church’s president in neighboring Chad has been killed in a bus crash, Adventist news agencies reported late Friday, May 6. The Adventist Press Service (APD) and Adventist News Network (ANN) said Celestin Rakotoarisoa Hermanana , 44, was killed Wednesday. May 4, in a bus crash while returning to Douala from Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital. He is survived by his wife and two young sons, the news agencies said.
"Administrators in the church’s West Africa region had planned to elect Hermanana as president of the church in Chad on May 6, meaning a new assignment for the veteran worker," APD and ANN said in a statement. Pastor Hermanana, a native of Madagascar and a missionary to Cameroon, was president of the church in West Cameroon.
He was one of the first graduates of the Adventist University of Central Africa in troubled Rwanda, and after pastoring churches in Madagascar and serving as local church president there, came to the West Cameroon region in 2001, news reports said. The news agencies quoted church sources as saying that during the past four years his work led to the region qualifying for "conference" status within the Adventist Church, and that he "was a beloved minister in the area."
VISA TRAVEL
Hermanana had reportedly gone to Yaounde, a three-hour, 155-mile (250 km) bus trip, on May 4 to pick up a long-awaited visa for travel to St. Louis, Missouri, United States, to attend the 58th world business session of the Adventist Church in June. His bus crashed while trying to avoid an oncoming truck, news reports said.
In 2003, there were 33,173 Adventist church members worshipping weekly in nearly 1,000 congregations in Cameroon, according to church estimates. The Adventist Church has been active in the nation since 1926. Christians comprise of roughly 40 percent of Cameroon’s total population of about 16 million people.
The Adventist and other churches operate amid sometimes hostile environments, suggested a recent report of the United States State Department. "Discrimination in the northern provinces, especially in rural areas, by Muslims against Christians and persons who practiced traditional indigenous religions [has] remained strong and widespread," the State Department said in its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2004.
US officials say Cameroon is a republic "dominated by a strong presidency." Despite the country’s multiparty system of government, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) has remained in power since the early years of independence. "In October, CPDM leader Paul Biya won re-election as President. The primary opposition parties fielded candidates; however, the election was flawed by irregularities, particularly in the voter registration process," the US State Department reported. (With reports from Cameroon and BosNewsLife Research)
