Normally when
I watch religious events in Africa, the religion involved is an African one –
whether voodoo or some kind of animism – or less frequently, Islam. But yesterday I found myself on the periphery
of a Christian event. I was taking
advantage of a shopping trip by the Lodge staff to a town just over the border
in Cameroon, since this involved a trip by river. But yesterday the other passengers on the
boat were a Polish Christian missionary and a two of his helpers, who had taken
delivery of a white-and-gold statue of St Michael that they wanted to place in
their church in the village of Lidjombo.
This church, built some fifty years ago, had been abandoned and
surrounded by forest, until the missionary heard of it and organised its
restoration, the final stages of which were the painting of some religious
murals and the placement of this statue.
An engaging man, who has lived here for thirty years and learnt the
language, this missionary has a number of devoted converts who had helped with
the restoration and were eagerly awaiting the statue.
We collected them in a nearby village, and they placed the
statue proudly on the prow of the boat for our journey downriver, with many
photographs taken. At one stage in the
journey we found ourselves stuck in a shallow bit – apparently not uncommon as
the level of the river falls during this, the dry season – and two of the staff
jumped in to manoeuvre the boat back into deeper water. The religious trio, however, seemed to
believe that whilst it was the fault of the staff that we got stuck, they were
not responsible for the resolution of the matter, which was rather down to God,
the Virgin Mary, and the protection of St Michael, so they said a little
prayer; this atheist decided that this was the ideal time to spot a bird in the
trees and look busy with the binoculars…
Pulling up to the river bank by the church, we were met by a
number of the congregation, who chanted something about St Michael, aided by the
occasional ululations of one of the women.
A short service inside the church thanked those who had helped with the
restoration (and God, of course), before we headed back to the boat to continue
our journey. It seemed that the presence
of this well-known missionary helped us through the two checkpoints on the
Central African Republic side of the river, as we were not asked for money (as
is apparently usually the case) when we went through the temporary exit process. Then when we arrived in Libongo on the
Cameroonian side of the river, the immigration office was conveniently closed
for the day so we were able to enter and do our shopping without acquiring a laissez-passer
and facing the associated requests for payment.
Maybe God was watching over him/us?!
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