MISSION IN CAMEROON: DOUALA 1

Part one: Douala with Francophone Shalom Community of Bonalembe

For Duala Program December 3 to 10, we were the guests of the Francophone Community “Shalom” of Bonalembe Cameroon Baptist Congregation (CBC) by Shepherd Dr. Emmanuel MPONDO. Duala program was upset by the last-minute withdrawal of one of the gusts of Strasbourg. The consequence was the posters had not been changed when I arrived in Duala.

Other guests, Dominique DICK of Guadeloupe and Armando GOMES of France, couldn’t join us for this first work for various reasons. But they eventually joined us later on for actions in Northern Cameroon with Emmanuel KOUM and a group of pastors of Evangelical Churches of Garoua.

In Duala we participated in two Christian radio broadcasts, the RNB (Good News Radio) and RVN (New Life Radio). With the latter I subsequently participated in a two hours round table with some local pastors on the issue of some men of God who seem to seek God through the properties and the consequences of these abuses.

In the end we were only two speakers for the evenings of December 5^th to 7^th, the Evangelist Noah MBELLA of the Arch, based in Duala, and myself.

The worship band of the Shalom Community has led us wonderfully during each evening meeting before the Lord’s presence with an exceptional praise. A team led by Sister Chantal had prepared a repertoire which introduced harmoniously our evening messages and joined me for a few songs that I had prepared as introduction to my messages or sometimes conclude my preaching. We had some awesome praise moments that prepared for good speech listening. Glory be to God and Father of our Lord Jesus-Christ.

We ended the week with a great Sunday worship, December 8, when members of the Church were invited to renew their commitment to Christ, to be Jeremiah for their people because today’s times are similar to those of the Prophet’s era, and the Lord is looking for men and women who stand in the gap for the Nations. Many people came forward and the Lord was at work! Hallelujah! We ended the program with a meeting late in the afternoon. Again the Lord was manifested in power, many souls came to the Lord, and many have renewed their commitment to God and we prayed for the sick. We then spend time praying for the needs.

May the Lord be glorified!

Visit of the “Foyer Ecologique Pierre Salvetti”, Orphanage of the Montesinos Foundation

One of the highlights of our mission in Haiti was visiting an orphanage, Foyer Pierre Salvetti of Montesinos Foundation on National Highway 1. The Foundation is dedicated to childcare in distress, training and education and awareness to the environment respect. To accomplish this mission, the Foundation is based on three structures: the orphanage which is “Foyer Ecologique Pierre Salvetti”, the “Saint-Dominique Institution” which welcomes children from kindergarten to Grammar School and Professional Training Centre, the St. Joseph Polytechnic Centre for the vocational training of young people.

It is the Commander of the Salvation Army, Brother Vilo Exantus, who connected us with “Foyer Ecologique” when we informed him about our desire as “Maeva Sev” Mission, to help a Haitian orphanage with a donation. Since I was with a mission in Haiti as part of the “Lifeline Expedition” team member, a Christian movement for forgiveness and reconciliation over black slavery, I wanted to go there with a few members of the team. Among them, Eglitha, a young girl from Columbia, I somewhat adopted as my daughter, had during our stay particularly shown great compassion for children. Therefore I deeply felt tat she had a call for this ministry and I asked for her participation and that of Inese, a young girl from Latvia part of the Columbian team, who used to translate to the team in Spanish to join us. Eventually the whole Columbian team joined me. Carla, a Sister from Virginia had also brought some baby clothes she wanted to give. I would like her to come with us but there were no more room in the car. So she gave them to me for the orphans we were about to visit.

The Commander Vilo came to pick us up in the middle of the afternoon and drove us to the Montesinos Foundation north f Port-au-Prince, nearhe village of Titanyen. Ilt is an initiative of a Haitian Dominican Priest, Brother Charles Moses, who collected abandoned children, street children and orphans in Port-au-Prince and other parts of the country. He built a primary school and dormitories for the girls below the hill, and dormitories for the boys a little higher. The foundation also hosts a grammar school for children of poor families in externship and a training centre. We have not met Brother Charles who had waited for us about two hours. We were late according to the schedule he had set with our guide, because he had commitment elsewhere. But we were officially welcomed by the senior staff of the Centre. The Director took us on a tour of the premises. The Centre hosts about a hundred children from a few months old to the age of primary school, boarding.

Ecological farming: millet field

The foundation is particularly sensitive to the environment, hence the name of “Foyer Ecogique” (Ecological Home) for it’s orphanage. In its activities it is concerned to promote innovations for environmental and sustainable development. Thus it provides financial autonomy by production activities such as bios cultures involved in the development of the Titanyen area were it is located. But there is still much to do and it needs support. That was the purpose of our visit.

After the tour of the premises, the director gathered all the children in a large living

space to meet and officially receive the gifts we brought. May I mention that part of these donations comes from a school in Strasbourg which is

Notre Dame De Sion Institution that had already participated in various humanitarian projects in a Sahelian village in northern Cameroon with Mission “Maéva Source of Living Water” including a well in the Grammar School of Doreissou village and provided the same school with benches. We want to give thanks to the management of ND Sion and its Pastoral Council.

Children gathered in the large living space that serves as a meeting room, game space and various activities, as well as a dining room for meals and snacks. I fell somewhat ashamed to have brought only a small suitcase of new clothes and shoes and an envelope with a few euros when I realised the immensity of the needs of the home. But what a surprise when we saw the joy of the children and the management team when they found the new clothes and shoes we brought. Then the Director asked one of her colleague to bring the clothes reserve of the orphanage. What was our astonishment to see what we brought were three to four times the total orphanage reserves. We then handed the envelope with euros to the

Director and the children sang us some songs. The girls of our team took then opportunity to “mother” the smallest, which has as effect to make our separation a little more difficult.

After a time spent with children and their

leaders, we had to leave and join our camp base. We experimented with the words of Jesus when He said “It is more blessed to give than to receive” Acts 20: 35

What we experienced brought us to the following thoughts: if with so little we have done so successfully, how much would it have been efficient if all the millions that had been pledged to Haiti after the earthquake actually reached the country to meet the needs of this land?

Victory against the disease

"The Lord is my light and my salvation-whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid? "Psalm 27: 1.

It all started with the preparation of my mission trip to Cameroon for evangelization in Douala and Yagoua in northern Cameroon in October 2012. It seemed that the enemy was bent over me with a violence that I had not yet experienced in this form there. It is first of Pastor Dick Dominique who was to join me in this mission I received the bad news first: while returning to their home in the vessel that drove home in Pointe a Pitre Guadeloupe, the boat moved abruptly and his wife had a bad fall; as she poorly dragged down, she had a fracture of the spine with emergency hospitalization in Martinique, hold for a few weeks, then home care bed in Guadeloupe for months. Consequently, pastor Dominique Dick could not accompany me in Africa for evangelization.

Then two sisters in Christ from our Church had offered to accompany me. Two weeks after the bad news of Pastor Dick, they informed me that they did not feel spiritually ready for this mission ... But still, God's plans were on for this mission and two very committed Christian, my neighbors, a young couple, proposed to join me in this mission.

The first attack I was only aware later, was miscarriage the lady had just before joining me in Cameroon. Then I learned that my daughter who was five months pregnant had to be admitted to the hospital because she was losing water. A month later she lost her daughter while I was still in evangelism and while we kept praying that the Lord preserve her life and that of her baby.

Once back in France in December, I did not feel well and I told my cardiologist with whom I had an appointment early in January of my concerns about my health. Then she ordered me some medical tests and asked me to present the results to my GP. Thus began my fight against an "invisible" disease. I presented the results to the doctor who gave me to understand that there was probably a little problem with kidney failure, but it could be because I do a lot of sport. He asked me to stop so my sport for a week and repeat the same analysis he ordered me to turn. This was done, but the results were the same. Then he sent me to get an ultrasound of the kidneys with a radiology downtown. I made an appointment with the radiologist and the day of the ultrasound he tells me that there was a small hyperechoic nodular formation with abnormal contour on my right kidney and the fact that it did not appear to the last ultrasound he practiced two years before on the same kidney prompted him to recommend further investigations, including a CT scan. He sent me back to my doctor. From there I realized that I probably had cancer of the kidney. But I decided not to tell anyone until further tests confirm.

When I presented the results to the general practitioner, he clumsily began by telling me that I had a tumor in the right kidney, then corrected himself and called it a "nodule" which requires further investigations. Then again awkwardly, as if to minimize the situation, he told me a lot of people live with one kidney and that this was common. It was then that I decided to talk to my daughter who lost her baby in November asking her to pray for me and not tell anything to anyone until it is confirmed by other tests. She told me at that time that the baby she had lost was just a matter of right kidney: she actually did not have any... I was convinced that this was a diabolical attack. I decided to inform some brothers and sisters in Christ so that they join us to pray for me. Thus, apart from my eldest daughter, two couples friends knew and prayed for me. I harbored a secret hope that the following tests refute the diagnosis of cancer. I did not want to unnecessarily worry my wife the more so because I did not find it appropriate to disturb the girls in their studies with this problem, especially if it turned out that it was not cancer. I had similar experiences as a board member of the association of parents of girls’ school and I knew the consequences of this on the labor of children involved and I wanted to avoid that to my daughters, at least as long as the nature of the illness was not confirmed.

So I had to take the folowing exam at Paul Strauss, a Reserch Center against cancer in Strasbourg.

For me the word “tumor” rhymed (in French) with the phrase "you die". Since the doctor had pronounced the word, it was eating me inside and I was even more disturbed in my inner, all the more that I could not talk about with anyone yet. It was very heavy to carry it almost alone every day the Lord has made, because this situation was constantly in my thought. But the evangelist that I am remembered the Master's words echoing in me as an encouragement: "I will be with you every day unto the end of the world. " Matthew 28: 20. After all, I told myself, I am the servant of the Living God and everything is under His control. This illness is not for the dead, I was convinced that even a man of God from the U.S. who visited our church in Strasbourg prophesied over me that I would not die of disease, or lying quietly in bed, but in the action in service to Christ! Hallelujah! Therefore the enemy could attack me on that ground, I will not fear him (Psalm 27: 1) knowing that the Lord is my Shepherd (Psalm 23), I was then ready to face the disease.

On March 15, when I was leaving the Paul Strauss Reserch Centre, I became convinced that it was time for me to talk to my family. I then gathered Marie-Hélène and girls in the evening to tell them the news. But before that, I expressly left hanging Paul Strauss Centre folder on the table so that they could see it and have an idea of what was goin on and make it easier for me to make this announcement. As on the folder one could clearly read "Research Centre against cancer," I said to myself that my wife who is always curious to read all the medical documents I bring home would certainly fall over it. And this was the case.

After dinner, we went up to our room and that's where I announced the news to all three fo them. As I expected, my wife had seen the folder and she had some doubts. The reaction of the girls was less catastrophic than what I could expect, which was an encouragement to me. They seemed not even have measured the extent of the situation. After this I also informed the church and the people of God. They brought us in prayer, my family and myself. Churches that have received us in Cameroon, were in daily prayer as well as all Christian organizations to which we belong. It was good for us to feel surrounded by God's people. The family of God has no borders. What a grace!

The GP sent me to a urologist of good reputation in this field. It hapenned that he is the one whom I got a surgical operation on my prostate nine years before with. So I took an appointment with him and he decided to perform the surgery on April 14. He explained with diagrams on the computer, how he would proceed. And assured me he would necessary preserve the diseased kidney making only partial resection, that he called “partial nephrectomy of the right kidney”. He told me he was going to do with "lumbotomy", that is to say, by making an incision on the right side to reach the kidney and I will be therefore lying on the left side. He strove to reassure me about the process of the surgery. I had confidence because the first surgery (on prostate) went well as he had explained to me and I was released from the hospital two days later; two weeks after I was evangelizing in Cameroon in an International Bible Camp. Praise God!

My testimony:

The day before my surgery, my younger brother, who had especially come from Cameroon, and my wife accompanied me to the hospital where I was admitted late Sunday afternoon. While we were in the process of discussing a very relaxed way, I received a visit from an anesthetist who came to prepare me for the next day surgery. His remarks turned the atmosphere that was relaxed a few minutes before. According to him, I had to expect a total removal of my right kidney, which were about the complete opposite of the words of the surgeon who promised me to preserve the diseased kidney. I retorted that it was not at all what I was told by the surgeon. He replied that there has often been surprises between what shows imaging and what they discover when they open the patient, and therefore, we had to expect the worst. I took it very bad and started to panic until I finaly got a grip on myself and I took authority in the precious Name of Jesus, once this prophet of doom was out of my room, and I proclaimed, "get away from me Satan, you have nothing to do with me!" Then I could sleep quietly!

The next morning, when the porter came to pick me up and put me in the wheelchair, I had an extraordinary vision to the sight of the cross, which was above the exit door: Jesus was sitting on His Throne and sent His Angel treat me. He gave him a pair of tweezers that seemed out of the liquid nitrogen in his right hand, and one that seemed to come from a fiery furnace in the left hand. The angel came down to me and to my surprise, he opened my stomach, not as the surgeon had told me he would, but below the last rib on the right side. He took the kidney out and just pinched it with the cold tweezers and only removed the tumor. When the blood began to spurt out, he took the incandescent tweezers and put it on the wound and blood stopped flowing. At the moment, the kidney resumed its normal appearance and shone as if there had never been anything. It seemed brand new! Then the angel departed.

Great joy flooded me and I was totally relaxed when I arrived in the operating room. The porter handed me over to the care of a nurse anesthetist who strove to reassure me. At one point I could not restrain myself and I bursted into laughing. She asked me why I was laughing and I told her that it was she who needed to be reassured, because I already was, for my "boss" had already done the work. Then told her the vision that I had when going out of my room. Curiously, she did not seem surprised and left me and joined the team in the theater block. I nolonger saw her until another nurse came to take me to the block. Once in the block, I was lying on my back on the operating table. At that time I received a visit from a priest who introduced himself to me as "priest anesthetist." He said he had learned that I was a man of God and he had to look after me. I told him that I was happy, but the "Boss" was already in charge of the operation. At that moment, I heard a discussion between the surgeon and his assistant she noted that the surgeon had planned the operation by lumbotomy and was wondering if they should not rather put me on my side. I heard the surgeon saying they should let the patient fall asleep first; then nothing ...

When I regained consciousness in the recovery room, I saw the surgeon leaned over me, telling me that everything was fine as I had expected. I then imagined that the nurse anesthetist had told them my vision. In addition, I came to realize that I had been operated not by lumbotomy as the surgeon had explained to me during the preoperative interview, but just as the angel had done: by a subcostal incision.

The days that followed were really painful for me. I never suffered that much physically in my life. I never imagined how it could be painful. But that's another story…

I left the hospital ten days after my surgery, I had an appointment six weeks after, for a first inspection in the office of the urologist. On test day, when the surgeon began the ultrasound of my right kidney, he suddenly called me and asked me to watch the monitor of the ultrasound: - there is not even a trace of a scar, it your kidney is like new! He told me. Of course, I am not able to distinguish an anomaly, a scar or anything else on an ultrasound imaging and frankly I could not see anything. But I knew one thing: in my vision, I saw that my kidney had become new, no scar after the intervention of the angel, shiny as if there had been nothing and this is the confirmation expected. May the Lord be glorified!

Despite the uncertainty of the disease and postoperative consequences, I received the conviction to maintain some activities: the Global Day of Prayer and Lifeline Expedition Reconciliation Mission in Guadeloupe and Martinique. For the first, the Lord had provided. A friend and brother in Christ with all my heart could replace me and help me in the organization. Other people were involved and the program could take place. For the second, my strength had been miraculously renewed when I put my feet in Martinique. I returned in excellent shape from this mission so that when the ENT specialist examined me, he found that I was able to withstand a second operation: the one of tonsils and soft palate on which another problem also arose. Two months after the the kidney surgery, I went back on the operating table. This time it was even more painful than the first and I hope it will be the last. I resumed my work and I am convinced that it is in the consecration to the Lord that I will find the renewal of my health, and the fullness of my ability.

“He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases. He keeps me from the grave and blesses me with love and mercy. He fills my life with good things so that I stay young and strong like an eagle.” Psams 103 v. 35

My main prayer request:

I’m presently preparing three major international meetings:
- The Diaspora Consultation for the evangelization in Europe Amsterdam in late September
- The March in "chains and yokes", a prophetic walk for the reconciliation of peoples affected by the triangular trade in Haiti in November
- The evangelization in Douala and Northern Cameroon campaign in December.

May the Lord renew my strength!