Yep! I went to Bouar for a week. This
is the first time I have been in the Central African Republic for more than a
year. What better time than to be there
for Easter – a time of hope, rebirth, and salvation.
I went because Pastor Joseph NGOE, director
of the Bible School in Baboua, and Josephine OUMAROU, National President of
Women for Christ organized a trauma healing seminar. It was funded by humanitarian aid from
Lutheran Disaster Response and sponsored by the Evangelical Lutheran Church-CAR
(EEL-RCA in French).
This is the same course/seminar I have
attended before – first in Bamenda last August and again when I helped
facilitate in Yaoundé, Cameroon in March.
I was in Bouar as a facilitator along with Simon DIMANCHE. He works with the Central African Bible
Society as a translator (into Sango) and is head of the Trauma Healing Program
in CAR. He came from Bangui and I from
Garoua Boulai.
Since the seminar started on Easter Monday,
I decided to travel on Saturday. Antoine
MBARBET who works with the Central Administration of EEL-RCA and Josephine came
to GB the day before. Josephine bought
many supplies for the meals during the training. They both accompanied me on the trip to
Bouar. We also picked up a couple of
participants in Baboua. The road has
been safe for months and the cities of Baboua and Bouar for longer than that,
but we agreed that it was best to have church representatives along. I was glad.
Things were the same, but they weren’t.
During the whole time I was there, no
action showed that parts of the country are still in turmoil. We could see houses that had no roofs or with
new ones; this destruction and rebuilding is because of earlier fighting. There was not a lot of traffic on the road – we
saw more goats than cars or trucks. And
some sheep, a couple of dogs, and some chickens. (There is now one less live chicken since it
decided to cross the road just as my Land Cruiser arrived and I couldn’t avoid
it. Evidently Antoine hit a goat on the
way to GB. Sometimes it is just
impossible to miss them!)
On the way to Bouar, we stopped to buy
local mushrooms – roadside stands! This
is the mushroom season – early in the rainy season. Unlike in the US, when a car stops, young
people like those pictured at left, come up to the car to sell their wares. We bought many bunch – we were feeding 17
after all! The most common way to
prepare them is separately with some onions and a little flavoring. We also bought some (thought a lot less) on
the way back to GB, too, so I made some last night. Everything in its season…
Easter service was joyful as it is most
places. I worshiped at Temple Centre
which is beside the Woman’s Social Center, Chez Marthe and Marie, and catty-corner
across the street from the EEL-RCA’s Central Administration Building. The picture at left is especially for the
Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod churches that worked with Chuck Short to make
the pictured banner. At the bottom are
flowers representing the states where EEL-RCA has partner synods. You can see that it has pride of place in the
church – up front near the board where text lessons for the day are announced
and close to a painting of Martin Luther done by Etienne YAIMAN, a long time
church worker who is now retired.
Pictured at left are the two young women
who were preparing to read the lessons of the day. National EEL-RCA President André Golike
presided over the baptism of two children and communion. He also blessed the children who came forward
after the adults communed.
Note: The National Assembly for
EEL-RCA will be held the third week of April.
(It was postponed last year because of the insecurity.) Preparations are in full swing. Pastors and delegates will be in Bouar for
important meetings which include considering changes to the constitution (that
a committee has been drafting for several years) and the election of a new
national president as Pres. Goliké has already served two terms and cannot run
again.
Women of the congregation brought food to
share after the liturgy in honor of Easter and the baptisms– a pot luck! (They
must be Lutherans, right??) Simon and I
were invited to eat with the church leaders.
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| Chez Marte et Marie |
The Trauma Healing Seminar had two purposes:
to help participants heal the wounds of their hearts and to assist them in
preparing to lead accompanying groups for healing. Simon and I taught the eleven lessons of the
classic course and provided information about teaching as well as a practice
experience. We meet in the meeting room at
Chez Marthe and Marie. The women there
(supervised by Josephine – who was also a seminar participant) provided three
meals a day. This is an emotional and
intensive week, but participants were active.
We heard some stories of healing.
One man said, for example, that his house had been destroyed in a town
outside of Bouar. He moved his family to
Bouar and built a house there. During
Lesson 1 we discussed why God permits suffering when he loves us. We discussed that God
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| Rev. Dr. Antoinette Yindjara |
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| Rev. J M TONGO & Rev. A DEMOKOME |
uses suffering; one way
is that God turns suffering into something good. This man said that at that moment in the
lesson he felt a great weight lifting from his heart. He realized that before the troubles, he has
been concerned about how he would be able to send his children to high school
since there was none in his town. Now he
lives in Bouar where they can easily attend high school and still live with the
family.
We tried an experiment with this seminar. The
program is strongly grounded in the Bible.
Still, there are also many Muslims in CAR who are also suffering from
heart wounds. So, we invited two
interested Muslims to participate with the other Lutherans. They added a third objective (beyond the two
mentioned above). They kept an eye open
to ways they might use the program with their brothers and sisters. Since the Koran and other important teachings
in Islam accept the Old Testament and contain other parallels with Christian
teachings, they regularly talked of passages from Islam that parallel those
cited from the Bible. They were pleased
to be included and are looking forward to teaching other Muslims in
Baboua. They will also develop a list of
Koranic verses for each chapter than can complement the book. One said that he plans to say, “Here is what
Islam teachings and here is what our Christian brothers and sisters
believe.” I hope that this approach can
foster peace and reconciliation in Baboua (and elsewhere in the future). Pictured at right is Sani-Salao MOUHAMADOU
receiving his certificate at the end of the training.
During the seminar meat couldn't
t have been
fresher! Josephine and her team bought
the chickens and goats live! Since
Muslims only eat meat that is butchered according to their teachings, they
could help in the process. Anyway,
grocery stores and freezers (even refrigerators) are had to come buy so all
meat is butchered and sold the same day – or sold live so that it can be killed
just before the preparation for the meal.
Here are before, during, and after pictures of the goat! (OK, I admit that I didn’t think to take a
picture of the actual goat beforehand so this is another one from the street,
but it’s the same idea.) All of our
meals were prepared over wood fires. At
right is one of the women preparing the goat meat for cooking.
While in Bouar, I stayed in what is now the
ELCA guest house and where Jackie GRIFFIN lived when she worked in Bouar. Tigre, the dog she got is still there to help
guard the house. He is much calmer than
I remember him from two years ago when he was still a puppy! He is friendly but the guards tell me that he
has appropriately scared away different people with his barking. It was strange to be in the house without
Jackie and her belongings. (She is
currently working as a volunteer for a year in Mbingo, Anglophone Cameroon,
training nurses for the Baptist hospital.)
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| former market |
The market in Bouar has been demolished so
that a new one can be built. I asked if
the destruction was a result of the fighting and people assured me that it was
not. It was intentional. However, the building part of the work has
been delayed – not yet started... There
is a huge temporary market just across from EEL-RCA headquarters. It makes things noisy during the day! (Sorry, no picture; I couldn’t capture the
noise or the size.) Look at this place
in the picture. The name of what was
probably a bar or night club in “High Tension.” What an accurate name for what has happened in
the country… Notice too, that it is one
of the buildings that has been partially destroyed and is currently not in use.
Throughout the week, I was able to talk
with program leaders about reports and other issues. I also saw some humanitarian aid (also
sponsored by LDR) in action. Here are Antoine MBARBET and Mathias VOTOKO with a
load of wood destined to be doorways and window casings for the houses being
built in villages around Bohong. Work is
advancing well although they report that they are VERY busy with the work of
keeping construction teams supplied with what they need as they work together
to make bricks and build the houses.
I left Saturday morning with participants
from Baboua. I was able to spend about
an hour in my house there – found some “new” clothes! (That is, things I haven’t worn for more than
two years – since the first evacuation December 24, 2012.) I decided to bring all the clothing back
since mice have taken up residents in the house (despite efforts to keep them
out) and have been taking parts of some clothing to make their nests. It felt strange being there, especially only
for a short time. Still, all is well at
the ELCA station in Baboua.
While I was in Baboua, I was invited to
have lunch with Mayor David NGBAKO. It
turns out that the Sous-Prefet also came to meet me and Josephine, President of
Women for Christ was there too. The
Sous-Prefet has been in Baboua for a year so I had not met him before. Both men welcomed me and made it clear that
they would like me to come back soon.
What an honor to be among these leaders.
This blog entry is longer and has more
pictures than many others. It seems
appropriate for the first time I have been back in my official country of
service in such a long time. I hope you
all had a blessed Easter, as I did.
He is Risen. Alleluia.
Garoua Boulai's huge influx of people, including many Central African refugees, has meant that the market has also
been growing. Now, the city (with
support from an international donor) is rebuilding the main market area.
Ever wonder what happens to all those
clothes that people in the USA donate to charity? Yes, they are sold in resale shops run by the
charity, but many of them are also sent abroad – to places like GB. So, the people can get cheap clothes, but it
also takes work from local tailors. Help
and unintended consequences – as with most things. 
