On the Wycliffe Road – St Columba’s Lisburn & Bambalang Cameroon

St Columba's Presbyterian Church, Lisburn

It was my third Sunday in a row speaking at three different churches – and in between there had been the six venue Irish leg of From Eden to Eternity – now about to start the English part of the tour having done three venues in Scotland since leaving Ireland last week.

I was on a high and rarin’ to go. I was excited that, as we worshipped God in Lisburn, in the NW of Cameroon the Christians of Bambalang would be celebrating the very first book of the Bible in their Chrambo language – the Gospel of Luke. To use the Cameroonian Pijin phrase, they would be having a Happy Happy! And I wanted the folks in St Columba’s to be Happy Happy with their brothers and sisters in Christ in Bambalang.

We did celebrate the Gospel of Luke in Bambalang together, but with less joy than I had anticipated a week or so ago when I was preparing for St Columba’s.

I’ll let Dan Grove (my colleague from Canada and team leader for the Ndop Cluster project of which Bambalang is just one of the ten related but distinct languages) explain further in his 27 February e-mail…

 

Dan with Bambalang translators Novaten & Pius

So what are you doing on Sunday, March 13th? Well, if you were able to be here in Bambalang at 11:00 AM you would be joining all the churches in the village as they gather together for a celebration of what God has done. You would be joining a party! So wherever you are in two weeks, smile and wish your neighbour or friend or pastor a ”Happy, Happy!” – that’s how you greet someone here in the Northwest of Cameroon when there is a holiday. There will be singing, dancing, praying, reading, and it will all be in Chrambo.

But as we’ve seen in the media recently, events can change with incredible rapidity! Dan again a week later on 6 March…

So…yesterday there was a problem, then a fight, overnight a house was burned, then someone was stabbed, then someone else was shot, then for most of today Bambalang was in a war with a neighbouring village and because “we” ran out of bullets first the other guys came into our village shooting and burning homes. No one was killed but there has been a lot of houses burned. It was the saddest sight I have ever seen as people were streaming on the road past our house fleeing the fighting.  By 6:30 PM they [the people from the neighbouring village] had reached less than a km from our house and we had the truck packed and were ready to leave. At that point the other guys apparently ran out of bullets because they went back to their side of the border leaving behind a large number of burning and burnt homes. Whatever happens from here, it appears the stakes have been raised by the Evil one for next week. He does not want the Word to come to Bambalang. He wants to distract and steal and kill and destroy. We would appreciate your prayers this week as the churches seek to not only continue preparation for the dedication, but to respond to this crisis in a way that honours God and shows His love for the people of Bambalang.

And so it became uncertain whether or not the Sunday 13 March celebration would happen.

Dan again on Friday 11 March…

I was talking to Pastor Pius yesterday and they have decided to go ahead with the dedication of Luke on Sunday as the people need hope and something else to focus on. Pray that they will sense God’s love for them and that they will be strengthened as they come together as churches to worship and praise Him for the coming of His word, and that in all this, He will be glorified.

I prayed Dan’s prayer with the folks in St Columba’s on Sunday morning. Please continue to pray for the end to this ethnic warfare and for God’s Word to have a powerful impact on the ten language groups in Ndop. Pray too for the Bamunka people – their Gospel of Luke is also very close to publication and celebration.

 

Pastor Edward (one of the Bamunka translators) & his family

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