Dear Friends,

I am writing this in an internet cafe in Yaounde, Cameroon. It is about 35 degrees and quite humid. I have been in Cameroon for almost 5 weeks.

It has been a wonderful experience sharing with my Christian brothers and sisters here in Cameroon. The Baptists are very prominent here. There are two unions: the one that I am involved with is the English speaking union which is called the Cameroon Baptist Convention. They have about 300 churches and about 60 full-time pastors. The churches are very poor and so it is difficult for them to support full time pastors. However their attendance is excellent and there are many very fine pastors around. In particular I have been honoured to spend time with the General Secretary Rev Peter Nyumnloh. He is a very wise and humble man, whose heart is very much in the work of the Baptist churches in Cameroon. He labours with few resources but achieves wonderful things. The Baptists here run hospitals, health centres and schools, as well as churches! And they are very resourceful. The John Merrick Baptist College (for 14 to 18 years) has its own farm. They employ local labour and are growing corn, Irish potatoes, and cabbages. As well as providing the school with food, and teaching their students agricultural skills, they actually make a profit from the farm to supplement the costs of running the school. Furthermore they are pioneering better techniques to improve their crop yields. The local labour then learn these techniques and take them back to their own small farms. (Incidentally, John Merrick was the first Baptist missionary to Cameroon and was a Jamaican.)

Last week I was staying at the Cameroon Baptist Theological Seminary (CBTS) in the North West Province. They have 250 students, about 60 of whom are training to be Baptist pastors. Here I was amazed at the sacrifices the students made to come and study. Let me give you 2 examples:

(1). There is a service at 7.3Oam in the chapel each morning that I made an effort to attend. (I know some of you think that that is a big sacrifice for me!). One morning there was an announcement that as there were only 2 weeks to go to the end of term there would be no more credit at the health centre. The next day there was an announcement that students coming back in August could continue to have credit as "there are a lot of sick children on site and many cannot afford to pay. "

(2). Meet Gideon. He wants to be an evangelist. While
he has been at the college his neighbours have stolen his
6 goats at home, which leaves him with virtually nothing.
He works for an hour before lectures each day for l5OCfr
(15 pence) which even in Cameroon only buys a small loaf
or a pineapple.

And yet despite such sacrifices the spirit among students is strong. A visiting lecturer saw the cramped living conditions and challenged the students that if they could build a new accommodation block he would pay for the tin roof. As a result each student pledged to make 50 mud bricks (about 3'x2'x2' each) and they cut down 6 eucalyptus trees for timber for the door and window frames and the roof joists. In 4 weeks the new accommodation block for 60 students was built.

I have been impressed and inspired time and again how much these brothers and sisters in Christ achieve with so little; and sometimes I wonder how we in the affluent West manage to do so little with so much!

Sincerely yours,

Malcolm Patten.
 
 

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