THE SUN IS NOW SHINING ON THE DISABLE PERSONS OF NJINIKOM

On the 23rd of October 2004 in the BERUDEP office in Njinikom two Polish volunteers - Adam and Urszula – organized a preparatory meeting for disabled people from Njinikom Sub-Division. This meeting was the first one in the series of gatherings with future members of the Center for Rehabilitation and Education in Njinikom (CREN).

Disabled people from all over Njinikom came to the encounter, some of them carried on other’s backs, some limping and some walking on crutches. While Adam and Urszula listened to them, the disabled were expecting to receive healing or be blessed in one way or the other.  The main point of the meeting was to inform future members about the idea of the Center, recognize their needs and identify their problems. As the disabled were informed, Adam (who is psychologist) is a doctor who deals with the spiritual hearts and the emotions of men, not with the physical body as some might have thought and the Center is meant for their psychical, rather than physical healing.

In this Center disabled will be trained to be able to do things that will help them improve their standards of living in the future. Only then they will be proud to say that although disabled, they are able to do many things to help not only themselves but also each other.
The disabled went home very happy about the creation of the Center and the training they will receive there in the near future.

By Chitu Joshua

PROGRESS IN FUNDONG BRANCH REHABILITATIION DEPARTMENT

The Fundong branch office was blessed with a special meeting held with the director. This meeting was to find out how the office can improve the sales of medicinal plants and also how the communities can get to know BERUDEP better. All the suggestions of the director have been considered and will be applied to make an improvement in the days ahead.

REHABILITATION: Two orphans out of many children we are taking care of were sent to school. Kuma Titus aged 8 and Bih Angela aged 5 were both sent to primary school in Mbam village on the 15th of October 2004. This was through the sponsorship of our new volunteers Adam and Urszula. During their first official visit to Fundong branch office the rehabilitation department was their section of interest, so they decided to choose two children to sponsor them. Thanks to God.
The decision was taken after talking with Fidelia Tim - person in charge of the branch office and also the leader of the BERUDEP Women department. During the talks, the activities carried out so far by the women, as well as their new projects planned for the future were presented to the volunteers. Oil selling project was one amongst them, as we believe that if we start it, we will have a quick profit and use it to carry out our activities without any more difficulties. We trust God in every thing and believe that November will bring us new blessings.

Thanks Tim Fidelia

TRIP TO EKOK

My trip to Ekok was to meet with a team from UBUDU - cattle ranch honey project. This project needed 200kg of wax. At BERUDEP we had only 89kg of wax, but we decided to supply it to UBUDU at the cost of N 300 (1200frs). The cost of the transportation was planned to be covered by the farmers, but being already there, it appeared that this amount increased by 18.9%, so that project decided not to pay my full transport back and forth. Obviously, this was of great loss for BERUDEP, due to the delay of the supply date. The main cost of the issue was due to bad roads, which made me wasted lots of time (the entire trip took me two days to arrive Ekok and three days to be back in Belo). The whole journey was characterised by pushing the car, tracking on the side of the vehicle etc. just to be able to pass through those bad spots on the road. It is hard to believe that from Bamenda to Ekok it is a distance of barely 189km!

The next supply of wax for UBUDU cattle ranch honey project will depend on how soon BERUDEP has 200kg of wax. Only then a good link can be established between those two projects. For the supply of honey and other activities that BERUDEP do carry out, this will be determined how soon BERUDEP Director will establish the link.

By Chiambah Enoch

DORCAS’ FOLLOWERS.
BERUDEP WOMEN NJINIKOM’S DREAM COMES TRUE

BERUDEP Women Njinikom section was conceived by me (Mrs Anna Komalua) when I read James 1:7 - the key Bible verse of BERUDEP. I shared my conception with one woman and she was very happy and also shared with three other women and they also accepted. We got together (six women) and discussed on the aim of the group. We agreed that we would be contributing generously in support to the disabled. All the members vowed that we must follow the steps of a woman in the Bible called Dorcas. Because of this, we named ourselves “Dorcas’ Followers of BERUDEP”

We prayed and sang together, contributed and planned to go out for visitations. We started our work with nine disabled who were scattered all over the Njinikom Sub Division. All of us were contributing food and clothing, we were praying, singing and sharing the good news of Salvation with the disabled. This work (visitation) was very hard and our prayer was that God should one day help us to create a centre for the disabled, so that we could bring them together. At that time we did not know how we could achieve that, but it was our prayer each time we came together. We were doing our best to keep these people happy.

Taking care of nine disables, this group later saw the need of suffering orphans. We added orphans in our programme so we started with 23 complete orphans (meaning both father- and motherless). In January 2004 a non-governmental organisation (the Torchbearer Foundation) met with the group on hearing the activities of the group, they advised us to include also widows to the program. They donated some food items to the widows and orphans. After including the widows, we were then dealing with 23 orphans 22 widows and 9 disables.

Alexandra Kurhan - BERUDEP volunteer - came in with a programme for the needy and shared clothing to 54 children. When she was leaving she donated 40,000frs to the group, which was used by us to open a bank account. When schools started a new academic year, the group withdrew 20,000frs and bought exercise books, pens and pencils for the needy orphans. It was wonderful. Also, our visitations and contributions continued.

October 2004 was a wonderful month in the life of BERUDEP “Dorcas’ Followers” and Njinikom community, as Adam and Urszula brought the solution to our problems. It seems that our program for disabled, orphans and widows touched them and they came up with the idea of opening a rehabilitation centre. Lord you are wonderful! Thank you. The Centre for Rehabilitation and Education in Njinikom (CREN) is not more a dream but a reality.

Adam and Urszula thank you.

By Komalua Anna.

BERUDEP WELCOMES TWO NEW VOLUNTEERS - Ingrid Gastrow and Petra Boros.

Ingrid Gastrow from South Africa arrived BERUDEP on the 22nd of October 2004. She worked in Good Hope Clinic, which is one of the Common Initiative Groups under BERUDEP. Ingrid stayed within BERUDEP for one month only and she is now back to South Africa. During her stay she was very serious both at work and in her Christian life. BERUDEP team witnessed her baptism on the 17th of November 2004 at Mbingo II Baptist Church. Her baptism came as a result of her discovering that she needs to be immersed completely, because she was baptised as an infant, not realizing the meaning of this fact. BERUDEP wishes she would remain committed to the Lord.

Petra Boros from Hungary arrived to BERUDEP on the 16th of November 2004. She will be teaching in BERUDEP partner schools. BERUDEP wish her all the best in her job!

By Jacky Diena

BERUDEP WOMEN BELO

BERUDEP Belo has formed a BERUDEP Women’s group, which was initiated by Ingrid Gastrow, BERUDEP volunteer from South Africa. She has worked for one month in BERUDEP and within this time we held four meetings. Because of her short work duration with BERUDEP, we had to elect the group executive before her departure.
The following persons were elected to pilot the affairs of the group:

President Salah Cecilia
Assistant President Ntef Anna
Secretary Wam Comfort
Treasurer Nchindo Evelyn
Adviser Ingrid Gastrow

Our aim of forming this meeting is to help the needy widows, orphans and disabled people. To increase the effectiveness, the group meeting will be held twice a month.
We pray that God should help us make a progress.
Thanks

Nchindo Evelyn

BERUDEP WOMEN NJINIKOM ACHIEVING THEIR AIMS

It is wonderful that one of our orphans, Confidence, is now undergoing training in computer knowledge. This help has come to us as a blessing sent by God through Adam and Urszula.
We are happy that God has answered our prayers.

By Toh Theresia

HEALTH TALKS

On the 18th of November 2004, BERUDEP and its partner Good Hope Clinic organised a Health Day in Belo Area Development Union Hall. The health talks began at 10:00am with the arrival of Belo population. the following topics of health talks were taken up by guest speakers:

- Sexually transmissible diseases;
- Tropical diseases
- Family health
- Vaccinations
- Women’s health
- Medicinal plants.

At the end of the talks, the participants were very happy. They thanked the organisers and pleaded that more health talks will be organised in the future.

By Ngwanimbi Simon

FOLLOW-UP ON THE TRIP TO MAYO-DARLE

The BERUDEP team left Belo on the 2nd of November 2004. We had a minor accident on the way, but we managed to arrive Mayo-Darle on the same day. On the following day, we met with the Mayo-Darle bee farmers group and they appeared to be very active. We visited their apiary and were very happy to see their colonised hives. Coming back to their meeting venue we were informed that the group members meet every Wednesday and contribute 500frs. This money is given to a member of the group in order to assist him construct his own hives. In fact, this seemed to us as a really good example, which should be copied by bee farmers in the other villages.

From there, we continued our trip to Banyo. We spent a night as guests of the President of the Banyo Bee-Farmers Group (Alahaji Djidji). He welcomed and entertained us and the next morning, we visited his farm. We were surprised to find out his achievements in bee keeping. During the training the number of his hives increased from 100 to more than twice as much! The next day we left for Tibati, to meet local bee farmers. We visited their farms and found out that they were very slow, but yet progressing in hive construction. Sheila from Bees Abroad UK trained them in candle making. After the training, BERUDEP team left for Belo and arrived there on the 10th of November 2004.

By Salah Cecilia