“I work in the Customs Authority and I’m coming close to the end of my career. A long journey of 29 years! There were joys and sorrows, but especially difficult choices. Since the beginning of my career, as a woman and even moreso as a Christian, I had scruples of conscience. How could I listen to the voice of God and follow it in an environment of easy money and comprimise that seemed inevitable? The answer was given to me in 1984. That year I met the Focolare Movement, and I was struck by these simple and happy people. They possessed a freedom and joy that I had never experienced. I wanted to know more. The secret turned out to be love for God and for others.

This encounter has transformed my life. I began to realize that the most important thing in life is to love. You profession doesn’t matter much. The task you’ve been given is a great opportunity to love God and your brothers and sisters. This changed everything! My colleagues and clients were no longer barriers, but they became partners with whom I could build unity.

The continual effort to go beyond my own limits and those of others, in order to go against the current, has always been accompanied by the joy that you experience after rendering some service. It is a feeling of freedom each time, that I was able to renounce my own interests as well as the easy money.

In 1999 I was awarded the Excellence Award by the Cameroon Women Customs Officers Association. The Word of Life for that month was: “Let you light shine before others, so taht they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in the heavens” (Mt. 5:14-16).

With this award I felt like I was being called upon in person: “Hang in there, don’t give into your doubts and discouragement, improve each day.”

At the end of my career, I experienced that no profession is the antechamber of hell! I saw that our specific roll in society as Christians is to do everything we do with a new spirit, with complete adhesion to God’s will. He has always accompanied us with His grace.”

(Jeanne – Cameroon)