Another week full of excitement: My first request to perform a baptism, visits with dignitaries, a chief (king) attends church, a dead baby buried in a cardboard box, and numerous other cultural experiences.
I baptized Noah Patrick Francky on Saturday and confirmed him Sunday! We met him the day we arrived in Cameroon at which time
Sister Cook, the mission president’s wife, gave him a brochure with our phone
number. He called us 2 weeks later and
started taking lessons. He’s a great
young man of 27 years and bore his testimony in church after his confirmation.
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| Noah's Baptism |
This was transfers week with 3 of our 8 Elders
leaving. Another is changing districts
and another goes home next week. We had
a nice end-of-mission farewell party for Elder Baker with dinner and a great
testimony meeting. Fortunately, all of
the flights and bus trips went fairly smoothly.
However, security at the airport has been tightened in the war on the
Boko Haram terrorist organization. Only
people actually flying were allowed past the parking lot. Fortunately, Sister Coleman was able to get
in and help our departing Elders, because one had overweight luggage and no
money to pay for it. Next time we might
not be so lucky.
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| End-of-Mission Farewell Party for Elder Baker |
One morning when I went for my usual run I encountered a
group of about 20 soldiers running the same direction. They motioned for me to join in the middle,
so I did and ran about 6 miles.
They were singing some kind of African cadence in a language that I didn’t
know but I tried to sing along. Of
course, all traffic stopped for them.
That was fun. I had to turn
around when they entered their base but they said they do that twice a week so
maybe I’ll catch them again.
We went shopping in Marché Congo and had to pay a bribe
when we found that we had parked in front of an unmarked gate. The guy showed his ID and said it would cost
us $240 but he would settle for $140. I
held out for $32, which was what I had handy, and he finally gave in and took
it. I probably could have talked him
down further, but you never know. He
seemed to not care about my Commandant card, probably because he worked for
parking enforcement, a different department.
Later, we got stopped for taking a phone call while
driving. That time my Get-Out-of-Jail-Free
card worked and he let us off with a warning.
On Wednesday another crisis erupted. Our Bonaberi meetinghouse rent check bounced
and the landlord came demanding a new check.
I explained that the bank had called the District President to verify
the check but he didn’t have the check number and amount handy, and if he
resubmitted the check it would clear, but he wouldn’t believe it. He ranted for a while. I drove him to his bank where the manager
said not to worry, that happened all of the time. I paid the $40 fee to resubmit the check and
he was satisfied. Then he told me that
he is the chief (king) of all of Bonaberi.
That explained how he was able to gain entry to the bank after
hours. It doesn’t explain why he is so
ignorant of banking.
We were thrilled at piano lessons in Douala when the
commandant showed up to learn. Sister
Coleman taught him and the other students while I attended the branch council
meeting.
The Douala Branch council meeting lasted almost 3 hours and
included lively debates which ignored Robert’s Rules of Order. President Nkong tried to keep the Spirit and
keep the group focused but the group seemed too inexperienced in this type of
meeting.
The Dims invited us to chat at lunchtime and served a
fancy lunch of pork, flavored rice, manioc, rolls and sodas. Then the Hyppolites showed up and joined
in. A lively discussion ensued about all
of the things previous missionary couples had done and what we could do to
advance the work. It was very
informative but puzzling that nobody at the table asked for our input on what
we should do. I told Romeo on the way to
the car that we don’t care about “making our mark,” just following the
Spirit.
Earlier, I asked Romeo privately what he thought we could
do to combat superstition in the Church.
That went nowhere because he believes in it. Since he spent many years in France and seems
European in many ways I thought he would be more logical about it. All of the Christian churches in Africa have
been fighting the practice of “magic” here with little success.
Bonaberi piano lessons (11 students) were followed by a
meeting with Frère Totto at his restaurant.
Two years ago he found himself out of work so he taught himself to
bake. Now he bakes rolls, beignets, and
other small breads in a large dutch oven over a wood fire in a wooden shed next
to his wooden house. (Danger, Will
Robinson, Danger!) His wife makes crêpes
and other food in a tiny rustic restaurant.
They served us ham sandwiches and crepes, which tasted exceptionally
good. They were closed so we bought all
of the breads they had left ($1.80) for our breakfast. Their industry and entrepreneurship is
impressive.
Our neighbor, the village chief Majesté Tchachoua took us
out to lunch and asked how to join our church.
I told him that it wasn’t easy.
We don’t baptize people unless they understand the gospel, have a
testimony from God, and are truly willing to follow Christ and show it through
making and keeping commitments. He said
later that he was really impressed by that, because Cameroonians seldom know
how to keep commitments. He said that he
wants to help our church. He drove us to
the meetinghouse so he could see it and said that he would come to church on
Sunday. At the moment we arrived the
branch president came out of a meeting and we had a great visit with the king,
the princess, a prince, the branch president, the clerk, and 4 missionaries who
showed up. I am awestruck by the Lord’s
planning.
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| Restaurant where we ate with Chief |
Majesté Tchachoua said that he was going to introduce us
to a lot of important people. True to
his word, he arranged a meeting with Honorable Maître Fotso Kamdem Fostine, a congresswoman
in the national assembly, at her home.
Just after we sat down in her living room she got a call. Her hairdresser had just done her hair and
gone home to find one of her twin babies dead.
So we jumped into the car with the congresswoman and the village chief,
and Prince Frank drove us to the hairdresser’s house.
We went in to the very humble home and were offered a
seat on the sofa. The electricity was
out and it was dark so I almost sat on the dead baby.
She was 7 weeks old and beautiful, looking like she was asleep, but her
skin was too cool to be alive. We waited
10 minutes while Maitre Fostine took her to the hospital to be officially
pronounced dead of unknown infection.
When they got back I was invited to say a prayer. Then we drove 3 blocks to the cemetery, another
pastor said a prayer, and we buried her.
It was about 3 hours after death.
She was dressed in a sleeper, wrapped in a sheet, and buried in a
cardboard box in a small hole about 3 feet deep. Two men with shovels did the digging and when
the grave was covered they marked it with a few chunks of cement that they
found. The family is very poor.
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| Congresswoman handing dead baby to pastor |
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| Placing baby in cardboard box for burial |
We returned from the burial to the congresswoman’s house
and met her husband, Lucas Fotso, an electrical engineer. We visited for a while, presented them with a
copy of the Book of Mormon and testified of its truth. Then they served us dinner with koki (kind of a spicy bean loaf), kidney
chunks, rice, fish, and pineapple. It
was all good, although we didn’t have room for the fish.
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| L-R: Prince Frank, Congresswoman, Chief, Sister Coleman, Lucas |
They asked what the church does to help others, so I told
them about some of the welfare projects that we do in Africa, and that we are
currently looking for something similar to do in Cameroon. We had a good time talking about their kids,
our big bike ride, missionary work, Cameroon, and public service. They found it incredible that we walked in
just at the moment we were needed to comfort the grieving mother. They asked for another copy of the Book
of Mormon so they could each study it, and we brought it the next day.
After Prince Frank drove us home he asked if we could
talk about him going to study electronics in America. I gave him our number and said we can get
together sometime. Later we made a Monday appointment.
True to his word, the chief and prince showed up for Fast
& Testimony meeting in his traditional robe and cap and carrying his scepter. It was a good meeting although it went 45
minutes overtime to get all of the testimonies in. The chief said that it was good and he felt
edified. He also said that he wanted to
bear his testimony about our arriving just in time to comfort the grieving
mother, but there wasn’t enough time in the meeting, so he would have to do
that next month. Two new members were
confirmed, a newly returned missionary (Elder Njampou) bore his testimony, the
spirit was there, the meeting was nearly full, and everyone socialized for a
long time afterward.
We’re now wondering what the Lord will do next? Is it possible for a village chief to join
the church in this society? It is still
a long ways off but we don’t know the answer.
Since Sister Coleman is officially Sister Alvine’s
maraine, she was asked to organize a combined choir for Alvine’s wedding. We piled almost the whole Douala Branch choir
into our truck after church and drove to Bonaberi. Then we rehearsed for over an hour. When we finished, it was about 3:15, everyone
had been at church since 9:00, it was fast Sunday, and nobody was inclined to
go home. Africans love to socialize and
never seem to be in a hurry.
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| Choir members in the back of our pickup truck |
Among our other little joys:
We helped a non-member mother contact her son who is
serving a mission in the Ivory Coast.
She came 3 hours from her village to find us at the church and ask for
help, since she hadn’t heard from him in a year. It was such a joy when she called and said
that he had called her.
We love this mission!
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