No one can explain what it is like to live in Africa, you must experience it first to truly grasp it.  Cameroon may be one of the most primitive areas we work in Africa.  I do not know about Mozambique, but it is definitely more primitive than the rest of our fields to date.

Working with the Lutheran Church of Cameroon is a blessing.  I have always said that farmers are the salt of the earth and almost everyone is a subsistence farmer here and the people are a joy to work with.  Teaching the pastors and certified assistants, (lay workers with a tiny bit of training) is a complete joy.  I try to meet with them every month except for December when they will not let me because it is too dangerous during that time of the year. Thieves abound and they have counseled me never to give a ride to anyone I do not know that month.  We do text studies for all the readings in the Pericope for the next month or two, depending on when the next meeting will be.  I have trained the CAs for two weeks and the pastors for one week.  This time is precious since the men are so eager to learn.  [slideshow=49]

Living here is hard.  These pastors and CAs trek through the bush to come to these meetings for over four hours.  We meet at study centers which were built in theory in central locations to enable training like this.  When we have a two day area conference, the men trek home over four hours and then back again the next day.  During rainy season they are caked in mud and one wonders whether their shoes will every dry out again.  There is virtually no infrastructure of roads and utilities.  In the cities there is electricity.  In the Western Bakossi/Bakundu area there still is no electricity, no phones, no banks and no developments.  Only one of our churches in the Lutheran Church of Cameroon has electricity.  Driving on dirt paths and bush trails requires four-wheel drive even during the dry season.  It is slow and one is stressed from the driving since one must pay such close attention to the road. 

The weekend of May 30 to June 1we held the first ever Women’s Fellowship Weekend.  126 women came to this weekend and almost as many babies accompanied them.  We had the equivalent of a LWMS rally.  Sunday at the closing service, tears rolled down my eyes as the women sang with all the gusto and life of those controlled by the Holy Spirit.  My eyes welled with tears as we sang the closing him “God be with you till we meet again,” since I knew that many of them we would not see again on this earth since so many illnesses result in death here. 

The work is wonderful, but the living is hard.  Perhaps this summarizes the life of all world missionaries.  God is good and he blesses the work and souls are saved as He works through Word and Sacrament.  This experience is always a blessing.