Dear Friends,
This month, we welcome your prayers for leaders from Francophone Africa. Historically, the 22 countries in this region – where poverty, warfare, political instability, and syncretism remain urgent concerns – have received less attention and fewer resources than English-speaking African nations. ScholarLeaders collaborates with three key institutions in Francophone Africa through the Vital SustainAbility Initiative and has sponsored 30 Francophone African leaders (including six, currently) through LeaderStudies. Learn more about the region here. This week, please join us in prayer for Dr. Dieudonné Djoubairou in Cameroon.
Located at the intersection of Central and West Africa, the Republic of Cameroon is known for its ecological and cultural diversity. Rainforests, mountains, savannas, deserts, and beaches mark its geography, and Cameroon’s 23.4 million people speak over 250 languages. Approximately 70% of Cameroonians are Christians (40% Catholic and 30% Protestant, and 18% are Muslims. In the northern region, Boko Haram has displaced over 450,000 people since 2016. Ongoing conflict in western Cameroon between English-speaking Ambazonian separatists and the French-speaking government has displaced over half a million more.
After graduating with his PhD in Systematic Theology in 2012 from Bangui Evangelical School of Theology (BEST) in the Central African Republic, Dieudonné returned to Cameroon, where he began teaching part-time at the Faculty of Evangelical Theology in Cameroon.
In 2013, when rebel forces seized Bangui – the capital of the Central African Republic, which has been embroiled in civil war since December 2012 – Dieudonné helped his alma mater BEST to establish an extension site in Yaoundé, Cameroon. He also served as part-time faculty at this site.
From 2013 to 2015, Dieudonné worked full-time at Francophone University of International Development in Mokolo, Cameroon. In 2016, he helped launch the Autonomous Faculty of Evangelical Theology of Cameroon in Ngaoundéré, Cameroon in the Adamawa Region. He had begun working on this Evangelical University project since his doctoral student days in Bangui.
Djoubairou shares the following message:
To the ScholarLeaders Prayer Team,
Cameroon is a Central African country with ten regions. There is an English-speaking Cameroon and a French-speaking Cameroon. In the past few years, there have been social and political crises in the Northwest and Southwest between the Ambazonian separatists and the government, and in the Far North because of the Islamist Boko Haram. These crises seriously affect peace in our country and the Church has suffered seriously. Churches are closed and pastors have run away. People live in very bad conditions.
In that context my ministry progresses little by little. In December 2017, the government gave us approval for our Nursery and Primary Bilingual School in Ngaoundéré in a poor quarter where the Peuhl tribe is the majority. The needs of this young school include classrooms, water, electricity, and library and technology resources.
This year in May, the government gave us approval for our Institut Supérieur Evangélique Shalom du Cameroun (ISESCAM) or Shalom Evangelical Higher Institute of Cameroon in Ngaoundéré. This school has two programs: Theology (part of the Autonomous Faculty of Evangelical Theology of Cameroon) and Brevet des Techniciens Supérieurs or Certificate in Advanced Vocational Training. The needs for this institution include library resources, classrooms, water, and electricity.
Prayer Requests
1) Pray for my family: my wife, our four sons, and our two daughters.
2) Pray for peace in Cameroon, particularly in the Northwest, Southwest, and Far North.
3) Pray for the development of our Nursery and Primary Bilingual School and its needs (classrooms, water, electricity, etc.)
4) Pray for the development of ISESCAM and its needs (see above).
5) Pray for partnerships.
6) Pray for the needs of the Church in the context of Boko Haram, and the crisis in the Northwest and Southwest.
Dieudonné Djoubairou