This afternoon, just after lunch, we left the hotel with Yusuf to drive to the Goshen-Ra hotel once again. Some members had not arrived by 2:30 when we were to begin, so different people called their cell phones to ask where they were on the road. Some were far enough away that it didn’t seem appropriate to wait for them. We sang hymns and had an opening prayer. Then I gave a news update of the work of the Church and then segued into some comment on the offering. We had offertory music and special music sung by Jean-Séverin. I then came back up for the sermon.

There is only one air conditioner in the room, so it was pretty warm, but I had asked that the room be organized so that I would have the air con behind me, to help me stay a little less warm during the sermon. There was a power outage several minutes in; it didn’t take long to be completely soaked in sweat. It was 90° outside, and I’m sure it was inside as well. I was thankful when the power came back on a few minutes later. After the service ended, I counted the offering in front of everyone, and made a note of the amount. 

A laid out the used eyeglasses we had brought from the States and let everyone who needed a pair go through them and choose up to two pairs. They tried them all out one after the other, tried reading with them and looking long distance. I packed up those that remained so I can take them on with us to the Congo and Rwanda.

Then I went in a rear office to anoint those who were ill. It wasn’t air conditioned, so I soaked through my shirt again pretty quickly. 

I’ve given sermons about anointing and explained it many times, but there are usually a few who aren’t sick and ask to be anointed, but really just want me to pray for them due to different issues or problems. One man and his son wanted protection from attacks by malign spirits. A student wanted God’s help with his tests and grades. One father wanted his daughter anointed because she wet the bed. She was a young child, so I told him I was pretty sure she wasn’t sick and would grow out of this problem. 

There were other legitimate illnesses, and these people I did anoint, asking God’s blessing of healing according to His perfect will and mercy and according to our faith.

One young woman from a Church family came to ask for the church to finance her “project” of starting a chicken farm. She was asking for thousands of dollars, she wanted to start big and had calculated a good income from her farm. I explained as gently as I could that we didn’t fund “projects” any more because when we used to do so now and again, they never worked out. I never saw one succeed. Financing them ended up just wasting the money, because the people involved didn’t have the knowledge or the perseverance to make them succeed. Many people, even in the West, think that running a business is easy. It isn’t. Many startups don’t survive even in the wealthy parts of the world. I encouraged her to start small, with four chickens or so and to incubate the eggs and let them multiply naturally. That way she would learn as she went along and could succeed on her own.

The Church tries very hard, in times of famine or other emergency, not to let members lack food, clothing or shelter. At the same time, under normal circumstances, valid adults are supposed to look to God for guidance, and to work hard to earn their living. It bothers us sometimes that when God calls people to His Son in a poor country, they don’t get transported to a wealthier country. They have to stay and live their lives where they were born, most of the time, and life won’t be easy. We all have to do the best we can, and those of us who live in the West should be very thankful for the unearned blessings we have.

Following all this, we took photos for a few minutes, group photos and a few individual ones with Marjolaine and me. We fellowshipped for a good while. I asked the members to line up and I reimbursed them for their bus fares to come to Douala.

Finally, I asked everyone to gather and I asked God’s blessing on the group, mentioning some of the problems about which individuals had asked me to pray. I asked God’s blessing on this Feast for them, His protection as we travelled home and His guidance in our lives until we were able to meet again. Then we said our goodbyes to everyone and I went downstairs to settle accounts with the hotel owner. She had heard about the anointings upstairs, and asked if I would lay hands her too. I declined with a smile and paid the bill.

This has been a great service by the Church to these members. We have gathered them from scattered places around the country, put them up for a few nights and offered them festival meals, and allowed them to spend time together fellowshipping and learning from the Bible. Thank you, readers, for helping make this possible for these location-challenged Church members!

Back at the hotel I asked Yusuf to wait a few minutes, since we planned to go back out to eat. But as we changing in our room it began to rain quite hard, and we decided to stay in for dinner. So, I ran out through the rain and paid Yusuf and thanked him. “You have my number, right?” he shouted. I assured him I did. And with that the working-chapter of our stay in Cameroon has ended.