Cameroon: Easter heartbreak - A deeply moving Resurrection story from the frontline

Resurrection, Koningsoord

Source: Mill Hill Missionaries

Mill Hill Missionary Fr Innocent Akum Wefon writes: For most of my life as a priest, Easter has been a time of overflowing joy; churches packed with singing voices, polished liturgies, colourful vestments, and the familiar rhythm of celebration. Christ is risen! And with that proclamation, joy often feels like the only appropriate response.

But this year, Easter broke me open in a different way.

Celebrating with the small, battered Christian community of Mubang, I found myself swept into a storm of emotion, not the triumphant kind, but something deeper, more human.

As I listened to every reading of the Easter Triduum and contemplate the reality of the people in front of me, I didn't feel joy at first. I felt confusion. Heartache. Even fear.

What a devastating moment it must have been for the disciples; the ones who had followed Jesus so closely, who believed with all their hearts that He was the Son of God. They had seen miracles. They had felt His power. And now… they were watching Him humiliated, treated like a criminal, nailed to a cross like any other man.

What a crushing blow for Judas, thinking he could control the outcome, only to realize too late that Jesus would not be saved. What despair for Peter, who so desperately wanted to protect Him, only to be told to put away his sword. How helpless they must have felt, watching their world collapse in front of them.

And after all of that, the tomb; the empty tomb.

The women who went there in the early hours didn't come with faith in the resurrection. They came with spices and tears, expecting to see his death body. When they found the stone rolled away, they didn't rejoice, they wept. "They have taken the Lord," they said.

No one was expecting Easter.

Of the two disciples who ran to the tomb, one saw and believed, the other still couldn't. Confusion, doubt, fear; these were the first emotions of Easter morning. Not glory. Not celebration. Just pain, silence, confusion and not knowing what comes next. And it was in that very space, that trembling uncertainty that the Risen Lord began to appear.

He didn't come back to fanfare or crowds. He came quietly, gently, to a few broken-hearted people who hadn't given up. To a woman sobbing in a garden. To frightened men locked in a room. To two weary travelers on the road. His resurrection was not loud, it was intimate, unsettling, even frightening.

This Easter, I finally felt what they must have felt.

In St. Augustine's Catholic Church in Mubang, a place once full of life, now thinned out by war and sorrow, I celebrated the Triduum with those who have lost so much. The rich, the strong, the young, all gone, fleeing to safety. Even the children have left in search of peace and education. What remains is a fragile but resilient community, clinging to faith amid daily danger.

Twice on my journey to St. Augustine's, I met armed fighters and by God's grace, those encounters ended peacefully. On Holy Thursday, almost everyone had their feet washed, a moment so tender, it brought tears to my eyes. We walked the Stations of the Cross in the pouring rain.

We began the Easter Vigil at 3pm, not because it was time, but because darkness meant danger.

Nothing about it felt like the Easters I've known; no polished liturgies, no choirs, and no pageantry. It was raw. Unfiltered. Real.

And it moved me in a way that no cathedral celebration ever has.

It was their first time celebrating the full Triduum. It was raw, full of emotion, confusion, even chaos and yet beautiful. And in the middle of it, I found myself asking: What does Easter mean here? To these people, trembling in the shadow of violence, burdened by poverty, forgotten by the world?

What could I say that wouldn't feel hollow?

And then I heard my own voice speak the truth that had been growing quietly in my heart: "We must find the Risen Lord in the middle of our fear and confusion." Just like the disciples, just like the women at the tomb, we don't need to have it all figured out. We don't need perfect faith or perfect answers. What we need is the courage to stay, to seek, to hope.

The resurrection didn't begin with certainty. It began with heartbreak. And maybe that's where we will find Him too, not in the places where everything is neatly arranged, but in the cracks of our lives, where fear and hope hold hands. We are the few who stayed behind, not because it's safe, but because we believe. And in our staying, even in our trembling, the Risen Christ comes to meet us.

Even here. Especially here.