Presbyterian Mission Cameroon

The UPCUSA formed its Board of Foreign Missions in 1837, and sent its first missionaries to Africa in 1840. The Presbyterian Mission to West Africa (Cameroun) opened in 1844 and expanded inland, north and west, over the next 60 years, establishing schools, hospitals and churches. In 1920, the West Africa Mission opened Hope School for Missionary Children, a boarding school for 1st through 8th grades, located near Ebolowa. The West Africa Mission’s sending denomination, the United Presbyterian Church in the USA, like the UPNA, was a stream from the common source of Presbyterians in Scotland who emigrated to the United States in the mid-1600s. In 1957, the UPCUSA joined with the UPNA to make a single denomination. Now part of the same denomination, Presbyterian mission children from Cameroon could attend Schutz for high school instead of returning to the US for the next 4 years. Attending Schutz allowed a return home each summer. Each year thereafter until 1968, the Presbyterian Mission in Cameroon sent an increasing number of high school students to Schutz.