After Delphine Kohyen ’16 graduated from Viterbo University’s nursing program, she took her skills 6,500 miles away, back to Cameroon, her home country in west central Africa. A part of her, though, will always remain connected to Viterbo.

“When I talk about Viterbo, I speak with passion—long live Viterbo!” said Sr. Kohyen, a member of the Tertiary Sisters of St. Francis. “Viterbo is a home that welcomes all. I love the hospitality and care given to me at Viterbo. I am missing Viterbo a lot.”

The Tertiary Sisters of St. Francis in Cameroon have a partnership with Viterbo’s founders, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, and that partnership is behind Sr. Kohyen coming to Viterbo, an incredible journey for her. She was the third of six children born to a father who finished primary school and a mother who never went to school because her parents died when she was an infant.

Wisconsin’s icy winter, of course, was quite alien to Sr. Kohyen. “It was nice to experience winter, an adventure. I liked the snow but not the cold, to be frank with you,” she said with a laugh. “It was not easy to adjust, but with assistance from the Sisters, who offered winter coats and so on, I adjusted and was well armed to face winter.”

At Viterbo, Sr. Kohyen met not only Americans but students from many other countries as well. “I cherish diversity because of my experience at Viterbo,” she said.

While she came to Viterbo with some nursing school training, Sr. Kohyen learned a lot more about nursing, she said, as well as Franciscan values and servant leadership. She also got a chance to advance her musical training, taking piano and voice classes.

The tenets of servant leadership had an especially big influence on Sr. Kohyen. “Servant leadership, that is like a source of energy to my nursing skills,” she said.

Sister Kohyen grew up speaking English, the most common language in the northwest region of the Cameroon in which she was raised. Parts of Cameroon were controlled by the British and speak English, but about 80% of the country’s residents speak French.

While speaking English was an advantage for Sr. Kohyen when she came to Viterbo, less than a year after she returned home to Cameroon the Anglophone Crisis began. Separatists in the northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon launched an insurgency, fighting for independence. More than 3,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which is ongoing.

The COVID-19 pandemic has diminished the fighting somewhat, but there still have been outbreaks of violence, some of it coming uncomfortably close for Sr. Kohyen. In early December, a stray bullet struck in the surgical ward of Kumbo’s Shisong Hospital, where she works.

“Thanks be to God the nurse on duty just left (before the shooting),” Sr. Kohyen said. “I was afraid to go to the hospital. I spent the whole time praying.”

Prayer is a big part of Sr. Kohyen’s life, and in a recent interview she wanted the members of the FSPA to know they were on her mind. “I miss the Sisters a lot,” she said. “I keep praying a lot for them. I pray for them every day.”

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