AFRICAN BIBLE FROM CAMEROON

On display at the Bagamoyo Museum in Tanzania

The Bagamoyo Museum is located in Bagamoyo, Tanzania, about an hour from Dar es Salaam. In the late 18th Century, the port town of Bagamoyo was key to the ivory and slave trade. According to the museum website, "the name Bagamoyo comes from the Swahili words Bwaga moyo (throw down your heart), a despair expressed by the people who were captured as slaves." The Bagamoyo museum is filled with old photographs, documents and relics from the slave trade.

At the end of their January 2009 mission to Tanzania, Daniel Bucher and I (Tim Sullivan) toured this museum. It was heartbreaking to imagine the people once held captive by the shackles and fetters now on display. But like a light shining in a dark place, atop a small podium was a three-ring binder labeled "African Bible from Cameroon." It was a picture book of beautiful postcard-sized watercolors of the Gospel story depicted in an African setting. These illustrations were alive with faith, hope and charity and I was deeply moved by them. With permission from the museum curator, I took these photos. Unfortunately they only give a hint of the marvelous originals. Even so, I think you will enjoy seeing them. The captions are as they appear in the Cameroon Bible.

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