The story of the African Counseling Center begins with African pastors who gave sacrificially to support one of their own in a year of study in the US, so that he could return home and share what he learned with them.

GRACE AT WORK


What difference can one person make?

Rich in traditional wisdom and culture, Africa is a continent of contrasts. War and political turmoil have displaced millions; one in three persons are undernourished; 24.5 million live with HIV/AIDS; crime, alcoholism, unemployment, and poverty take a high toll. You have heard statistics like these so often that they may barely make an impact any more. It's tragic, after all, but what can one person do?

This is a remarkable story of what one person by God's grace, accomplished. The American Association of Pastoral Counselors and our Atlantic Region joined with one man to make a difference, bringing hope, knowledge, and professional clinical training to Africans who face these threats every day.

The story begins in Cameroon, West Africa. A group of churches selected one pastor, Rev. Jean-Emile Ngue, and provided the means for him to do graduate seminary training in the United States for one year. Supporting a student in America demands sacrificial giving in a country where the average pastor makes only $100 a month. For the first time Rev. Ngue learned about pastoral care and counseling, an unknown field in Africa. He realized that pastoral care training would be a tremendous help to his fellow pastors and their congregations. Without guaranteed support, he began three years of doctoral work with a focus on pastoral counseling at The School of Theology at Virginia Union University, in Richmond, Virginia, in partnership with the Virginia Institute of Pastoral Care (VIPCare). His doctoral project adapted Western pastoral care and counseling to the African context. He wrote, "my desire is for an African Counseling Center to be a healing place where people can learn to trust God, to trust their Africaness and to trust themselves again."

While in the States, Jean-Emile became an active member of AAPC and particularly the Atlantic Region. Many in our region came to know him and appreciate the sacrifices his family and fellow ministers were making.
After graduating in 2000 and returning to Africa, the dream of a pastoral counseling center remained foremost in his heart. One year after his return, the African Counseling Center in Yaounde, a city to two million people, became a reality. An AAPC Mission Advance Grant provided seed money and the Atlantic Region followed up for the next several years providing critical financial help to establish the first service and training center of its kind in Africa.

Dr. Ngue called together a board of directors that includes pastors, church lay leaders, seminary representatives, medical and social workers, and members of the government. As director he receives no salary so the center can employ a full-time clinical director and part-time counselors. In a country with over 60% unemployment, they operate on very limited funds, but provide amazing ministry given their financial resources. They literally pray for God to supply money for rent and small salaries every month. Students and two professors from the nearby Protestant Seminary give their time and services, as do several recent graduates and pastors. The ACC has recently become a training location for graduate psychology students from the University of Yaounde who come to learn about the discipline of pastoral counseling.

The ACC provides services including counseling for families, marriages, pre-marriage, teenage crises, drug addition, career decisions, and spiritual issues. It provides monthly pastoral counseling training for pastors. The ACC sponsors a weekly radio program, aired on a popular Christian station in the capital city of Yaounde. Counseling staff members provide pastoral counseling instruction and inspiration. Counselors are available to speak to listeners during programs and often provide follow-up service at the center.

The center has a special ministry to families faced with HIV/AIDS, providing counseling during the parent's illnesses and ongoing care and education expenses for surviving children. There is tremendous need in a country where an increasing number of children now head households following the deaths of both parent to AIDS. Like many other pastors, Dr. Ngue cares for 9 AIDS orphans in addition to his own 4 children

Dr. Ngue's journey clearly demonstrates that even one committed person can bring about dramatic change. One AAPC region can share the vision and enter into a transforming partnership. You can share in this story of grace, rooted in light, hope and love. You can pray, give what you are able, and share this story with friends and colleagues. Like Jean-Emile Ngue, with God's help,

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

FAITH SHARING 12-23-07
@ Trinity UMC Richmond VA USA
Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

"Give us this day our daily bread"—I've been praying these words as far back as I can remember with my family and church family. You probably have too. They took on new meaning when I traveled to Cameroon, West Africa. There I met some new family members, brothers and sisters in the family of God. As we prayed together the Lord's Prayer I realized these dear people, who live in one of the poorest countries in the world, were not just saying familiar words, they were trusting God and praying for their next meal!

Use your Holy Imaginations and travel with me to the African Counseling Center in Yaounde, Cameroon. It is a hot day and we walk off the main road down a dirt street and enter a very modest small stucco building where we are seated in plastic lawn chairs in the waiting room of the African Counseling Center. We are greeted by a group of African grandmothers dressed in their brightly colored African attire. These elder women come to the center for a support group—a time of sharing and praying and finding courage. All have lost daughters and sons and other family members to AIDS and are now struggling to care for their children's children.

Ahtuba, the eldest of the women stands and speaks with much passion in French which is translated for us into English. Ahtuba shares her story of how her daughter, Noel, returned from the hospital with the news that the reason she had been so tired and weak for months was because the blood test showed she had AIDS. Noel was filled with fear and shame. After she watched her husband waste away and die only a year earlier, she had struggled to provide food for her five children by selling peanuts on the street. Now she worried, "What will happen to my children?" Noel could not expect help from her family or the community. Isolation and shunning is common in this shame-based culture because people believe illness is a punishment from God. She had nowhere to turn.

With tears in her eyes, Ahtuba continues her story. She speaks of how grateful she is that Noel found Christian love and practical support at the African Counseling Center. Samuel Lindjeck, one of the ACC pastoral counselors, helped Noel and her family experience the unconditional accepting love of God, who does not punish with illness but is present with us in the midst of our most difficult struggles. As Noel became weaker and was no longer able to come to the center, Samuel visited Noel and Ahtuba in their home to work with the whole family. Before she died, Noel was assured that the African Counseling Center would continue to provide support for her children and family members by providing rice, practical household goods, medicines, and school tuition for the children.

I wish you could travel for real to Cameroon and see first hand how God is at work in the lives of these brothers and sisters in Christ who in the midst of their daily lives are trusting God for their daily bread. When you give and when you pray, you are helping to answer their prayers.

Our Trinity family has provided support for the African Counseling Center, as well as many other mission projects in our city, our state, our nation, and literally around the world through our Missions Mall and our Lenten and Christmas mission offerings. As you sit down to Christmas dinner this week and express your gratitude for all you have received, please pray for all of those who will be blessed by your gifts to our Trinity Christmas Mission Offering. Thank you for providing daily bread and hope in Cameroon, West Africa.

Sandy Hamilton

ADVANCE PLANNING FOR AAPC MEETING

A key mission of the African Counseling Center is training pastors, students, and lay leaders in clinical pastoral counseling, often on a one-to-one basis.

Dr. Ngué and Mr. Lindjeck (not pictured above) will be in the U.S. for the National Conference of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors March 27-29. They will present a seminar describing how the ACC was born. Dr. Ngué studied at the Virginia Institute of Pastoral Care (VIPCare), while at the same time completing the D.Min. at the School of Theology, Virginia Union University in Richmond, VA.

When he returned to Cameroon, he founded the ACC and invited VIPCare staff to come to Cameroon, which they did in 2002. American team members were Vic Maloy, Executive Director of VIPCare, Mary Fran Hughes-McIntyre, Dennett Slemp, Sandy Hamilton, and Sharron Hawke, R.N., a graduate of the Congregational Pastoral Care Program. With African team members, the group adopted the name "Companions in Hope."

Mary Fran Hughes-McIntyre visited Cameroon in 2007 as well.

PRAYER

At present, Companions in Hope (see sidebar) are praying, our Lord, that You will bless Dr. Ngué and Mr. Lindjeck with daily strength for the demands of the Center, with patience for the many details that must be sorted out in preparation for travel, and with mercies, new every morning.

We praise God that "greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world" 1 John 4.4. We pray for family members who bear many demands as a result of their responsibilities.

We pray for the staff who will maintain the quality of service to many hurting people in their absence.

Especially we pray for the Grandmothers, whom God has called to raise their grandchildren because parents have died of AIDS. We pray for many children, who must grow up too soon because parents have died.

We pray for pastors, who lead churches because they know that God cares about daily bread, clean water, education, working conditions, and health care.

We pray for traditional leaders and elected officials, that their hearts may burn for the suffering of their people.

We pray for world leaders, especially our American President George Bush, that God may turn their hearts from war to peace, and may open their eyes to see that billions spent on destruction could build a world where all God's children have food, drink, clothing, schools, and well-being.

God, may You join our hearts and hands across the Atlantic, erasing the shame of centuries of slave trade, by ceaseless efforts of ordinary Americans to make a difference in the lives of our African brothers and sisters.

Lord, You have poured out upon our African neighbors and kindred the spiritual riches of faith, hope, and love. Open their hearts to share with those who sometimes have the world's goods but are spiritually impoverished.

We pray in all this that You will receive glory and praise. In the strong, healing name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. (jlh)