When I was planning my reporting trip to Africa this past June, I knew I wanted to visit Bamenda, Cameroon. I’d heard about an archdiocesan-wide push to have an adoration chapel in every parish and had been impressed with the local leader, Archbishop Andrew Nkea.

What I didn’t know, at least not until just weeks before my visit, was that I would be walking into a literal warzone.

Bamenda is in the epicenter of the Cameroonian Civil War, which pits English-speaking separatists against the Francophone-dominated government. Since 2017, the conflict has killed roughly 8,000 people.

Learning about the war definitely gave me second thoughts about visiting Bamenda. At the same time, it also put the archdiocese’s push for Eucharistic adoration in a new, more dramatic light. And in the end, my conviction that this story needed to be told won out.

The daylong visit to Bamenda had its share of hair-raising moments, including an episode where our jeep got stuck on a muddy backstreet — even my host, a local monsignor, said he was scared in that moment.

But by God’s grace, I left Bamenda unharmed and with many powerful encounters with local Catholics. I hope that my story’s portrayal of their complete and total reliance upon the Lord in the midst of the ongoing conflict will inspire other Catholics to renew their own Eucharistic devotion — because I know it inspired me.