Impact of Boko Haram in Bamenda

So we are getting pretty regular emails from friends from the US who have heard about the attacks from the Boko Haram and are wondering if we are safe.  The short answer is yes we are very safe.

The long answer is that safety is relative. In history, there have been many who felt very safe and yet within a minute their whole world change.  Others live in perilous situations for years and come out without a scratch. Last week, I watched as a dear friend, two inches in front of me, get hit by a motor cycle and fly at least six feet down the road.  She stood up praising God, with only a cut foot from the accident.

Our relationship with the Muslims continues to be friendly and peaceful. Jessica has weekly horseback riding lessons from a Fulani (Muslim) man and we live just a short walk from the beautiful Mosque and Muslim quarter. We walk through there and are greeted warmly.

One Muslim said to me “They are not even Muslim. They burn down our Mosques and they do not kill in self-defense, they just kill”.

Another factor for us is that it is about a twenty-hour (or more in bad weather condition) drive from Bamenda to the Northern area where the fighting is occurring.  We do border Nigeria in the south west of Cameroon, but there has been no violence there.

What will happen here in the future we do not know.  But we know that the safest place to be is in the hands of God and so we feel we are exactly we are supposed to be.

I do not agree with some of the customs of Muslims, but to lump all Muslims into one category is more extreme than lumping all Christians together. This last picture looks like a Muslim with a gun, but in fact it is an umbrella for protection from sun and rain. It is so easy to see what we see in fear - not reality.

-Joy