Mafofa Message  

On May 22nd, 2005, during our good-byes in the village of Bamendjinda, I,Scott, preached the Sunday morning message at Mafofa Church of the Eglise Evangelique du Cameroun. I gave a ten to twelve minute talk entirely in Ngomba! Despite a few mistakes, the people understood the message on John 3:16-21. I used a rough draft of the passage in Ngomba as his text.

It was such a joy and priviledge to actually preach the gospel in Ngomba! I was able to speak directly to one of their besetting sins - ancestor worship. Do you remember Jesus' story of the Rich Man and Lazarus? Towards the end I shared a portion of that in Ngomba. Was the Rich man able to do anything to help or hurt his brothers from beyond the grave? No, praise God! and that was Jesus' word to those gathered at Mafofa Church that day. The fact that the Rich Man could not do anything to or for his living brothers may not seem like a startling revelation to you, but the Ndaa live in fear of the curse of their ancestors. They feel they MUST make the sacrifices and put on the costly feasts for the dead, or else! Or else their kids might get sick or their crops might fail.

I read up to the part in the story where Abraham says, "a great chasm is fixed between us." can you imagine what that will mean to the Ndaa and their response to the gospel when that truth finally hits home? At that point in the message, I started exhorting them not to be afraid of the ancestor's curse anymore, but rather to fear God and to "lay their heart on Jesus".

The local pastor encouraged me afterwards saying the message was very pertinant and very penetrating. Pray that God's Word will bear fruit in the lives of the people who heard it.