Cameroon

With the arrival of two more missionaries, Serge Yérétzian and Aimé Sallée, the work grew.

National evangelists were quickly trained and sent to the following stations: Nsem, Andom, Mbong, Eteké, Ngama, Mbargué, Mbinang, Wall, Sandja, and Menga.

The pioneer national workers were Daniel Ndi, Josué Medjo, Robert Amougou, Thomas Ndongo, Joseph Eto, Samuel Bina, Joseph Assou, Joseph Mimbiang, Antoine Mpfoumi, and Pierre Assamba.

In 1930 a second station was opened in Batouri, and in 1936 a third, in Ndoumbi. The work progressed continuously in that region, and contact was established with the Pygmies several years later, in 1955.

Advance Toward the South. In 1935 Marius Fridlin and his wife arrived to work among the people on the coast. On Nov. 2, 1938, Paul Bénézech and his family opened the first mission station at Grand-Batanga.

In 1940 Fridlin baptized the first 18 members, who had been prepared by the African evangelists Adalbert Ekitike, Antoine Mpfoumi, and Adolphe Oyono.

In 1950 a new station was opened by A. Cosendai and his wife in Nanganjango, near Kribi.
Around 1940 an interest was awakened among the Boulou tribe, and a mission station was opened in Kongo, 23 miles (37 kilometers) from Sangmélima. In 1944 a main station was opened in Avebe by E. Curmatureanu, assisted by national evangelists Josué Medjo and Daniel Ndi.

In 1946 the district of Babimbi, among the Bassas, was entered. A station was opened in Mandjab by the African pastor Antoine Mpfoumi, and a school was opened by Oscar Nzhie.

In Douala, the port of Cameroon, a Sabbath school was established in 1953, directed by a layman, Antoine Mahelet. In May 1960 Pastor A. Ekitike was transferred to Douala, where he was assisted by K. Waber and his family. The following year a church of 26 Cameroon members was organized.

In 1963 an evangelistic center was bought, which Eliseo Cupertino used in May 1963 for a series of evangelistic meetings, the first in Douala.

North Cameroon. In January 1931 R. Bergström arrived and established a station in Dogba, 15 miles (25 kilometers) from Maroua. Later two other stations were opened, one in Mikiri, the other in Mokio.

The first African evangelist, Jean Bikoé, arrived from the south in 1934 and opened a school in Dogba. In March 1935 the first six converts were baptized. In 1949 a second station was opened in Koza, in the heart of the Mandara Mountains, peopled by several Kirdi tribes.

In 1954 Koza was chosen as the site for the first SDA hospital, operated by Dr. F. W. Brennwald and his wife.

Central Nyong.

From the country of the Yébékolos, watered by the river Nyong and its many tributaries, many pupils went to the primary school at Nanga-Eboko.

When they returned home, they taught the SDA message to their parents. In 1940—1941 the first station was established in Niamvoudou by Marius Fridlin, then in charge of the work in Cameroon.

Soon, other stations were established in many neighboring villages.
After having operated under the direction of the Nanga-Eboko Mission and then under the
Yaoundé Mission, the work in this prosperous section was organized as the Central Nyong Mission in 1962.

The principal mission station, Niamvoudou, with its permanent chapel, was chosen as the site of the Collège Biblique Adventiste (“Adventist Bible College,” Cameroon Bible School), which opened its doors on Nov. 1, 1963, and began to train ministers and Bible workers.

In 1953, 27 years after SDA teachings were taken to Cameroon, the work was started in
Yaoundé, the capital, by Kurt Scheidegger, who undertook evangelistic and construction work.

A primary school was opened, which 10 years later had 1,200 pupils. In 1954 a church was organized.

A church building and several school buildings were erected on a plot at the edge of the city. This mission station became well known in the capital city.

After the establishment of stations in Obala and Bilomo, north of Yaoundé, the Yaoundé Mission was organized in 1956.

It included the territory of the Yébékolos people.
West Cameroon. The area on the eastern border of Nigeria (formerly the southern part of the British Cameroons) was first entered by SDAs when in December 1929 a layman, E. Gji, was sent by the Calabar, Nigeria, church board to investigate in response to a letter from Bekura.

He reported that there were 27 interested persons who wished further instruction. In
July 1960 M. Gbadiah went from the Calabar area and conducted an evangelistic campaign in West Cameroon.

The first overseas missionary to enter the area was Louis Nielsen, who arrived in February 1961. He found a small group of unbaptized converts in Bekura village, who had been faithfully instructed for two years by a Nigerian trader, Okpan Kalu. This trader, formerly a fetish priest at Ikong in Calabar Province, had been converted by an Adventist layman named Chuks, from Calabar, but before he could be baptized he moved to the West Cameroon to set up his own business. There he shared his new faith and organized a Sabbath school.

Later S. A. Chicaye, a young minister of the East Nigerian Mission, and S. Giba, a Cameroon national living in Nigeria, came as missionaries to this new territory.

Within six months the number of adherents increased and a small church was built.
Development and Organization. Primary schools and, since the arrival of Paul Bernard in 1950, secondary schools have played an important part in advancing the work in Cameroon.

Medical work was carried on first in temporary and later in permanent dispensaries at Nanga-Eboko, Bertoua-Ndoumbi, Batouri, Dogba, Kribi, and Niamvoudou.

The Cameroon Mission Hospital was established in Koza. Because of world conditions, Cameroon was placed under the West African Union
Mission in 1946, and directed from the General Conference headquarters at Washington, D.C. In 1949 the French West and Equatorial African Union Mission was organized, with headquarters at Nanga-Eboko, Cameroon, under the Euro-Africa Division.

In 1955 the offices of the union mission were transferred from Nanga-Eboko to Yaoundé, where two buildings were constructed for offices and workers’ apartments, on a hillside overlooking part of the city.

In addition to the Cameroon republic, the union territory in 1974 embraced the independent states born of the old French Equatorial Africa—the Congo republic (Brazzaville), Gabon, the Central African republic, the republic of Chad—and Equatorial Guinea (Bioko and Río Muni).

Nanga-Eboko Adventist Secondary School has made considerable progress. To prepare well-qualified workers, a training program for evangelists and ministers has been organized on different levels, taking into consideration the varying educational backgrounds.

In 1970 a new mission station was opened at Bafang, in West Cameroon, in the Bamiléké district, where there are more than 1 million inhabitants.

The first missionaries to that district were René Augsburger and his wife. Recently work, which had been developed largely in the bush, was established in more than 35 cities of the Cameroon.

Three new schools were opened: the Bergström School at Dogba, the Adventist school at Niamvoudou, and the Kribi Adventist School.
Radio work has also been organized.

Presently the SDA message is being broadcast over Radio-Yaoundé, Radio-Douala, Radio-Maroua, Radio-Bertoua, and Radio-Buéa, which airs a program in English to the area formerly called the British Cameroons.

Broadcasts in French are planned for the Central African Republic Mission from Bangui, the capital. In 1977 a dental clinic was opened at Yaoundé, and in 1991 a hospital was constructed at Batouri.