wfn.org | Cameroon: Crash Claims Life of Local Adventist Church President

[Christian B. Schäffler (APD Schweiz)]

May 15, 2005

Adventist Press Service (APD)

Christian B. Schaeffler, Editor-in-chief APD

Fax +41-61-261 61 18

APD@stanet.ch

http://www.stanet.ch/APD

CH-4003 Basel, Schweiz

 

 

Cameroon: Crash Claims Life of Local Adventist Church President

 

Douala/Cameroon.    Seventh-day Adventist Church Pastor Celestin 

Rakotoarisoa Hermanana , 44, was killed May 4 in a bus crash while 

returning to Douala from Yaounde, the nation's capital. He is survived 

by his wife and two young sons. 

 

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 Rwanda, and 

after pastoring churches in Madagascar and serving as local church president

there, came to the West Cameroon region in 2001. During the past four 

years, his work led to the region qualifying for "conference" status 

within the Adventist Church, and, colleagues say, was a beloved minister 

in the area. 

 

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. 

 

Hermanana had 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, 

U.S.A., to attend the 58th world business session of the Adventist Church 

in June. According to reports, the bus crashed while trying to avoid an 

oncoming truck. 

 

In 2003, there were 33,173 Adventist church members worshipping weekly 

in nearly 1,000 congregations in Cameroon. The Adventist Church has been 

active in the nation since 1926. [Jean Emmanuel Nlo Nlo for ANN/APD]