Grandpa's Report

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TOUR TO CAMEROON, AFRICA
December 12, 2005 - January 1, 2006

Tour members: Don and Nancy Miller, Joe and Denny Nkemontoh, and their three children, Dan, Ruth and Paul

Brief History: The country got its name in 1472 when the Portuguese sailors first began making sustained visits to the coastal region. They sailed into the area of what is now known as the Wouri River and named it Rio dos Cameroes (i.e. river of prawns). From that time on, the country has had a variety of names, depending on its political and linguistic history, namely Cameroon (British), Kamerun (German) and Cameroun (French).

The first settlements on Cameroon soil were made by Baptist missionaries. In 1844 the British Foreign Missionary Society secured land in West Cameroon to establish a church and school under the leadership of Joseph Merrick, a freed Jamaican slave of West African parentage. After suffering persecution and expulsion, Alfred Saker, an Englishman, came to the shore at the foot of Mount Cameroon in 1858 to establish the Baptist mission station of Victoria, now Limbe. He is considered to be the founder of the seaport city.

The early 1880s saw a mad rush by European powers for the partition of this part of West Africa. In 1884 Germany made a formal treaty with the African chiefs and began to colonize Cameroon, which lasted thirty years. During this time the country made remarkable progress. Plantations, rail lines, docks, and communication, irrigation and power facilities were established throughout the country, many remnants of which still exist today. We especially enjoyed our tour of the Botanical Garden in Limbe established by the German Colonial Government in 1890. Exotic crops, including coffee, tea, pineapple, coconut, rubber, banana, sugar cane and native species, such as palm oil and native rubber were among the trees/plants studied at the Garden before being planted on commercial plantations in Cameroon. Today, these crops contribute to about 65% of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product), a reminder that it’s not just what we do in a single act, but what we set in motion, that counts. In addition, the German occupation paved the way for the establishment of a strong missionary influence in Cameroon: Presbyterian (1886), Catholic (1894) and Baptist (1897). Though there are numerous church groups in Cameroon today (it seems one at every corner), these three major religious groups are still the most prominent in the country.

World War I brought the German protectorate to an abrupt halt and made Cameroon the bloody battleground for the troops of four nations: France Britain, Belgium and Germany. After the German resistance was broken, all German properties, plantations and assets were seized by the Allies, and the country was divided between the French and the British. Britain took the land in the west bordering Nigeria, amounting to about one-third, and France took the rest. In 1961 Cameroon became an independent country. The main languages spoken are French and English, although there are over a hundred tribal languages.

Some Impressions and Observations: Cameroon is a rich, beautiful and fruitful land. There is an abundance of fruit and a variety of vegetables growing in what some consider being the most fertile soil in the world. In some ways it’s a paradise. The first week we stayed with George Tangye, director of our Samaritan work in Cameroon, at the foot of Mount Cameroon. Every morning we had fresh bananas, plantains, papaya or pineapple right off the trees. There is nothing like it when it’s fresh. Cameroon also has numerous mountains, hills, rivers and plains. There are birds, flowers, trees, shrubs, insects, butterflies and animals of every type. In some ways Cameroon is a microcosm of all of Africa. I love the country. I also love the people. They are warm, expressive, deeply religious, hospitable and gifted. Everywhere we went we were warmly received. Even when we were called “white man” by the children, they seemed to do so with affection.

But Cameroon is also a corrupt country. We were told by Dr. Dennis Palmer, field director of the North American Baptist Conference, that Cameroon could be the recipient of millions of American dollars to fight AIDS, but because it alternately vies for first and second place (with Nigeria) as the most corrupt country in all of Africa, it forfeits the money. The corruption is felt at every level. Most obvious to us traveling throughout the country, was the fact that we were repeatedly stopped (sometimes as many as 15 times in 500 miles) and expected to pay a bribe. Also while driving on the main road from Kumba to Mamfe, we saw beautiful bridges in the forest going to nowhere. When we asked what that was all about, we were told that in the early 90s, the Allies gave tons of money to Cameroon to build a better road system. The agreement was that the Allies would build the bridges and the Cameroon government would build the roads. The bridges were built, but the Cameroon government pocketed the money for the roads, except the stretch of road through the village of a government official. Speaking of roads, I was totally unprepared for the poor state of the roads. During one of our trips on a so-called main road to a major city, we came to a two-foot pothole. We all wanted to get out and take a picture of it, but we hadn’t gone very far when we came to a five-foot hole, and then to a hole so deep we could no longer see the top of the car ahead of us. We finally gave up taking pictures. There was always a deeper hole.

Because of the corruption, there is much poverty. Many people still live from hand to mouth in the most primitive conditions. Yet in some ways the people here are better off than in some other Third World countries, because there is a strong family system in Africa. If you are in dire need, you can always go to an uncle or brother and expect to be cared for. On the other hand, this puts enormous pressure on the family system. One young Cameroonian with whom I spoke said that when he gets married in a couple of months, he will be responsible for three families: his own, that of his mother and father and that of his wife’s. This also creates a spirit of entitlement, which is not healthy. Many a “ne’re-do-well” just bounces from one family member to another. This had implications for us while we were there. We were repeatedly asked for money and various personal items, such as our shoes, camera, clothes and watches. And on more than one occasion we were asked to sponsor someone in school or to take them with us to America. It was difficult to know how to deal with this. One evening we sat around in the village compound of Awing talking with family members about this problem. We thought we had made some progress when at the end of a two-hour discussion, one of the family members said, “Charity begins at home,” implying that we had an obligation to help him.

There is a lot of tension between the French and the British sectors. The English-speaking people feel they never had a fair shake in the beginning. One young man talked about a resistance movement that was mounting in an effort to overthrow the present political system. All of the presidents and prime ministers in the last 40 years have been from the French side. Furthermore, the police are all trained in French academies and when they stop a car, though it’s in the English-speaking sector, they expect the driver to speak French. Over and over again, they harassed our drivers, saying, “Why don’t you speak French?”

AIDS is a huge problem in Cameroon, but a lot of private groups, including the federal government, are beginning to address the problem. Joe’s brother, Phillip, a medical doctor, is a regional medical director. He reported that 5.5% of those tested are HIV positive There are public signs everywhere urging people to come in for testing and to practice safe sex. We were especially impressed with the AIDS Prevention Program sponsored by the Baptist Health Center in Bamenda. In addition to testing and efforts at prevention, they have support groups, similar to AA, where people actually come out and identify themselves as having been tested positive. In the process many are given a new lease on life when they realize that “just because you have Aids, you won’t die, if it is caught and treated in time.”

Nancy and I also visited our Good Samaritan Counselor Training Center in Limbe. The center has been operative for about three years now. We were deeply impressed with the quality of training that has been developed. They have two levels of training. The first level deals with inner healing. It is based on the premise that “you can’t take the speck out of someone else’s eye, if you have speck in your own eye.” It deals with such issues as breaking soul ties and generational curses, renouncing witchcraft and ancestral worship, overcoming fear, anger and pride, learning to forgive others and dealing with attachment disorders. The second level has to do with counselor training. There are about 40-50 people involved in their training programs, both men and women of all denominational groups. It’s a top-quality program, perhaps one of the most unique in all of Cameroon. In one of the sharing sessions we constantly heard people testify that they had been believers for many years, but it was not until they entered the Samaritan training program that they found freedom and deliverance. Nancy and I did a seminar on learning to live in the Kingdom of God as opposed to the Kingdom of darkness. Our teaching is called “The Trinity Model,” which is based on developing and cultivating an experiential relationship with the entire Godhead: God, the Father, (the love of God), God, the Son (the Word of God) and God, the Holy Spirit (the power of God). We need all three persons of the Trinity operative in our lives, as this then becomes a template for building healthy relationships with others. We had two training sessions, one in Limbe, where our main office is located, and the other in Yaounde, the capital.

One of the things I learned while in Cameroon is that the Kingdom of God is bigger than any individual, group, church or denomination. I have always believed that and thought I practiced it. But on Christmas Day we went to the Presbyterian Church in Mamfe. When our host announced that we would be attending the Presbyterian Church that morning, as that’s where the family attended, I was a bit disappointed. I had hoped it would be a Baptist Church, as that was my upbringing, and I had once seriously considered going to Cameroon as a Baptist missionary. But what I found that morning was not the dead form and structure I had anticipated, but the living presence of God. I was moved to tears. I went on my way rejoicing in the lesson I had learned -- that the Kingdom of God is wherever you find the presence of God.

I was also encouraged that the Presbyterian Church we attended that morning takes witchcraft seriously. They had baptism, confirmation and membership that Sunday. When the new members were received they were asked to publicly renounce all forms of witchcraft and ancestral worship. That said to me they were seeking to deal with a demonic force, which still has a grip on many Christians today. Throughout our travels I heard frequent references to witchcraft, that it was still widely practiced, in the cities as well as the villages, and that many believers were still caught up in it. Several pastors I talked to said that when members of their church become ill or experience some misfortune, they often go first to the witch doctor. “It’s a real problem,” one seasoned pastor said to me. I was surprised to learn that polygamy is still legal and practiced today, though it no longer appears to be an issue in the church today. On the other hand, several pastors told me that sexual immorality is widespread, both in and out of the church.

I also learned to be more “fatherly” on this trip by observing Philip, Joe’s brother. He is the head of the family. This means, among other things, that he is to keep the welfare of the whole family in mind, not just his own children, but all his brothers and sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews. For years he has been sponsoring various members of the family to make sure that they get a good education and that life goes well with them. I can’t quite describe it, but there was something about his nurturing spirit that impressed me and left me with a hunger to be more of that kind of father.

Perhaps the highlight of the trip for me was the time we spent in Awing, where Joe was born. When he was six years old, he was sent to an uncle, several hundred miles away, to be raised and given a future. His uncle is now dead, but we had opportunity to meet his surrogate mother (aunt), see the school where Joe attended and drive through the town where he sold kerosene to supplement the family’s income. Earlier we spent time in Limbe where Denny taught at the Saker School for Girls and where the two met and fell in love. As I pondered Joe’s humble beginnings and where he now is as strong committed Christian, loving father of three beautiful teenagers and civil engineer in a responsible position with the city of Portland, I thanked God that somebody gave him a chance. Yes, the African family system has its limitations, but it also has its strengths. It’s still true, “It takes a whole village to raise a child.” May our tribe increase!

Last but not least, we spent two days at the beach in Kribi. It was very relaxing. We had the whole ocean to ourselves. Regrettably, however, we did not see the Pygmies in the nearby forest, as we had hoped, due to time restraints. All in all, it was a great trip - a dream of a lifetime come true!

Donald N. Miller
January 2006

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Photos

Alfred Saker Memorial
There is a memorial to Alfred Saker,early missionary, near the beach in Limbe.

Comments

[shebehis]

Remarks about Don's entry
Don, I never realized what a writer you are! That was such a clear, concise rendering of your trip and about Cameroon's history! It was so very, very interesting, and I couldn't stop reading til I got to the end, and it left me wanting more, more! I feel as if I went on this trip with all of you and I'm so thankful that I was allowed the privelege to read the Blog concerning it. Thanks to all of you for all of your hard work in putting this together. Lora

[Fred]

Incredible
It is always nice to know that someone visited my homeland. I cant wait for the day poverty will be eradicated. You saw for yourself.

[claudette]

Don,it is a wonderful article.Even though everything said is not new to me,i read and read and never wanted to stop.i love to read articles written by foreigners about my beloved country.i wish to read many more of such articles.