Dear Family and Friends,
Greetings from Bamenda, Cameroon, where we are in the heart of dry season. With virtually no rain, and the harmattan wind continually blowing in dust from across the Sahara, impairing air quality, it is honestly not my favourite time of the year. This dry season too, the water shortage and electricity problems (outages, unstable voltage) have been particularly acute.
Aside from the elements, in dry season there is a surge of meetings scheduled to take advantage of the more easily passable roadways. My own participation, as part of God’s kingdom work in these meetings have included:
Field Bible Conference – Each Field of the Cameroon Baptist Convention (CBC) holds a 3 – 4 day meeting in November for Bible study, worship and fellowship. It is an encouraging time of reviewing church ministry, making new acquaintances and renewing old ones. This year I participated in the one with the churches of the Ndop plain.
Year End Budget/Board Meetings – As CBC Director of Finance & Development, I am invited to these to, with others, evaluate the year’s ministry in evangelism, education and health. We also dialogue on the vision of future ministry. I have attended at least 6 of such meetings this dry season.
Joseph Merrick – pioneer missionary to Cameroon (landed 1843)
Cameroon Baptist Convention 60th Anniversary – Celebrating the organization of the indigenous church, having its own structure, no longer being under the supervision of expatriate missionaries (though we still work together in an integrated manner). For me the highlight of the celebration was the re-enactment of the 1843 landing at the Bimbia coast (near Limbe) of Jamaican freed slave, Joseph Merrick, as one of the first missionaries to Cameroon. The endurance and perseverance of the early missionaries is amazing.
Christmas/New Year period – along with the celebration of Immanuel (God with us) and the arrival of 2015, this is also a period of many weddings and a lot of funerals. Florence and I went to a good number! It was a good opportunity to connect with people.
Cameroon Missionary Fellowship – This 4 day annual fellowship is held in early January for the cooperating missions (North American Baptist, Baptist General Conference, and World Team) that work with the Cameroon Baptist Convention. It was a time of spiritual refreshing, as we were fed from the Word by Terry Fossen. Each missionary shared how they were faring in their different spheres of ministry (church planting, linguistics, medical ministry, theological education, missionary children’s education, administration) in the last year. This was followed by a prayer time for each missionary. Fun times like the picnic and talent night helped us to not take life too seriously.
Central Pharmacy 25th Anniversary – The brain child of Dr. Dennis Palmer, to see that CBC health facilities procure 
and distribute medicines and medical supplies with better overall coordination, this department, though making mistakes along the way, has grown remarkably in capacity. This has helped enable the successful growth of the Baptist Health ministry in Cameroon. Central Pharmacy is the department that first receives White Cross shipments from North America, then distributes them, based on need, to the hospitals and health centres run by the Cameroon Baptist Convention. White Cross continues to help keep health costs down, offering health care accessibility to the average Cameroonian. Thank you NAB churches that support White Cross!
Not one too particularly fond of attending a lot of meetings, yet through these mentioned one can see God’s hand in building up His Church. And that is a blessing.
Aside from Florence’s dental practice and music ministry, she was also very busy this dry season period, seeing that
major renovations to her parent’s home in Banso were properly completed. She was also the one that had to do the difficult leg work of getting our sea container out of the Douala port (because I was yet at another meeting!) and get its contents including our car to Bamenda. She did a commendable job!
Thanking you for your kind prayers and support.
In Christ
Walter & Florence Grob