Buea Community Church

Disciples making disciples

Our Pastor

I was born in Babanki-Tungo, a village in the North West Region of Cameroon. My dad worked out of the village and so my mom took us to Church every Sunday for worship. However, whenever the family faced challenging situations, we prayed to God for help but we also visited “Traditional Doctors” in search for answers. Most often, the answer to our problem was to appease some dead ancestors by offering food and drink, sometimes on their graves (libation) and sometimes, the “doctor” blamed a living person for causing our problem. If any of us was sick, we would be mutilated with a razor blade at our joints and forehead and some medicinal concoction applied for relief. What else would a loving mother who could not afford medical bills at a clinic do with her sick children?

Growing up, we had concoctions for keeping evil spirits away from all kinds of attack. These kinds of protection systems came from the “Palace”, the official traditional seat of Village Administration where the “Fon” and his “Kwihfon” lived and ruled from. If you wanted to make sure you were poison-proof, the Palace had that covered as well. If you thought you being witch-haunted, you could have the “Doctor” to bury stuff around the compound to keep you safe, and we did sometimes.

And so I grew up going to Church but also going to the “Traditional Doctors” when life got rough.

In January 1994, I relocated to Buea in the South West Region to pursue a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics and Computer Sciences at the University of Buea. I still remember that I arrived Buea with so enough traditional “medicine” to keep me physically and spiritually safe, some from the “Palace” and some from “Traditional Doctors”. The following year in February of 1995, while studying for my end-of-semester Math Exam, I had an encounter with the Holy Spirit. I had the “inner witness” and conviction that I could not embrace both Christ and the “tradition of my fathers”. First thing I did was to burn

The inner witness and conviction were so strong that I could not focus on my studies so I returned to my student hostel room that night, knelt down before my bed and began to cry out to God for forgiveness. After a while, I got up, searched my room and thankfully found my dusty small Gideon’s New Testament Bible that I had brought with him but had never opened it to read. I began to read the Bible on my own that evening for the first time and I read it till dawn that day. In 3 months only, finished reading the entire New Testament. That same week on campus, the Buea University Christian Union had an evangelistic outreach in the then Amphi 250 and that gave me the opportunity to make a public confession for Jesus Christ.

I immediately began to serve the Lord in my local Macedonia Baptist Church and later through ministries such as Cameroon Youths For Jesus and Emmaus Bible Correspondence School.

After graduating from the University in 1998 with a B.Sc. degree in Mathematics and Computer Sciences, I had big plans for a post-graduate in Computer Engineering but in 1999, I was convinced that the Lord Jesus Christ wanted me to be a witness for His Name. That route got me into trouble with most of my nominal Christian family.

By some divine miracle, I was asked to chair the “Beyond Amsterdam” Conference that took place in Douala, Cameroon in 2002 with representatives from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) in Argentina and USA. Over 1000 Pastors and Church workers attended. I took that as the final confirmation that the Lord wanted me in the ministry.

With no prior training and with no money, only armed with a zeal and passion for the Lord, I led an evangelistic outreach in Buea in November 2004. Following the “crusade”, Buea Community Church (BCC) was planted and we had our first public worship service on November 14, 2004, together with a group of less than 15 other people at my home at Bonduma, Buea. That was a huge leap into the unknown. http://www.bueachurch.org

In April 2005, I married Marceline who accepted to join me in the ministry. Here were two passionate disciples of Jesus Christ launching out into Church planting from scratch and without any kind of theological training or financial support. It was an absolute step of faith and a very interesting experiment. Looking back, all we can say now is that God has been faithful.

Around the same time (officially in December 2003) I also founded a non-profit, Helps International (HINT), that operated as a social arm of our ministry carrying out practical projects in health, education, micro-finance, and information technology in and out of Buea. Thousands of lives would later be impacted by HINT locally and internationally, including recognition of his work by the US Embassy in Cameroon and the US State Department, the Cameroon Government, the Global Junior Challenge in Rome, the Global Social Benefit Incubator at Santa Clara University among others. See links below for more.

I am passionate about not just making converts for Christ, but about seeing God transform them into mature believers who are able to teach others the things they have been taught. This is commonly called discipleship. My desire is to blend the teaching the Word of God with practical expressions of the Word in individual lives and within the community.

During my time as Senior Pastor of Buea Community Church and Founder/Executive Director of HINT from 2003 to December 2015, God has humbly used my ministry combination of the gospel and social entrepreneurship to impact thousands of lives in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.

In 2007, I had the unique opportunity to attend the Global Proclamation Academy (GPA) in Dallas on invitation by Dr. Ramesh Richard of RREACH.org. While at the academy, my false belief that “one does not really need theological training in order to be in ministry and do ministry“, was overcome and there and then, I saw the need for theological training. It took nearly 10 years after that but in the spring of 2016, I began studying at Dallas Theological Seminary for the Master of Theology (Th.M) Degree. Upon completion of my training, I hope to pass on what he has received to thousands of untrained pastors primarily in Africa (2 Tim. 2:2).

I have been busy witnessing for the Lord Jesus Christ all around the World through several opportunities among which are the following just to mention a few notable ones:

My wife and I have been blessed with four kids—Naomi (12 in July 2018), Marie-Toni (10 in March 2018), Brian (8 in January 2018) and Davis (7 in April 2018).

Thank you for praying for him, his family, his studies at DTS and his ministry after DTS.

If you would like to make a donation to support Genesis & his family, his ministry & seminary education, please click here for instructions on how to give.

Hear my Story: