An Easter to remember

As expected, Easter Sunday was not the same this year. Even thousands of miles across the country, however, we still were able to celebrate.


The day started with the goal of attending a sunrise service at Mount N’gaoundere, the largest “mountain” around. We piled in the car at 5:30am to drive to the mountain, expecting a large group of worshipers to meet up with, but instead we found no one. We decided to just climb the mountain by ourselves and do some personal reflecting. The gathering consisted of Dr. Brown, Kim, Magdalena, Marit, Lauren, Jacque (one of the PAACS residents), his wife, Deena, and us. The hike up didn’t take too long as we traversed the mounds of rocks and attempted to find a trail. By the time we got to the top, the sun was just rising. We stayed there a while, meditating and snapping a lot of pictures. We were able to see over all of N’gaoundere from the top, from the train station, to the cathedral, and almost to the Protestant Hospital. As we relaxed, enjoying the mildly cool breeze of the early morning, we were suddenly surrounded by hundreds of Cameroonian “athletes” who use the mountain as their morning exercise. They bounded up and down the hill, jumping from rock to rock, as we attempted to keep our balance and avoid tumbling down the hill during our descent. Brent noted that they were hiking similar to the way they’ve been driving: fast, reckless and without “rules.” By the time we made it to the bottom, we found the original gathering that we were supposed to meet for our service. Our car was on the other side of the mountain. Oh well!

We drove back to the Mission where Carolyn had a beautiful Easter brunch prepared for us, complete with colored eggs!! She had made some cinnamon buns, chocolate zucchini bread, and fruit salad to celebrate the day. It was amazing and we were again grateful for our gracious hosts here.

By the time we finished brunch it was only around 9:00am, so we decided to walk over to the Millenium Church to see what their Easter service looked like. The church is gorgeous! We listened to (and tried to sing along with) the band and attempted to understand the baptism and the sermon.

For a while we were able to relax in the afternoon, until Dr. Brown came knocking at the door, letting us know there were some emergency surgeries going on. We dashed up to the hospital to join him. For those interested in the medicine, Courtney was first assist on an 18 year old girl with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, on whom we did a unilateral salpingectomy and a couple ovarian cyst drainages. Brent then was first assist on an incarcerated hernia repair. Finally, Courtney performed a curettage on a woman who had miscarried (technically an incomplete abortion) at 6 months gestation. Whew! By the time we got back, we were hot and tired. We forced ourselves to make a quick dinner and then went to sleep.

Like we said, not your typical Easter.

Courtney and Brent