{"id":342956,"date":"2014-04-10T03:00:30","date_gmt":"2014-04-10T01:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/farewell-fon-njifua-lukas-king-of-fontem\/"},"modified":"2024-06-06T12:12:17","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T10:12:17","slug":"farewell-fon-njifua-lukas-king-of-fontem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/farewell-fon-njifua-lukas-king-of-fontem\/","title":{"rendered":"Farewell Fon Njifua Lukas, King of Fontem"},"content":{"rendered":"

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From right: Fon Njifua Lukas (Fontem) , Chiara Lubich, Fon Njiendem Joseph (Fonjumetaw)<\/p><\/div> Winnie Nwafor and Frantisek Slavicek from the Focolare community of Fontem informed us of the news: \u201cOn April 2, 2014, <\/strong>the Fon of<\/strong> Fontem<\/a>, Njifua Lukas ,<\/strong> died suddenly. He passed away while being rushed to hospital.\u201d We remember the historic encounter between Fon Lukas<\/strong> \u2013 who had inherited the legacy of his father Fon Defang \u2013 and Chiara Lubich<\/a> in May 2000 when Fon Lukas conferred on Chiara the title, Mafua Ndem<\/em> (Queen sent by God), making her an honoured member of the tribe. The ceremony was given in the presence of the entire population of the Bangwa tribe in the natural amphitheatre in front of the Royal Palace in Azi. Chiara responded by narrating the history<\/a> that was shared by focolarini <\/a>and Bangwa ever since 1964. She invited everyone to make a strong and binding pact of mutuall love \u201cin which they commit,\u201d she said, \u201cto live in peace with one another and to re-establish peace if it is ever broken.\u201d\u00a0 Chiara invited Fon Lukas to make the same pact with the Fon of Fonjumetaw as a way of drawing other peoples to unite in the same spirit.\u201d From here the New Evangelisation project was born, and it was entrusted to the \u201ctwin Fons\u201d as they came to be called from that day. From that moment a close correspondence began between Chiara and Fon Lukas,<\/strong> who kept her abreast of all the meetings, developments and impact of the New Evangelisation among the population. Fon Lukas had been in Yaounde,<\/strong> the capital of Cameroon, where he was working as a State Senator. From Fontem they write: \u201cThe news of his death took us completely by surprise and the population was overcome with sorrow. Everyone headed for the Royal Palace in Azi, with any means possible \u2013 on foot, car or motorbike. The Fon\u2019s body arrived at the Palace between three and four o\u2019clock in the morning and was given a traditional burial in the morning. In the days that followed many members of the Focolare community went to the Palace to comfort the family.\u201c Focolare president Maria Voce<\/a> sent condolences and prayers from the Focolare Movement \u201cat the sudden departure of a dear brother and friend.\u201d In 2001 Fon Lucas had been awarded the Luminosa Award <\/strong>and in his address at the permanent Mariapolis in Hyde Park, NY, he said: \u201cThe New Evangelisation launched by Chiara Lubich in 2000 gains more and more footing in Fontem. The fruits have been so many that we pray God that it will be possible for the whole world to experience it.\u201d

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Fon Lukas Njifua (3rd from right) with Maria Voce and Giancarlo Faletti during their visit in 2009<\/p><\/div> In March, 2008<\/strong> upon receiving the news of Chiara Lubich\u2019s<\/a> death, he left for Rome immediately, obtaining a visa in record time. He was accompanied by the Fon of Fonjumetaw and became one of the principle promoters of preparations for the \u201cCry Die\u201d of Mafua Ndem \u00a0Chiara that was held in January 2009, a grand celebration that had the unanimous support of the entire tribe. Winnie and Frantisek conclude: \u201cWe are thankful to him <\/strong>for having supported and watched over the work of the Focolare Movement in Fontem, and for having welcomed all (and there were many!) who came to live in the Mariapolis during his reign, simply because they were members of Chiara\u2019s family, no matter where they were from. The doors of the Palace were always open to us. Now we are certain that he will continue to intercede that love will always reign among his people, as Chiara had said in 2000: \u201cAlso in the future the vocation of Fontem will be that of the \u2018city on a hill\u2019 so that everyone will be able to see and admire and imitate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The close relationship of the Focolare Movement with the Bangwa tribe, a final salute to our beloved Fon Lukas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342956\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}