|
|
|||
Openness key to challenging
|
 |
| Edzok Omballa and his wife Josette working with the Bible while attending the Good Samaritan outreach package training seminar. Edzok is the pastor of an 80-strong church. He was keen to learn all he could from the seminar. Having lost his sister and two friends to HIV/AIDS, he wanted to know more about the infection and he and Josette now plan to run the course themselves. Photo: Norwegian BS/Dag Smemo (CAM05DJ-127.JPG) |
CAMEROON — “The Church cannot focus only on evangelism. We have to help people in their daily lives as well, even with farming and things like that. In my area some people grow hashish and others produce alcohol. But we have to find better ways for them to make money. This is another important responsibility for ministers like us,” says Pastor Edzok Omballa.
He is the pastor of a church of 80 people in a community of about 1,500. He also works as part-time secretary at the Cameroon Biblical Seminary in Fomekap, Yaoundé, runs various development projects for farmers across an area with some 3,000 small villages and has six children.
He is not, you might suppose, looking for more ministries, but nevertheless, together with his wife Josette, he has just finished the three-day training seminar associated with the UBS Good Samaritan outreach package.
“I was very happy to be invited to the course,” he says. “I had wanted to do it for a while. I have lost two of my best friends and my eldest sister to AIDS. My brother-in-law has tested HIV-positive and is ill. I wanted to know more about the dangers of being infected and to get knowledge about it to share with my children and my congregation.”
The opportunity to attend this particular seminar was very timely.
“It seems like an act of God,” he says. “I run a course about evangelism in our village and we’re going to have a session next weekend. I’ve learned a lot here that I can put into that. Later we will hold the course in lots more villages, and I will bring parts of Where Is the Good Samaritan Today? into that, too.”
People don’t care
In his view, the biggest obstacles Africa faces with regard to HIV/AIDS are ignorance and apathy, both among church congregations and in the world at large.
“People don’t care and don’t commit to anything,” he says. “The older generation have to teach young people the consequences of having premarital sex, but at the same time they must close the gap between what they teach and the behaviour displayed in their own lives.
“What kind of models are we? We teach the theory, but the young people watch the way we live just as closely. We have to learn from the Letter of James, who tells us there has to be a connection between faith and action. When we teach we must be our own first student.”
Fidelity in marriage
Josette says that the seminar is good because it reinforces the importance of fidelity in marriage and of openness and honesty between partners.
“We also understand that we have to meet questions about sex from our children with openness. Later on, when we arrange this course about AIDS, we will share that task as teachers.”
“It has shown us that we mustn’t
condemn infected people who suffer,” adds Edzok. “It is important
that we as Christians meet their suffering, are compassionate and provide
help. Having finished this course I know more about HIV/AIDS that I
will be able to teach others. I am more secure in my attitude and role
as a pastor now.” (WR 395/13 - 08.05) [4 photos]
|
Cameroon
stories and photos gathered by Dag Smemo (Norwegian Bible Societies).
Registered users of the UBS Intranet can view all the photos gathered
by Mr Smemo on his trip in the Image Gallery section.
|