“In Christ Jesus There Are No Boarders!”

“In Christ Jesus There Are No Boarders!”(Gal.3:26-29).
The renowned Cameroonian veteran journalist of blessed memory, Sam Nuvalla Fonkem told me more than once to conduct a research and see if I could trace the descendants of the Vai boys from Sierra Leone who were with Dr. Eugene Zintgraff when he came to the Grassfields of Kamerun. Nuvalla’s interest was because history records that Fon Galega who received them gave them wives, which means they eventually had children. At one time I asked him why he could not conduct such a research himself?
Possibly he didn’t want to do it himself because it was a sensitive topic. Stories around people who are not free borns are sensitive. There are some once renowned families who are now dominated by descendants of one time slaves.
It is a known fact that when the first school in the Grassfield region was opened in Bali, it was the children of slaves whom compound heads forced to school. It was noted that the discipline of German school teachers was so rigorous that nobles refused their children to be allowed to such rigid disciplines.
Early converts to Christianity were woman and slaves. Some of these women received illtreatment from their husbands, but they held strongly to their faith.
However, there was a time when they grew feathers because of their new found freedom in Christ. This arrogance was expressed in songs like, “Fons, leave palace honour, come and inherit eternal life, the palace shall pass away…” It was probably around this time that the nobility coined proverbs such as, “The pap is cold and people can drink through the nostrils;” “The whiteman has put teeth in the mouth of fowls”, etc!
Africans and African-Americans speak and write with anger against the slave trade, but Africans were the first slave masters as recorded in the Bible. The Jews were once slaves in Egypt.
But as it is in human nature, the Jews themselves soon became so proud and arrogant and looked at Gentiles with disdain. The LORD himself told them to pass this on to their offspring: “In the future, when your son ask you, ‘What is the meaning of this stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?” tell him: ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand…”(Dt.17-25).
While the Jews were to be saved by keeping the law, grace has become the new dispensation through which salvation has come to all humanity.
It doesn’t matter now whether we are descendants of the Sierra Leonean Vai boys, exported slave descendants, women or free borns. “We are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of us who were baptized into Christ have clothed ourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.” Now that we belong to Christ, we too have become Abraham’s heirs – albeit by adoption.
Grace finds anyone who surrenders his/her life to Christ Jesus. Grace does not discriminate! And grace abounds in the same measure to whoever turns to Christ; from wherever!
We just have to become like little children(Lk.18:15-17) to know that all social classes, ethnic groupings and races are created in the image of God and are privileged to the same dispensation of God’s abundant grace.
Sunday prayer: Lord Jesus Christ thank you that through you grace has favoured even me. Amen!
Have a blessed Sunday! Peace be with you!
Rev Babila Fochang.