INTRODUCTION

by Sandy Van Eysinga

From 1967 to 1976 my parents, Dr. Willi Gutowski and his wife, Anita, a nurse, lived and worked in the Mambilla Plateau area of the Adamaua Plateau region which spans the border of Nigeria and Cameroon, West Africa.  They brought me out to Africa with them in a basket--only a few weeks old.

After 18 months of training in the North American Baptist Conference mission hospital at Banso, Cameroon, they packed up their belongings and headed out on horseback for a remote mission station located in a small Mambilla village called Warwar.  A few days after their arrival back from a conference in 1969, my sister Melodie was born.  She was followed thirteen months later by Lisa, who was born in 1970.  The births were  attended by veteran missionary nurse-midwife, Minnie Kuhn, who had arrived in the Adamaua Plateau a few years earlier.  They worked together with another missionary, nurse Barb Kieper.  Kurt Radke, an expert builder/contractor, also served with the team for a number of years, joined later on by Marva Radke, his wife.

Anita on the way to Warwar            Warwar Baptist Mission      

This team of missionaries served the medical needs of several thousand African people who were predominately of two people groups:  the various indigenous Bantu tribes such as the Mambilla, and the semi-nomadic, Fulani / Fufulde cow herders known locally as "Mbororo."  They also contributed in other ways:  training hospital staff members and pastors, building new sections of the hospital and improving roads, and sharing their knowledge of agriculture, sewing and crafts, music, etc. with their African neighbors.

In 1976 the Gutowski family decided to return to Winnipeg, where my father would continue medical studies to gain his specialization in Psychiatry.  Dr. Ron Hiller and his family were sent out by the North American Baptist Mission to continue the medical practice in Warwar Hospital.

    images courtesy of  Dr. W.D. Gutowski, MD.

    created by C.L. Van Eysinga 1997, 2004.

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