Christmas Gift

I am the type of person who gets overly excited when I get someone a gift or if someone tells me they got me a gift. I have gotten better, but too many times I guess what my husband got me and he is learning to be trickier. I also tend to want to give it early, whither its birthdays or a holiday. So Christmas has been painful for me because my husband loves to wait to Christmas day to exchange gifts. We went to his parents for Christmas and normally we do our own Christmas gift exchange beforehand. He asked me to wait and we could do all gifts together.
Now let me just stop and bunny trail here for a minute to explain myself. My family is split 3 ways plus being married and friends Christmas is more like a 2 week celebration for me or Hanukkah.
This year I knew I got him an amazing gift, I got him a board game that he has been talking about for like a year. Well I bought it, like a good wife. Every time he asked me what game I wanted to play I wanted to hand him his gift. Christmas day comes and Mark is thrilled. As soon as possible we start trying to put the game together and read the instructions. Now we are minor game geeks, but I did not realize Mark had never played this game. We sat for at least 2 hours (not lying) trying to read the instructions. Now we are both literate and it was written in English. We could not figure the game out. To the point of frustration and we gave up.
Currently there are 340 Million people who do not have Gods word in their own language (www.wycliffe.org) I think Mark and I had a small taste of what it is like to read something and not understand. I was so excited to share this Gift and Mark was so thrilled to receive it; only to realize the complexity and feeling like we couldn’t understand the language. Now I have some training in Spanish and Russian. If you were to hand me the Gospel in either my understanding of God would be horrible limited and frustrating. So give thanks to God for former missionaries who translated your bible into English, and praise for the translation work going on now to give people a gift of His Holy Word. Pray for the continued work that people can hear and read God written word in their own language.

Where are we at?

We still need around 550 a month in pledges to purchase plan tickets and buy visas.
We have several of verbal commitments for monthly pledges, and they are behind of processing our donations. So we haven't had a lot of clarity on donations lately thus the gap in information. We have all the money we need to buy tickets and starter money but we still need to fill the gap in monthly pledges.

with love
from us

Update on where we are with Fundraising

Update on where we are at with pledges: As of current we need approximately $700 more pledged a month for us to book plane tickets and set a date. We would need this by the end of the week to make our goal of leaving by the end of November. Sometimes that number sounds small other days it’s a large wall with no entry. We thank you so much for all the prayers and words of encouragement we receive so much of.
Next week we will put out another financial report of our donations.
If you would like to give go to www.wycliffeassociates.org/links/donatenow. Put any part of the name (Janowiak or Mark and Leah) into the search box to pull up our name and click search. Enter your gift amount and click on the Add to Gift Cart button. Next click on the Continue to Check Out button on upper right. You will have the ability to set up the amount, date, frequency, and method of giving.

Info on Cameroon

Here is some basic info that Wycliffe gave us on Cameroon:
SERVING IN CAMEROON
The Land and Its People
Cameroon is located in Western Africa along the Atlantic coast just above the equator. It covers an area slightly larger than California. The climate varies with terrain, from tropical along the coast to semiarid and hot in the north. Cameroon is often called "Africa in miniature" because of its geological and cultural diversity. Natural features include beaches, deserts, mountains, rainforests, and savannas. The highest point is on Mt. Cameroon, a 13,435-foot, active volcano.More than half of Cameroon’s population of almost 19 million lives in urban areas. About 40 percent of the people are Christian. The rest follow other religions or indigenous beliefs.
Official languages are English and French, but there are 24 major African language groupsin Cameroon.Cameroon enjoys relatively high political and social stability. It also has a more prosperous economy than most of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa, exporting raw materials such as oil and timber, as well as abundant agricultural products including coffee, cotton and cocoa.

Bible Translation Needs
The stability in Cameroon makes it an ideal location to support and prepare translators and translation teams for work among the many language groups of West Africa. One example of that support is the Cameroon Rain Forest International School (RFIS), which was founded in 1991 to help meet the educational needs of missionary families. In the beginning, the school served 19 students. Now there are about 125 children attending, and the school building, which was to be a temporary facility, is bursting at the seams and needs some serious improvements.
Wycliffe Associates volunteers are constructing a new facility for the children of our translators. This new facility is desperately needed to ensure that the children receive a quality education in a safe environment while allowing parents to focus on their translation projects, which can take 10 to 20 years to complete. Are you interested in volunteer work overseas? If so, you can help make this happen!

THINGS TO CONSIDER
Considerations When Traveling to Cameroon
Things to Remember When Choosing Items to Bring
Cameroon has rainy and dry seasons, and both can be extreme. The weather may be unpredictable in some parts of the country. You should bring boots and an umbrella and/or rain gear, especially if visiting during the wet season. A rugged flashlight is also important. Bring good sunscreen and a cool hat with a brim for protection from the tropical sun. If you bring a digital camera, bring sufficient storage for your photos, and consider a method to back up your data in case something happens to the camera. Electrical current in Cameroon is 220-240 volt and 50Hz.

Status on where we are

In hoping to be as transparent as possible through our fundraising process below you will find our current financial status.

Pre Trip Costs: $3,400 (depending on cost of plane tickets)
Pre Trip Projected Raised: $3,266 (Based on current monthly donations)
Pre Trip Still Needed: $134

Monthly Support Costs: $2,200
Monthly Support Pledged: $1,265.5
Monthly Support Needed: $934.50

As you see we are still looking for more people to begin support before we can purchase plane tickets and visas and all together still looking for 29 people to support us or pledge $30 a month and we will be fully supported. Our goal is still to be fully funded by October and leave for Cameroon in November. If you’re able to support with less than $30 per month that is perfectly fine, we have just been using $30 per month as measuring unit. As a reminder, Wycliffe needs to see a couple of months before we leave to near our support goal so we can purchase our flight tickets and visas. If you prefer to begin supporting us once we leave for Cameroon please reach out to mrjanowiak@gmail.com or gracebyfaith@aim.com so we know what is being pledged and how often you plan on pledging that amount as we are unable to leave until our support is pledged or monthly amounts are coming in.

Official Invite to Cameroon

This afternoon Leah and I received some great news, that we are officially invited to Cameroon. The site at Cameroon has had our resumes for the last week or so and have been going over the positions that we applied for. Both our positions in Cameroon are through Wycliffe Associates, but specifically with the Rain Forest International School (school for missionary kids). I was seeking the Network Manager position and Leah was seeking to be a librarian or a tutor. I have claimed the Network Manager position and Leah was invited to be a librarian. We have been praying for God to grant us an invite from Cameroon and it is encouraging to see that the door has been fully opened!

Next for the both of us is to begin the process of putting together our initial prayer and support letter in which we will be sending out to friends and family. We also are looking to pull together a distribution list of email addresses for those that want to follow our blog postings and have a more updated way to pray for specific needs and as we are over in Africa to keep all of our friends, family, and supporters up-to-date as to our daily lives in Cameroon.

We hope that those interested will begin to send their email addresses to thejanowiaks@gmail.com

Peace and Love in Christ

Mark J