The Presbyterian Church in Cameroon and Rural Missionary Work

Abstract

This article is an investigation into the operation of the missionary service of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon (PCC) in the Menchum Valley. The major argument here is that the PCC was more successful in their holistic missionary strategy (marked by contextualisation and the channelling of huge resources of personnel and finances into the area) than that pursued by the Basel Mission (BM). The latter, from whose missionary action the PCC accrued, had made fruitless efforts from the 1920s to 1957 to evangelise in the Menchum Valley region. Following the PCC's independence from the BM in 1957, the PCC had to shoulder the responsibility of taking the gospel to the unevangelised people, especially in areas where the founding mission failed. It was in this context that the PCC carved out the Esimbi Mission Field (EMF) from the Menchum Valley in 1976 in the hope of enhancing missionary work among the rural population. The contextualised holistic approach the PCC employed with a heavy reliance on indigenous missionaries resulted in the fantastic growth and vitality of the Church in this traditional mission field. It therefore follows that the PCC's ability to surmount the impediments that marred the BM's missionary service hinged on their implementation of a contextualised indigenous holistic strategy. What resulted from this strategy was missionary effectiveness in observable ways.