Bouar for a Week at Easter

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. 

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

Rev. Dr. Antoinette Yindjara

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.) 

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.