Voices from the Field Rick & Debbie Bardin Get to know Rick & Debbie

A Month of Thanks

Published on November 13, 2025

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Greetings from Mbingo!

October and November are the months when Thanksgiving Offerings are given in our church. The focus is on First Fruits Offerings since we live in a community of primarily farmers. It’s always a joyful time to dance down the aisle and bring offerings of crops, animals, and the boring type – cash.

One of Mbingo 1 Church Thanksgiving services.

I couldn’t resist the picture of the chicken enjoying the spotlight at the service, probably wondering what we were all doing there, or more importantly, what she was doing there! Each Sunday, a different neighborhood (quarter) takes turns in leading the giving. We have about eight Sundays of Thanksgiving Offerings.

Our NAB group at retreat.

We were blessed to have to opportunity to attend our NAB retreat for the missionaries serving in Cameroon this year in Belgium. The first week in October was in Bruges, and the second week was in Brussels. We had meetings reviewing goals, evaluating previous goals, and setting new goals. It was a refreshing and encouraging time to come together and share what God had been doing and the things He is leading us in for the future. It’s so easy to get tunnel vision if one only looks at life from their own position. We serve a very big God, and He is mightily at work all over Cameroon and, of course, the world! Lord, give us Your vision for Your world and what our part is!

One of our 2025 goals for our women’s group at church was to visit the young women’s group and encourage them as the older women. We were able to give them gifts that were provided to us by the Treasured and Protected women’s group in the USA.

Young Womens Group at Mbingo 1 Church after receiving their gifts.

The hardest part of working in the health profession is accepting the fact that the medical team has done all they can do and the patient isn’t responding to treatment. That is when we have to trust God for His outcome. We treat, God heals. His healing comes in different ways. It’s not always the healing we prayed for, but His ways are higher than ours. The most important thing we can do is share the hope there is in knowing Jesus as Savior, the Giver of Eternal Life.

Chemotherapy is often more expensive than people can afford here. There is no insurance coverage. By Western standards, it’s not very expensive, but it is still challenging here for most. If you would like to give toward subsidizing our patients’ chemotherapy treatments, please click on this link and you can give online: nabconference.org/give/special-projects.

One of the patients and caregivers needing prayers (with permission).

Have a blessed Thanksgiving and Christ-centered Christmas!

In His Matchless Love,

Rick and Debbie Bardin

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