Regions In Need

Jude and Jennifer, former Regions In Need students, live and serve the Lord in Cameroon’s very dangerous and war torn Northwest Region with their newborn son, Gildas. They have served as church planters and are presently directing and serving in our missionary training school which is located in the village of Bambili on the outskirts of the city of Bamenda. Since 2016, when Anglophone separatist rebels in the Northwest and Southwest Regions declared independence from Cameroon, life and ministry in Bambili has been challenging. Great care has to be taken every week to ensure Jude, his family, and students keep out of crossfire situations when Army soldiers and rebels are fighting. Because the fighting has gone on so long, food is becoming scarce, hospitals are meagerly supplied, and prices are high making everyday life tougher than usual in this village.

But, in spite of the difficulties, Jude continues to train students and fulfill his ministry role assisting pastors in the region. Having taken a break from church planting, he is now devoting his time to training church planters, pastors, and church workers as well as developing our school infrastructure. Jude is also overseeing the construction phase of our new orphanage in Yaounde. Finally, Jude is our Regions In Need Liaison in Cameroon and is responsible for the logistical planning of our training trips throughout the country.

Jude and his family are worthy servants who have served with us for several years. They sacrificially give of their time and resources to serve others for the glory of Christ. Please pray for them as they serve in a very difficult place during a very dangerous time.

Pastor Ezekiel and his family planted Antioch Baptist Church in the village of Bambili which has a population of about 15,000 people. But, Pastor Ezekiel was more than just the pastor of this church. In the few years he served in this village, he became the “village’s pastor”. Whether preaching the Word of God to his flock, visiting the sick, caring for widows in their distress, meeting and talking with the residents of Bambili, teaching future pastors and church workers in our school, or strategizing about a new church plant—Pastor Ezekiel has been a tremendous blessing and partner to our ministry in the battle weary and war torn Northwest Region of Cameroon. Pastor Ezekiel, who was once one of our students, is now one of our teachers with a keen theological mind and passion for Christ that not only keeps students awake but ignites their own imagination for serving Christ in this very hard place. Recently, Pastor Ezekiel was called to be the senior pastor of a large church which primarily serves university students in Bamenda. Pastor Ezekiel is also our Regions In Need Liaison with the Cameroon Baptist Convention which provides us with training and ministry opportunities throughout Cameroon.

Before Emmanuel became “Pastor Emmanuel” he was one of our students who lived with us when we lived in in the bush village of Ngyen-Mbo. While living with our family, along with several other students, Emmanuel also served as our guide to several Fulbe Muslim mountain villages where God enabled us to sow gospel seed. Emmanuel soon became an able evangelist and worked with us in establishing a small church with new Muslim background believers. When we left Ngyen-Mbo to begin a new work in Cameroon’s Far North Region Emmanuel remained behind with another student to continue the work among the Fulbe Muslim people.

Today, after receiving more training, Emmanuel pastors a church he began as a church planter in the town of Batibo about 40 miles from Ngyen-Mbo. Batibo, like many of the Northwest Region cities, has become a battle ground with Cameroon Army troops and Anglophone Separatist rebel fighters fighting in and around the city. The fighting has caused well over 100,000 people in this area to flee into the bush to escape the fighting. While this civil war makes life even harder than it was for Batibo’s people it has also resulted in providing many opportunities for Pastor Emmanuel and his new church to serve them so as to adorn the gospel.

Please pray for Pastor Emmanuel and his new church filled with new believers who desire to make much of Christ is a war torn and hurting town.

Becoming a widow seems bad enough but in Cameroon it is just the beginning of what can become a nightmare for the one in ten women who are widows. In Cameroon the widow’s grief is increased by negative traditional and cultural practices after her husband’s death. Many if not most deaths among unbelievers in Cameroon are attributed to witchcraft. In these cases the widow has the burden of proof to prove she did not cause her husband’s death by incurring some kind of curse or angering an evil spirit. Many widows are even forced to go through cleansing rituals to cleanse her of her husband’s spirit. For a period of one year the widow is prevented from carrying out economic activities and performing her new household head functions. Furthermore, in most cultures in Cameroon a widow is not allowed to inherit her husband’s property. Rather, she becomes a possession to be inherited by the next of kin or any male relative of the deceased husband.

So, to see the Church of Jesus Christ come alongside widows in their distress is a powerful way to adorn and share the gospel in Cameroon. With this in mind, Regions In Need provides both spiritual and material support to our co-workers in Cameroon who are ministering to the needs of widows in their communities. We support the efforts of pastors like Pastor Ezekiel in Bambili who minister weekly to the spiritual needs of these widows through a midweek Bible study and fellowship time. We also are involved in providing over 100 widows in the village of Bambili with fertilizer for their small subsistence farms. This is a very important endeavor as these widows depend upon their farms for survival through the rest of the year.

Martin and Colette were two of our first students when we began our first missionary training school in Cameroon’s Northwest Region. Before this they were our friends helping us navigate our first year overseeing an orphanage in Cameroon. After graduating from our school which was called Center For Missionary Training, Tactics & Theology or CM3T in 2012 they moved back to Yaounde and began a similar school there. Since then they have trained probably hundreds of men and women from Cameroon, Congo, Nigeria, and other places in Central Africa. In the years that followed more schools were started by other graduates as well throughout Cameroon. In addition, students from other countries began to take the training they received back to their homes which caused us to rename our school Global Centers For Missionary Training, Tactics & Theology or GCM3T.

Martin and Colette direct the GCM3T School in Yaounde and have expanded its influence into other remote parts of Cameroon as well. They regularly make trips into interior areas in the East Region providing Bible and ministry training as well as preaching the gospel in villages where it is unknown. In addition, they are involved in planting a church in Yaounde, the capital city of Cameroon as well as providing assistance to an orphanage and a medical ministry there. Martin and Colette also serve as our Regions In Need liaison in Yaounde whenever we travel there to provide training. They also are our home base when we venture into Cameroon’s East Region to work among the Baka people as well as the Adamawa and Far North Regions when we provide training to those working primarily among Muslims.

In April of 2021, we also began an orphanage in Yaounde for abandoned and orphaned children. Martin and Colette direct and serve as the house parents to several children including newborn babies rescued from situations in which they would have surely died without our intervention. Our new orphanage is called Shekinah Glory Children’s Shelter.

In 2013 after establishing a mission work and school in the Northwest Region of Cameroon we moved with two of our missionary training school graduates to the Far North Region capital city of Maroua. Our desire was to help these two courageous and bold men begin a church and Bible training school in this predominantly Muslim city. God richly blessed our efforts and GCM3T Maroua was launched with a few believers in our home taught by our two graduates whom we cannot name due to security reasons. Soon a small house church was started with new converts who were baptized in a hotel swimming pool.

Shortly thereafter we had to leave Maroua due to a visa issue which could not be resolved with the government. This also coincided with the terrorist group Boko Haram’s arrival in Maroua and the kidnapping of foreigners. Our departure in no way diminished this new house church’s passion for Christ or faithfulness to His Word and carrying out the Great Commission in a Muslim city besieged by radical terrorists. Our original house church began more churches and today they all continue to serve as gospel outposts in this Muslim city having endured and persevered through many trials. More than that—these believers are expanding gospel influence into villages surrounding the city where they are sometimes met with hostility and persecution.

Please pray for this house church and her labors for the Lord in a very difficult place.