Report on the LMC in Cameroon, January 2006

Excerpts from a report written by Joop Strietman

”Oh the mistakes I have made. I actually closed down a whole ministry and sent the workers home because I had no idea how to handle the situation. I have found out in just two days that I could have done it in a way that would have saved the ministry”
Stated by one of the participants in the January course.

Participants:We had thirty-six participants in total, mainly from Wycliffe, SIL and Cabtal, but also from Campus Crusade for Christ and a few from smaller local ministries in Cameroon and Nigeria and even a Baptist pastor from Chad who travelled five days to get to the course. We were told that we had 40 definite applicants and a few more on the waiting list who were pretty desperate to get in. We ended up with exactly 36, which was a relief for our small team of trainers! Those on the waiting list we did not allow to join.
The participants came from Cameroon, Nigeria, Zambia, Benin, Chad, and Ethiopia.
Of them 26 were Africans and only 8 Westerners. We therefore experienced a strong African cultural flavor to the course.
One of the participants, a Dutch missionary, had to leave us for two days in order to bury the wife of an African colleague. She was only 38 years old and left a husband behind with seven children. Such a thing in Cameroon is always of high significance, as nobody dies ‘just like that’. Normally the husband can be accused for example of having poisoned his wife. The members of the small village church coped wisely with this and all the arrangements went well. The missionary told us afterwards that on his way to the funeral he had to make a detour of five hours over bumpy roads because of a roadblock put up by drunk, angry, striking students!
The quality we saw in the participants was of a high level. One was a lawyer, another a former F-16 pilot, some had major degrees while others had not much of an educational background but were very godly people with much ministry experience. At the end we identified seven participants that we will approach about the possibility to help (someday) as a table trainer. Four of them are Africans, of which three are French speakers!


Evaluation with directors taking the course:
On the second last day we sat as a team of trainers with the directors and representatives of SIL Cameroon, the Wycliffe, SIL and Cabtal, (the national Bible translation organization) the representative of Campus Crusade for Christ and SIL in Ethiopia, Nigeria and ATALTRAB in Chad. We asked them to tell us how they viewed the training and how they saw the future. The response was very positive. Besides the comments that the course was very packed and that a little more time here and there would have been helpful, it was also felt that a little more cultural adaptation would be helpful in future courses.
George Schultz (the SIL director) asked: “Can you come back in two years?”
Dr. Michel Kenmogne (director of Cabtal, an organization with 80 people) said: “The course is basic and excellent! Many of the Africans have never had such training. It is valuable for families, pastors and even for leaders in the secular world. The challenge of French speaking Africa is simply huge.”
The representatives of SIL Nigeria, Chad and Ethiopia said things like: “This course is much more practical than other courses … Most churches have huge problems in their leadership … Our colleagues need this too … It would be good to develop African trainers.”
The representative of Campus Crusade for Christ commented: “Our challenge is to be effective in ministry. There is a crying need for this training in French. In many ministries leadership is crumbling to ‘zero’. The fee needs to be lower for Africans in order to afford it.” (The Campus Crusade folk paid 100 dollars, which is a big amount for them.)

The non Wycliffe trainers:
As trainers we all went home after the course with a deep appreciation and admiration for the work of Bible translation in Africa.
I know that facts don’t sell, but let me give you some anyway: Chad has 125 languages and 8 are being worked on at present. Nigeria has 550 languages and 52 have at least a portion of the Bible translated. Cameroon has 270 languages and has 5 with the Scriptures and 16 where people work on right now. Benin has 52 languages and plans are made for a work in 10 of these.
That is a total number of almost one thousand languages in just four African nations! No wonder that Cameroon is the largest SIL base after Papua New Guinea.