Cameroon Hymnal Initiative - Phase Five - October-November 2006

Editorial Work Wraps Up

This was a trip of blessed additions. The editorial team grew by two, and the hymnal grew by over 100 hymns, songs and choruses. The team made its final editorial decisions and recorded 20 songs. And it rained a lot.

Highlights

• The gifted team of Alexis Godonou, Thérese Nomo, David Sen and Solomon Mbwoge grew in size and in blessing. The new members were Ruby Fomusi, an Anglophone from Kumba (Southwest Province), and Christian Ntondele, a Francophone from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ruby joined us so that we would have another Anglophone voice on the recordings, and Christian played keyboard synthesizer, bringing wondrous rhythms and sensitivity to the recordings we did during our second week together. Both will remain on the team as the whole process of introducing the hymnal unfolds.
• Alexis and Thérese took such delight in seeing their own work in the draft of the book. Their songs are simple and lovely. Since many hymnals currently in use in west and central Africa have no contributions by Africans, we are excited that our book features many songs written by Africans, and half a dozen written by our own team members.
• Solomon, the pastor from the Anglophone region, brought 25 hymns and 20 choruses that are favorites of his region. Some are hymns that are deeply familiar to American Christians, but not available in French, so they’ve never become popular in the Francophone region. Some of the choruses are in pidgin, the dialect that combines English with elements of the local languages. My favorite is “Big, big thing Jesus é do-am for me,” in which we hear the wonderful reference to Jesus, “He butter ma bread and he sugar ma tea.” We had a joyful time recording it because Ruby is such a gifted enlivener of the song. As it’s sometimes said, “we had church.”
• The Francophone members of the group brought 48 hymns and 35 choruses that are beloved in the French speaking region. They are a fascinating mix of hymns from the missionary inheritance and Pentecostal choruses from west and central Africa, Europe and America.
• We received the wonderful news that a very good printer in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé, (pop. 1,300,000) has consented to do the printing, and gave us a bid that is within the budget we established. As a matter of fact, while the original budget called for printing 2,000 copies of the book, Rev. Wes Magruder, the mission director, urged that we print 5,000. We can print 5,000 copies of the book in Cameroon for what it would have cost to print 2,000 in the United States.
• While the editorial meeting was going on, the mission opened its newest congregation, Gateway United Methodist Church. It will be a bi-lingual congregation in the southern part of Yaoundé. The congregation’s pastor, Simeon Nomo, is the husband of editorial team member, Thér se Nomo. I was privileged to work with a group of Simeon’s seminary classmates to lead singing at the opening service. We tried to model some of the possibilities for singing in a bi-lingual setting by introducing a song from the Carribbean called “Halle, halle”, and then by leading a song from the Democratic Republic of Congo called “Mungu ni mwema”. With the Congolese song, we sang first in the local language, then in French (“C’est vrai: Dieu est bon”) and then in English (“Know that God is Good”). The congregation embraced the songs and sang beautifully. Since the musicians were Congolese, they took delight in our joint effort. You can read more about the mission and the opening of Gateway Church at Wes Magruder’s blog, www.preachpeace.blogspot.com
• I was once again reminded of how hard life can be in central Africa. While we were meeting, the eldest son of the mission’s driver, M. Djibril, died of cerebral malaria at age 22. Djibril’s family are Muslims, and so, by tradition, the son was buried the day he died. A three day period of mourning followed. The team paid its respects to the family on the day of the death.
• Even though the recording sessions were tremendously rewarding, there were challenges. We had to stop every time it started to rain because of the pounding of the rain on the roof and we had to stop when the power went off because the sound of the auxiliary generator was deafening.
• One funny moment in my time with the Magruders, the missionary family, came when Mallory, the take-charge-of-things eight year old, came to me and asked, “What are you doing?” When I replied, “Just trying to be a member of the family,” she then said, “Well then, here are some of the things you have to do. Mop the floors, pick up your clothes, put up your mosquito net...” It’s hard to imagine the last item coming into play in the chores of a typical American family!

Where We Go From Here

• The team requested that I make a recording of every tune in the bi-lingual section of the book so that when my work is done in Cameroon, they will always have a reference for what the tunes sound like. Because almost all musical teaching in Cameroon is done by rote, this is a necessity.
• I’ll work with my friends, Billy Crockett and Keith Gary, at Blue Rock Studio in Wimberley, Texas, to master the CD of the field recordings the team did during the second week of this trip. That CD will be the first in a series of recordings given to local church pastors and musicians to teach new songs to their congregations.
• Members of the team have been empowered to do short song-teaching missions to local congregations in their provinces. The last thing we did in Week #2 was to draw up the budget and action plan for those visits. This will happen even in advance of the delivery of the hymnal, in order to build excitement for the coming of the book.
• Production work begins on the hymnal. Michael Ekbladh of the Choristers Guild in Dallas is investigating all matters of copyright and permissions. Rae Whitney of Scottsbluff, Nebraska, continues work on versifying some hymn texts in English that were only available in French. I will be busy with the corrections of the proof copy I took to Cameroon. It turns out that there are big differences between punctuation in French and in English. Live and learn. So I’ve got about half a billion keystrokes ahead of me!
• Fund raising continues, especially among the American churches which have a partner church relationship with one of the parishes in Cameroon. Your gifts continue to be important. A recent gift from the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship ($10,000) was a great boost and brought us to within about $25,000 of the ultimate goal.

Team members (l. to r.): Ruby Fomusi, Thérèse Nomo, Christian Ntondele, David Sen, John Thornburg, Alexis Godonou and Solomon Mbwoge

Your prayers and support are so sustaining to all of us. The team joins me in thanking each of you for your care and assistance.