in the blogosphere so we could remember it.

The Needham family are fellow missionaries that live about 15 minutes drive from us and they have been a huge blessing to us through the years. In fact, I don't know what we would have done without them! When we first arrived in Cameroon, we lived with them for 2 months while Tom helped Ben look for housing among other things. We have learned SO much from them and to record it all would take a long time! Their family is extremely gifted musically, and their daughters have been teaching my two girls how to play flute and violin.  It has been fun to watch Kate and Emma learn and grow under Sarah and Elizabeth's teaching. They even plan a recital every couple of months. They make it as formal as possible, and we are all encouraged to participate. The last recital, Emma played a flute solo as well as a couple of numbers on her recorder (she is mastering the recorder first since the fingering is similar to the flute). Kate played a few violin specials and I even jumped in with a piano solo.  Here is a little sample of Emma at our last recital.

For all of the hard work the teachers put into teaching our girls, we wanted to do something special for them. And not just for them - but for the entire Needham family since they all deserve our appreciation. So, we invited them to our home for dinner. Not just any normal dinner ... this was a restaurant! Chez Sinclair to be exact. Here was our menu! :)

And here is the back of the menu:

We printed out our menus, and glued them to card stock. Faith Ann met our guests at the front door, and asked, "Welcome to Chez Sinclair. How many are in your party?"  Elizabeth was the first one to enter, and she asked Faith to repeat it a few times before she figured out what was going on. They were then seated in the "waiting area" (we just put our living room furniture in a circle) and then after their places were set, they were led to their seats.  From there the kids passed out the menus and started taking their drink orders.  Ben and I were feverishly working in the kitchen. I was preparing the garden salad while Ben was pouring drinks for the kids to serve to our patrons. After drinks and salads were served the kids got the appetizer orders and began to deliver them. I know that our guests had to repeat their orders several times (Our kids need a little more practice before entering the restaurant business!) but all of the appetizers were served.  While they were eating their appetizers, we began working on the main courses. I worked on grilling the pizzas, while Ben put the fajitas together. We worked together to get the taco salad out. Then I quickly put a couple of pizzas on the grill for the kids, while Ben made up a couple of taco salads for our kids and also made some fajitas for himself. We then joined our guests for dessert! Whew! We were worn out! I had planned on a fancy dessert, but when all was said and done, we just joined them with a pan of brownies and some napkins (since nearly every dish was dirty by then!!!) and ate dessert and visited with them. 

It was a fun evening and so memorable for our kids. They kept commenting on how they felt like this really was a restaurant!  I started preparing food around noon and worked non stop until the Needhams arrived. I didn't think I would get it all ready, but by God's grace I did! I wasn't sure what everyone would actually order. Ben kept telling me, "You know they are all going to get pizza. Why add all of this other stuff to the menu?"  But when all was said and done, every single thing on the menu was ordered by someone. And I had just enough of everything. The only thing left over was pizza dough and sauce, which I'll freeze for a later date! It worked out perfectly!!

And completely unlike a real restaurant, our "patrons" joined me in the kitchen to help me wash the huge MOUND of dishes that had accumulated. It would have taken me a couple of hours to put that kitchen back together. But working as a team it took us about 30 minutes.

I think it was a special treat for the Needham family and I know it was a memorable evening for my own kids. I'm sure they won't soon forget it!

From the Missionary Kitchen

Several people have suggested to me that I should write a cookbook. I've thought about it - actually even signed up for one of those "Write-your-own-book" websites (Lulu I think it was?) and tried to design one several years ago. Not that I am some kind of special cook or anything, but I was thinking it would be a great thing to pass down to my daughters. It might also be helpful to new missionaries who will have to learn to cook all over again in a new country. So...maybe I should do it. Someday. :)

People ask me from time to time for a recipe that I have cooked here or there. When our guests visited us in July, I got lots of recipe requests (which I have failed to respond to...sorry!) and so I thought it might be a good idea to do a post from time to time "from my kitchen." I'm not going to be one of those fancy bloggers who posts professional looking pictures for each step. Although...maybe sometime I might give it a try. But, because I am a busy mommy, especially with school in session (how do I keep up with all these daily grades!?!), it will more than likely be the recipe itself with the instructions on how to follow it.

Speaking of school...we are back in full swing, but I want to save that for another full post once I take our school pictures! Hopefully I can do that next week.

Back to food. Today I had a hankerin' for some chips and queso. Well, since I don't live down the street from Taco Bell, or my favorite Mexican restaurant, Amigos, this meant that I needed to get busy in the kitchen. Denise packed me some Velveeta when she visited in July, and I have been hoarding saving it for a special occasion. Today is a special occasion....after all, it is Friday! "There is no better reason to indulge," I told myself. So I dug out my tortilla recipe. Actually, I have this one memorized, so there really was no digging involved.

2 c. all purpose flour
6 TB butter (You can use margarine, but since that stuff is a molecule away from being plastic...I'd avoid it. Ok, that is actually not true...but it really is much worse for you than butter.)
1 tsp. salt
1/2 c. water

Stir flour and salt together in a mixing bowl. With a pastry blender cut the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. Stir the water in and mix until a smooth dough forms. (I dig my hands in there and mix it up real well. Probably because I like to get messy.) Divide the dough into 8-10 pieces and roll each piece into a ball.

On a floured surface, use a rolling pin to roll each ball of dough into an 8 inch round circle, or as round as you can get it - mine are never perfectly circular. Keep adding flour as needed. It can get very sticky.

Cook your tortilla in an ungreased skillet that has been pre-heated on med.-high heat. Once bubbles begin to form, flip the tortilla and cook for about 30 seconds to one minute on the other side.

Once you have cooked all of your tortillas you will preheat your oven while you prepare your chips. I am not really sure what temperature because I don't have a thermometer on my oven. My oven thermometer is a picture of a small flame...a medium flame...and a large flame. Not exactly precise. I guess I'd start with 350 and see how that works.

Brush each tortilla with some melted butter, sprinkle on some salt, and cut into 8 wedges with a pizza wheel. Place them on an ungreased baking sheet and bake until they are nice and crisp. Not sure on the time either since my oven doesn't have a thermometer. You can tell they are done when they get to be a nice golden brown...or when you touch them they are crispy!

And there you have it - yummy homemade tortilla chips! I didn't cut my tortillas into eighths...only fourths because I was in a hurry. But they will obviously go farther if you cut them into eighths. I enjoyed mine with some melted velveeta queso...but all you need to do is pop the top off a jar of Frito Lay Cheese dip and enjoy!

For some crazy variations, try substituting plain salt with:
Fajita seasoning
Powdered Ranch Dressing Seasoning
Cinnamon/Sugar
Taco Seasoning

Go lite on some of those powdered seasonings as they are very high in sodium, but I've sprinkled McCormick's fajita seasoning on my homemade chips before and they were YUMMY!

Would you like to know another little trick I learned from my field director's wife? If you don't, you can just stop reading here. However, this tip has seriously saved my life. Two little words...Sour Cream. I love sour cream! I don't eat it like soup mind you, but it is such a great ingredient to have for so many things in the kitchen. When we first moved here I was so depressed because Cameroon doesn't sell sour cream. I found a recipe in my Betty Crocker cookbook that said to stir lemon juice into heavy cream. I tried it. It didn't work. I gave up.

When Steve and Martha Anderson visited us the very first time, she told me how to make my own sour cream. I was very skeptical, after having a complete failure with the cream/lemon juice mixture. But, I humored her and put a cup of cream in a glass measuring cup. This time, however, I stirred in 1 Tablespoon of vinegar into the heavy cream. I was stirring and thinking, "Yeah...whatever," when the most amazing thing happened! The cream began to thicken!! I mean really thicken, just like sour cream! And it tasted just like sour cream! My life in our kitchen has never been the same. Thank you Martha. I doubt I have ever said it to you - but you changed my life that day! *grin*

So, if you want to get really adventurous - you can make your own chips and your own sour cream to dip them into! Bon Appetit!

Just had to share

I rushed to church this morning in my usual manner...late (although, here it is referred to as "black man time" ...for real.) I was excited to see what God was going to do on this Lord's day, however. During our family devotions the night before I had specifically prayed that we would see souls saved in Bambili and Bamenda. Much seed has been planted recently, and I was excited to see God give the increase!

I arrived at church and went into the Sunday School room to get my picture cards in order. The song service had already started, and I was so excited to hear Jude leading, "Look and Live" since that was exactly what my story was going to be on! It was almost as if God were orchestrating the events of the morning! (ummm, duh! Of course He was!) :) We have been going through the life of Moses, and today was the lesson on the fiery serpents that God sent because of the Israelite's sin of murmuring, complaining and unbelief. You know the story of course, how God instructed Moses to lift up a brass serpent in the middle of the camp. Anyone who had been bitten by a snake and looked on the brass serpent would live. Of course, we also discussed the passage in John and of Jesus' discussion with Nicodemus and how he referred to this particular story in the Old Testament. (John 3:14) I love this story since it gives way for such a clear presentation of the gospel. The kids were very attentive this morning, as well. I didn't ask for them to bow their heads, or give a show of hands. I simply told them that this was the most important decision they will ever make in their lives. If they were unsure of whether they will spend eternity in heaven or hell, then they needed to come and talk to me. I instructed them that after church was over, I would remain in the children's church room and they could come and talk to me privately. I didn't want to push anyone, but wanted to watch the Spirit work. I could see that a few of the kids were really thinking. We finished our lesson, colored a picture that went along with the story, had a review time and sang a few more songs (Ben was long winded this morning!). Church was finally finished and I dismissed the kids.  I waited...

The room emptied and out, and I waited. Finally one boy (about 8 years old), named Junior, came in and said he wanted to ask me about the lesson. Of course I knew what he meant. I asked him if he knew if he would spend eternity in heaven and he said he didn't know for sure. I asked him if he wanted to know for sure, and he said that he did. So, for the next ten minutes or so, we went through the gospel. The group from Florida that was just here, left a great gospel outline written on the chalk board. It was perfect! We stood in front of the chalk board as I went through each point and read the different scripture verses supporting them. He was ready to accept Christ. The Spirit was obviously at work in his tender heart. So, we sat down, and I prayed for him first. He prayed then. I will admit, when I listen to a prayer I am usually analyzing it. I want to know whether the person I'm counseling truly understood the message of the gospel. A person's prayer is  revealing. Sometimes when someone is finished praying, I'm not always certain they understood everything clearly. But Junior's prayer was the clearest sinner's prayer I have heard! He put his faith and trust in Jesus this morning for his salvation! When he said Amen, I asked him a question. I asked him if he were standing at the gates of heaven, and someone there asked him, "Why should I let you in?" what would he say. His response was, "Because I believe in Jesus!"  It doesn't get much clearer than that!

So, I just had to share. I loved that he had the courage to come back and talk to me. His friends outside the room were waiting for him, but he didn't care. It was so thrilling to see the Spirit at work!