ANNE MOJOKO MUSONGE

Time, like a tale that all must tell,

Like an elusive treasure in every hand;

Time like moments ever so fleeting,

Blessed moments of my yesterday.

Moments of instruction and inspiration,

Moments of anguish, dismay and pain;

Moments, plain, ordinary but sanctified,

Blessed moments with my Aunty Mojoko.

 

In the morning, we all went on our knees,

And on our heels, we sprung into the world;

At home, we told our stories to Big Mama,

And on our knees, we went again and again.

 

Time, time like the lofty credo we affirm,

Like the cord that binds in life and death;

Our grateful hearts God’s praise must sing;

Big Mama’s children still people of faith.

By Isoke Mbongo Mbongo

 

IT ALL CAME LIKE A BOMB SHELL ON THAT FATEFUL DAY WHEN THE PHONE RANG AT AN UNUSAL HOUR. NOT KNOWING WHAT LAY IN STORE, I IGNORED IT AND WENT ON WITH OUR REGULAR, FAMILY MORNING PRAYERS.
AND THEN, A THIRD CALL CAME THROUGH: IT WAS NJOMBE EWUSI WITH THE "BREAKING NEWS": YOUR AUNTY IS GONE! YES, GONE TO THAT UNDISCOVERED LAND FROM WHICH NO TRAVELER EVER RETURNS!
AUNTY, YOU WERE STEADFASTLY INVOLVED IN ALL THE BURDENS AND JOYS THE LORD SENT US. YOU AND MOLA SHOWED US LOVE; SUCH LOVE THAT SOMETIMES MADE US ASK, "WHY US?", BUT WE KNOW THE LORD MADE IT ALL HAPPEN THROUGH YOU.
I AM A VERY WELL KNOWN CLERIC TODAY IN THE EDUCATION COMMUNITY THANKS TO YOU. YOU ENABLED ME TO DELIVER A DISCOURSE BEFORE ALL, ON THE IMPORTANCE OF MORAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES, AN EFFORT WHICH TOOK ROOT AND BLOSSOMED AT UB, (THE UNIVERSITY OF BUEA), WHILE I WAS CHAPLAIN THERE, THUS GIVING BIRTH TO "ETHICS", NOW AN INTERGRAL PART OF THE CURRICULUM AT UB.
YOU CAME UP WITH A SIGNIFICANT PROJECT THAT WOULD REVIVE THE BAKWERI  CULTURE: THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE INTO THE MOKPE LANGUAGE, ENTRUSTING THE TASK TO MOLA HUMPHREY AND MY HUMBLE SELF. YOU DID NOT LIVE TO SEE THE PROJECT THROUGH TO ITS COMPLETION, BUT THE LORD SAW YOUR EFFORTS.
YOU EMPOWERED US! EACH TIME WE LOOK AT LITTLE MAFANY WE ARE REMINDED OF YOUR LOVE AND CONCERN FOR US. WE THANK GOD THAT HE AND HIS SIBLINGS ARE ALL FINE. THEY KEEP MOLA MAFANY IN THEIR FERVENT INTERCESSORY PRAYERS.
WE WERE LOOKING FORWARD TO MORE OPPORTUNITIES AND OPEN DOORS 
UPON YOUR RETURN, BUT THAT WAS NOT TO BE!
HOWEVER, GOD IS FAITHFUL; WE WILL GET TO WHERE HE WILL LEAD US, FOR HIS MERCIES ARE NEW EVERY MORNING.
WE ALL PRAISE GOD FOR THE SAINTLY LIFE YOU LIVED AND PRACTISED, AUNTY MOJOKO. YOU WILL REMAIN IN OUR HEARTS FOREVER. OUR PRECIOUS AUNTY LIVES ON!
  MAFANY, MONAMME, AND EFOSI EYOLE NDELEY WISH YOU PEACE IN THE BOSOM OF THE MASTER.

 MY BELOVED SISTER MOJOKO: A GOD-GIVEN PEARL

My Beloved Sister Mojoko,

The news was devastating but as the Lord Almighty alone has the final say and it pleased Him to call you home, we give Him all the glory and Praise. He will see us through this aching void!

I thank the Lord for your life here on earth. You were a God-Given Pearl to the family and it was nice to know and have such an elegant and wonderful sister, friend, companion, teacher, nurse, and helper.

You shared in all I went through and helped make them light. Thank you again.

      You did not only profess faith in God but you practiced it with all humility. It was evident in everything you said and did. No wonder having been faithful with little, the Lord raised your status and responsibilities to include not only family, home, school and church, but society at large.

You blended endowed qualities and abilities to touch and affect lives near and far positively.

You counseled, reconciled, encouraged, comforted and helped people improve themselves.  Inaccessible roads did not stop you from visiting as the driver will go as far as it is possible and you did the rest on foot.

You were my elder sister but remarkably, you never called me Enanga, you always called me Sister Enanga.

As you enter the glory land, I know you are not going empty handed. Your work and labour of Love which you showed towards God’s name as you ministered to His people will accompany you. You had identified with your Lord, so you will be no stranger there.

My beloved sister Mojoko, because of the joy and care you gave and all the kind things you did and that warmth and love that linked us, you will remain forever in our hearts .

Rest in the Everlasting Arms of the Most High God.

Good Night!!!!  

Your Beloved Younger Sister,

Esther Enanga Harry

 

 

   AN AUNT WITH A HEART OF GOLD

Aunty,
writing this tribute to you is the most difficult thing I have been faced with since I was born. But in order for me to salute your passing unto Glory, I write this to you in tears. Shock, frustration and perplexity could in no way describe the way I felt when I received that horrible text message from Jackai at 9:59pm on that horrible Thursday 20^th  October saying ‘Mum  just passed away’. Aunty amongst the many things which flood my mind as memories of you are the following:

I remember when I was much younger and you came to visit us, we always put on our best dresses to receive you. It was then rare to see you given the fact that you came to the house once in a while. And I remember I always ran ahead of others to embrace you first so that the scent of your perfume will remain on my dress this way I will smell like you, and Aunty I will keep that dress without washing it for awhile. As I grew older, you gave me the opportunity to live in your lakeside residence while on vacation and I will never forget eating on the prestigious banquet table of the Prime Minister’s residence, mostly reserved for dignitaries. After having my Advanced Level, I became closer to you and this gave me the opportunity to know the type of Aunt I had: a human being with a heart of Gold. Despite your high social status, you were an epitome of humility. I remember how we used to sit and flash each other’s cell phones and see the person who will get tired of doing so and finally call; ha ha, all of the times during those flashing sessions you actually called though.

I remember Aunty; I had visited you in Yaoundé in September 2009 when you just took ill. In your usual soft spoken and calm manner and with your meticulous and impeccable use of the English Language you told me that it pays to serve the Lord, and to me in particular that I should remember Him in the days of my youth. You had an extraordinary love and concern for your family which I must confess, sometimes amazed me. I still wonder how despite your own health condition, you paid more attention to how my Mum, your younger sister was doing. Whether she had gotten a crisis? How she was faring with the cold in Buea and how I was doing with my spiritual life. Aunty, still in your condition, my life and future was of great concern to you. This made you send my fees from the U.S and made me come to Yaoundé and so much more… eh… what an AUNT with a HEART of GOLD.

Aunty I owe you my education, tenacity and self esteem, if I proudly went through kindergarten to the post-graduate level, it’s because I had you as an Aunt. Like the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa whom you admired a lot, you fought the good fight of faith and you finished your race both before reaching 70.  You told me on the phone you were strong and well and that the doctors had asked Daddy to come take you home, and that you will be here by October, but you did not tell me you will come in a casket.

Amidst the many things I want to write about you Aunty, I will like to stop and thank God for your life first and the Grace He gave you to serve and trust Him to the very end. I weep bitterly because I will not see you again, but I rejoice because you were Born Again and, ‘precious in His sight is the death of His saints’.  I thank God for the grace He bestowed upon me to be there in my own small way to encourage you to the end. You have gone too soon without seeing what becomes of your youngest niece, who she gets married to, the daughter she plans to name after you, just too soon leaving me with so many unanswered questions to ask my role model. ‘Aunty Thank You for All.’

The lesson I have drawn from your departure is that ‘it is not the years in our lives that matter but the life in our years’. Certainly you are alive, because you live in the hearts which you leave behind. Thomas Campbell said ‘to live in the Hearts which you leave behind is not to die‘

SLEEP PEACEFULLY IN THE LORD!

          

 NALOVA .J. KINGE  [niece]

 

 

TODAY, MY MENTOR LIVES

 

Growing up with the Musonges (PMM and AMM) brought one closer to the “WORD.”  Auntie Mojoko’s transition brings into focus a clearer picture of this philosophy she professed till her last days on earth.

 

The word to Auntie Mojoko meant three things.  Firstly, the scriptures. Secondly, the word was “RP;”   by this, I mean Standard English. And thirdly, the Mokpe (our mother tongue). Very little about the scriptures shall I tell.  It is true that the word as in John 1:1 was with God. So, we cannot doubt that “Lady Perfect” is with her creator.

 

Now I see why she paid particular attention to my school work.  Her library belonged to me and when she found a minute or two, I had to demonstrate my mastery of Chaucer, Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, the African writers and had to complete the discussion with the week’s experience in Linguistics.  Whenever we had occasion to listen or watch the news and the newscaster came up with anything substandard, she would quip:  “Sir H, what are they teaching you people these days?” I tried feverishly to concoct a defense by reminding her about the development/growth of the language, but would not convince her in the attempt.  When we reverted to our mother tongue (Mokpe), I could see her worried about the written phase of that language.  I assured her of ongoing research in the Department of African Languages and at SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics, Yaounde) as well as the works of other individuals.  Hardly did I know that she had one more challenge for me apart from the steering and project committees – that is, translating ‘the word’ (the scriptures) into Mokpe. 

 

She tied me down to draft correspondences to churches, invite interested individuals, and a committee was formed to that effect.  She chaired the meetings with the Cameroon Bible Association, Yaounde, and made her usual generous financial contributions.  Though she was miles away from us due to ill-health, we continued the work and she received her copy of the translated version of the Gospel according to St. Luke in Mokpe – one of her many treasures by her sick bed.  Halleluia, the word lives!  Yea, my mentor lives. I cannot say it all, but she indeed had a vision for her people and she had her God to serve.  Truth was her watchword.  Subtle and generous, she was.  That “Lady Perfect” as some of her students fondly referred to her, loved and treasured the word.  She lived her word whenever she gave her word.   Gloria in excelsis.

 

Humphrey Ekema-Monono (Sir H).