All Nations' School – opening

Rev. Daniel Youn is a very ambitious man. Around 16 years ago he arrived here from South Korea. Since then, he's opened dozens of churches and schools and intends to open a university in 2011.

On 27th November we attended the opening of his latest establishment: All Nations' School in the village of Mfou, near Yaoundé.




Largely funded by his denomination (MEEC) and the South Korean Government, it is open to the local kids. Other notable people at the opening were two deputy mayors, representative of the Minister for Secondary Education and the South Korean Ambassador (a very nice man) who performed the official opening.

We were there with Ruth-Abigail Williams who Rev. Youn was glad to see. He spoke in French and told the Anglophones that an angel had come to help him, which she sheepishly translated into English. She actually translated quite a lot into English. Here she is, with Rev. Youn.




How she (or anyone) manages to keep up with someone talking in French, hold it all together in their head and reproduce it in English remains a mystery. How they can do that for several people in a row, of varying accents – sheesh!

As well as the speeches, we had some music. The guy below is really good and got the crowd's enthusiasm with a mixture of styles. Unfortunately the picture of the backing group was obscured by someone in the way!



We moved on to the tour of the school, which is in spacious grounds.



We had the obligatory cutting of the ribbon.



The classrooms are spacious and well ventilated.



Alison and Ruth-Abigail discussed a lesson on the health-care organisations (the WHO and MSF).



All the way through it, the band played on. We might have met these guys before.



After lunch, we went home.