Mvolyé Hill is located in the center of Yaoundé, Cameroon. Here in 1901 a group of Pallottine Missionaries, Fathers, Brothers and Sisters, under the leadership of Bishop Henry Vieter, arrived to bring the Good News to inhabitants of this region, the people of the Beti Tribe.
In the Church of the Holy Spirit, built by the pioneer of evangelization Bishop Vieter, our two first Cameroonian Sisters: Ghislaine Koagne Ndeyo Makui and Stéphanie Boueda Lonfo made their first profession before Superior General Sr. Izabela Swierad, on the Solemnity of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Sr. Mirosława Włodarczyk, Provincial Superior, also participated in this event.
The main celebrant of the Holy Mass was the Archbishop of Yaoundé, Jean Mbarga, who moved the hearts of the faithful by the words of his homily, emphasizing that he participated in this event because of the historical remembrance of the First Missionaries (religious men and women) of the Pallottine Family.
Referring to the Gospel of the Day, he underlined that as Elisabeth, the cousin of Mary, waited for a long time for her descendant, also the Pallottine Missionary Sisters waited 124 years for their first vocation from Cameroon. The Archbishop also expressed his great gratitude to the Pallottine Fathers and Sisters for the work of the first evangelization.
A very special moment was the Act of Consecration of our novices: “I, Sister Maria Ghislaine, Sister Maria Stephanie… of my own free choice, dedicate myself completely to God and… I place myself at the service of the Church…”
Afterward the New Professed Sisters received their religious dress and a veil; they left to vest themselves, and returned wearing the Pallottine habit. Seeing them, the church was filled with shouts of joy, applause, and ovations: What great things God makes in the hearts of his brides, and how he transforms and invites them toward his special love!
For Sr. Ghislaine this profession was a covenant with Jesus, and for Sr. Stéphanie the words of the Archbishop moved her, echoing like a call to give her life and to serve God with sacrifices like that of our Pioneer Missionaries.
“… only when the grain of wheat dies, it bears fruit …” We who are present here accept these vows of first Cameroonian Pallottine Sisters as a fruit of sacrifice given by the “Mothers of the Faith of the Church in Cameroon”- The First Pallottine Missionary Sisters.
We believe that God will create the desire in the hearts of many young women to dedicate themselves to Him.
Sr. Anna Kot, SAC
