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xv Foreword Almost a century has gone by since the first band of Sacred Heart Missionaries from Germany ventured into the Kom highlands. It was a journey of faith, a faith founded on the theology of the time, which provided the zeal for these men to abandon family and country. They were men according to modern standards ill equipped for the Herculean task ahead of them. In a spirit of resignation, they were convinced that unless the lord builds the house in vain do the labourers labour. Taking advantage of the normalisation of relations between the Church and state in Germany, the Sacred Heart Missionaries at the invitation of the Pallotine Missionaries arrived Cameroon, made their way gradually into the remote areas of the kom highlands, and settled in Fujua, a few kilometres from Laikom, the seat of the Fon of Kom. While their contemporary compatriots were searching for areas to invest capital and reap corresponding profit even at the cost of their own lives and those of natives, these band of men were in search of souls to sow the seed of the word of God who were in the thought of the time heading to perdition on a daily basis in large numbers. The lofty ambitions, which lurked in the hearts of these men of God, were suddenly crushed with the internment order issued by the allied forces, which effectively brought to an end the activities of all German nationals in the territories including missionaries. Many traditional rulers thought they had seen the last of the Whiteman’s religion. Their celebration was premature as they saw their hopes dashed by the return of Christians. This native, militant, resurgent and resilient brand of Christianity brewed in the far distant island of Fernando Po was mainly made up of ex soldiers who had been schooled on the rubrics of Catholicism. It was this small band of Christians, small in numbers but strong in determination, that resisted all attempts from the Traditional Authorities to crush the seed of Christianity. This vibrant band of Christians who had returned from Fernando Po did not for obvious reasons returned to care for the reins of the buildings left behind by the departing missionaries of the Sacred Heart The Dynamics and Contradictions of Evangelisation in Africa xvi Missionary Order. It is for this reasons that Fujua the cradle of Christianity in kom gradually sank into oblivion. Between the departure of the Sacred Heart Missionaries and the advent of the Mill Hill Missionaries the Christian faith was sustained by Christians who were missionaries to their own compatriots. It was the missionaries of St. Joseph Society for Foreign Missions who were later to give the Church its character and to pilot the Church into the future. The missionary motives of the first missionaries were founded on the prevailing thought patterns of the time, which were based on the belief that salvation was only possible within the Catholic Church, and whoever was outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church was on the road to perdition. It was this sympathetic move to save the rest of humanity from perdition that galvanised the missionaries into action into areas even where their lives were in jeopardy. West and central Africa had lived up to its reputation as the Whiteman’s grave. With fewer and fewer missionaries returning to their home countries, one would have advised caution with a high percentage of them falling prey to disease in the disease infested tropics. The desire to save the African souls, even at the cost of their own lives, drove the missionaries into the interior that no land was too remote to escape their attention and vigilance. This strong belief in the worth of every human soul and the desire to save it from eternal damnation was what kept missionary zeal buoyant through out the centuries leading missionaries to abandon home and country. The clarification of the concept of salvation within the Church during the Vatican II Council set in motion the current lethargy that has in some places crippled mission itself. It is almost a century since the first missionaries criss-crossed the nooks and crannies of this country. Some of the areas they visited are still undergoing primary evangelisation. With the current though about mission in several quarters casting doubts on mission Ad Gentes itself, one can almost say that succeeding missionaries have in some areas trailed the same paths their forbearers trailed without venturing into unexplored areas. It is now...

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