The compelling testimony of a renewed
Christian
By Douglas A. Achingale*
It is often said of well-crafted books that
they are usually so enthralling that it would be hard for the reader to drop
them until they get to the final word. This observation, to my mind, most
conveniently suits Martin Jumbam’s My Conversion Journey with Christian
Cardinal Tumi. For, this work of Christian literature, a collection of 16
breath-taking articles and two electrifying interviews, spread over 161 pages,
explores the ‘growth’ of the author – from an aficionado of worldly pleasures
to a practical believer whose entire being is now animated by the Word of God!
Amongst a few other related subjects, of course.
The
icing on the cake is the flavour-filled language in which Jumbam’s lines are so
bewitchingly couched. Read them; you will find yourself soaring with the author
in such literary altitudes that would make landing a difficult pill to swallow,
when it finally happens.
Having
either been first published in Cameroon Panorama or l’Effortcamerounais or not,
the articles and interviews are divided into four parts, viz: “The Journey
Begins”, “My Prayer Life Firms Up”, “My Interest In Church Governance Grows”,
and “The Social Dimension Of My Faith”.
Getting renewed in the Faith
Martin
Jumbam begins his “journey” with an article titled “I marched with Christian
Cardinal Tumi”. In it, he recounts his participation in a five-hour march for
peace around the city of Douala organized by the Emeritus Archbishop of the
Douala Archdiocese, on 1 January 1993. The author, a secular freelance
journalist, had as main purpose to cover the event for a media organ.
That
was his very first encounter with Christian Cardinal Tumi. In the preface to
the book, Jumbam enthuses: “Little did I know that the Lord was leading me to
him that he may in turn lead me back to the Lord.”
As
it were, the march was characterized by prayer recitals and singing of
religious songs, most of whose wordings and lyrics the deviant Christian
(Jumbam) was unfamiliar with. Hear the effect of the march on him: “Five hours
and nearly 30 kilometres later…I had stared so long and so deep into my
Christian life, or what was left of it, that I took a firm decision to run back
for shelter under the canopy of Mother Church…”
An
early fruit of this decision was a resolve he made to go spend some time of
rest and meditation in the monastery in Mbengwi, beginning 1 August 1993.
Jumbam’s godly experiences during his stay here constitute the bulk of the
content of his second article entitled, “I spent a week with the Cistercian
monks in Mbengwi”.
Those
seven days clearly served to further his journey to conversion, just as he had
expected. The expertly counsel he received from the monks and priests in the
monastery, the utter quietude of the place, and the long hours of prayer and
meditation brought Jumbam closer to the Lord than ever before.
While
here, he went for confession and received the Holy Communion for the first time
in 25 and 30 years respectively! The ensuing relief was glaringly overwhelming.
In fact, Jumbam left the Mbengwi monastery an exhilaratingly pensive and
transformed man. This is how he captures his feelings when he quit the place:
“…I left Mbengwi steeped in prayers. I felt like a newly minted coin.”
Communing with a Saint
Having
rushed back to embrace his Creator, it went without saying that Martin Jumbam
could not miss being amongst the multitude to welcome Pope (now Saint) John
Paul II to Cameroon, when he came visiting for the second time in September
1995. Indeed everything about the Sovereign Pontiff’s visit to Yaounde, as reported
in “I walked beside a Saint”, enchanted the author. Of particular interest is
the emphasis Jumbam lays on the Pope’s sharing of the Catholic clergy’s anguish
over the feeling of insecurity “engendered by senseless violence that has been
unleashed on them for reasons no one seems able, or willing, to explain.”
On
that occasion the Supreme Pontiff “cited the case of Monsignor Yves Plumey, the
Emeritus Archbishop of Garoua, assassinated under circumstances that have so
far remained a mystery.” What baffled Jumbam and certainly other observers was
the direct manner in which the Pope confronted “the head of the Cameroonian
nation over the question of insecurity which not only threatens the clergy but
the ordinary people as well.”
Animated by God’s spirit
The
writer’s spiritual growth had now become evident in every action or activity he
found himself involved in. And this is undoubtedly the case to this day. That
is why he records in “Come, follow me” that not only is he a founding member of
the Catholic Men’s Association (CMA) of the Our Lady of Annunciation Parish in
Bonamoussadi – Douala where he worships, he is also called upon to have
spiritual reflections with the group, such as the one he did on July 24 2007
which was based on three words from the Sacred Scripture that constitute the
title of the article in question.
Sometime
later, the author was on the campus of the University of Buea where he had an
appointment with a colleague. So he says in “A prayer at the University of
Buea”. It was a Saturday and UB stood “unbelievably empty and quiet.” Having
arrived earlier than the meeting time, he was virtually alone on the campus for
most of the time he was there. He immediately saw the presence of God through
the teeming elements of nature that adorn the campus and which he viewed with
rapture. The silence of the place was so “prayerfully inviting” that the
renewed Christian could not help reaching into his pocket for his rosary.
After
Christian Cardinal Tumi had led Jumbam back to Christ, the former remained a
close collaborator of the man of God’s in the Archdiocese of Douala. In “The
Catholic Church and the radio”, Jumbam, amongst other things, recounts his
involvement in the running of the diocesan radio, Radio Veritas, as well as his
tenure as General Manager of the diocesan printing press, MACACOS, from 2004 to
2008.
The
counselling dimension of the writer’s transformation comes out clearly in
“Train seminarians to be good managers of human and financial resources” where
he has some overly useful advice for priests, including the need for them to be
grounded in responsible human and financial resources management. In “Father,
watch your health!”, the writer equally counsels priests to take good care of
their health by watching their meals, for “It is virtually important that our
priests remain in good physical health to attend to the spiritual needs of the
people God entrusted to their care.”
A
show of gratitude to those who have touched one’s life in a special way is one
of the hallmarks of a true Christian. That is what Martin Jumbam does to the
Emeritus Archbishop of Bamenda, Paul Verdzekov, “now in heaven”, to Prof.
Bernard Fonlon, his teacher, and to Prof. Daniel Lantum, the architect of
Jumbam’s acquisition of a scholarship to do post-graduate studies in Spain and
of his actual departure from Cameroon.
The
two interviews in this volume are those which Jumbam had with Rev. Fr.
ZephyrinusMbuh, SD, a liturgical expert of the Diocese of Kumbo, and Laura
AnyolaTufon, head of the Bamenda Archdiocesan Justice and Peace Commission and
member of the National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms. The one dwells
extensively on the need for some rituals during Mass to not be over-protracted,
and the other on the successes registered by the Justice and Peace Commission
in the area of conflict management in the North West region.
From
the foregoing, there is no question that by recounting the progress of his
journey to conversion, Jumbam is literally holding the hands of other ‘lost’
Christians in a bid to lead them to the Lord as well. His extensive use of
biblical quotes and references, quotes from Saint Augustine’s book,
“Confessions”, and others seems to be meant to get straying Christians steeped
in the Lord’s word as well.
Autobiographical thread, palatable style
All
of which literature is fastened with a thread of autobiography that visibly
runs through the length and breadth of the work. Jumbam’s articles present
vivid and memorable snapshots of his early childhood as well as his school-going
days at home and abroad. The impression one has upon perusing “My Conversion
Journey…” is not that one is reading a collection of articles and interviews
but rather that one is watching an illuminating movie, with the subtitled
sections into which the articles are divided appearing like episodes in the
film.
Of
course, the writer’s perspicuous rendition and journalistic style make for easy
understanding. His plenteous use of highly evocative imagery gives the effect
of his words being chewed delectably with hugely palatable condiments. The more
you turn the pages, the greater appetite you have to voraciously devour the
luscious lines.
*Douglas A. Achingale is a social worker,
writer and researcher in the literatures at the University of Yaounde 1.
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