“All of Us Felt the Hand of the Lord”
Almost immediately after the construction of a temple in Aba, Nigeria, was announced in April 2000, Saints in Cameroon began preparing to make the journey. In August 2005, one week after the temple had been dedicated, the day finally arrived for the journey to begin. Shortly after sacrament meeting ended in the Yaoundé branch, those members who were making the long journey boarded a chartered bus. Four hours later, they arrived in Douala, where members there joined them. The caravan turned north and made its way to Kumba, where arrangements had been made to transfer to larger buses for the longest leg of the journey, a 525-kilometer (326-mile) drive on rugged dirt roads.
Members boarding the bus in Yaoundé, August 2005.
Near midnight, the members arrived in Kumba, where they soon learned that the buses they had chartered were not available. Rather than three large buses, the charter company only had two much smaller vans available. Undeterred, the members packed tightly into the vans to continue the journey. At 1:00 a.m., they began the journey 200 kilometers (124 miles) northwest to Ekok, the town on the Cross River where they would enter Nigeria.
Under ideal conditions, the journey from Kumba to Ekok is just three hours. However, recent heavy rains had turned the narrow dirt roads into a thick, deep mud. The heavily loaded vans became stuck, and members—many of them still dressed in their Sunday best—were forced to walk beside the vans. The vans repeatedly became mired throughout the night, and the Saints dug, pushed, and pulled the vehicles through the mud. The three-hour journey stretched longer and longer. “The men soon discovered that going barefoot was the best way to progress,” a missionary later reported. “At each mud hole, someone had to wade in to test the depth.” At two o’clock the following morning, more than 25 hours after they left Kumba, the weary, mud-soaked but happy Saints arrived in Ekok, where they found much-needed lodging and food.
Cameroonian Saints covered in mud after their long journey between Kumba and Ekok.
The next morning, the Cameroonian Saints continued their journey, arriving at the temple 18 hours later. When they arrived, they were greeted by enthusiastic temple workers, who helped them settle into the patron housing near the temple. Over the next several days, the Saints participated in ordinances for themselves and their kindred dead. “As a result of this trip, I developed a great testimony, in spite of the difficulties we encountered,” Gwet Moïse, one participant, said. “All of us felt the hand of the Lord during that trip.”
The Saints who participated in this first temple trip returned to their branches in Douala and Yaoundé with renewed faith and commitment. Many shared the story of the journey—both its difficulty and the solemn beauty of the temple—with other members. “The Almighty Father helps me to persevere, and I have been able to go twice to the temple,” Dadi Sylvain, one of the Saints, said. “I have decided to follow and love God for the rest of my life.”