When the Gault family arrived in Yaounde in 2006, Steve wasn’t all that concerned about adjusting to a new country and city. In some ways, Africa is more his home than the United States, his birthplace.
Steve, who is BMM’s Africa Field Coordinator, grew up as an MK in a rural area of Central African Republic (CAR). In 1995, Steve returned there as a missionary with his wife Beth. Civil unrest in CAR later led them to a medium-sized city in Ivory Coast for seven years until the Gaults felt led to begin BMM’s first work in Cameroon.
With so much experience under his belt, Steve thought Cameroon would be a smooth transition. Not so. Cameroon’s capital city was a very different world from the rural and smaller-city life they had known. Yaounde presents a foretaste of the urbanization challenges more Africa missionaries will face.
Yaounde’s infrastructure and economy have not been able to keep pace with its growing population, and its overtaxed road systems are, in Steve’s words, “massive chaos.” Severe housing shortages, poverty, and crime are part of everyday life. In CAR, Beth had taught women how to read and write. But in Cameroon, the Gaults reach out to people with graduate degrees. Along with the Cameroonians’ greater educational level came increased cynicism toward foreigners and the gospel.
The Gaults realized their first step as unknowns in this city should be to gain the people’s trust and respect. They converted a former bar in the suburb of Odza into a community center where they offered free English classes. This wise move built friendships with neighbors, who were grateful to learn English to elevate their career opportunities. One of the friendships formed was with a police chief who helped the Gault family get 10-year visas—miraculous in Cameroon.
Many students from the English classes expressed interest in Steve and Beth’s desire to start a church. Today, Odza Baptist Church meets in that former bar, and the growing congregation is saving to buy land to construct a larger building. The church is a developing partnership between the Gaults, missionaries Dan and Karis Seely (arrived in 2008), and a team of dedicated Cameroonian laypeople.
“On the New Frontier” first appeared in the summer 2010 issue (“The New Africa Is Coming”) of Baptist Mid-Missions’ Advance magazine.