By Maryangela Layman Román, Catholic Herald Staff

OAK CREEK — Since she was a little girl, Abigail Navti dreamed that her uncle, Cardinal Christian Wiyghan Tumi of Cameroon, would witness her wedding. Not even a Midwestern blizzard nor the 6,500 miles separating Cameroon and Wisconsin prevented her dream from coming true.

Abby, 35, married Clement Abongwa, 37, at St. Matthew Church in between snowfalls last Saturday with her uncle, the cardinal, as the principal concelebrant of their wedding Mass. Also on hand were St. Matthew Parish team members, Frs. Stephen Stradinger and William Stanfield, Deacon Michael Neba from Chicago, and relatives and friends from around the United States and Africa.

After spending time with Cardinal Francis E. George in Chicago, Cardinal Tumi arrived in Milwaukee Friday for the rehearsal dinner and spent a snowy few days in the city before returning to Chicago Monday prior to his flight home to Africa.

Cardinal Tumi, who was named Cameroon’s first cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 1988, is the brother of Abby’s mother, Mary Nyuysever Navti, who died in October 2004.

“He married my mom back in 1968 and I always wanted him to do my wedding, too,” said Abby, in a telephone interview with your Catholic Herald. Describing her relationship with her uncle as close, she said she was thrilled his schedule allowed him to travel to Wisconsin for her wedding.

“Until he showed up, I’m never sure,” she said, explaining that in his position, he has many demands on his time.

The 76-year-old West African cardinal who speaks seven languages has been one of Cameroon’s most outspoken voices in demanding an end to government corruption and restrictions on press freedoms. According to a July 31, 2006 story by Catholic News Service, Cardinal Tumi was urged to run for president of the country but declined.

A former seminary rector and philosophy teacher, Cardinal Tumi served as president of the Cameroonian bishops’ conference and has promoted dialogue with Muslims locally and as a member of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

While Abby and Clement married in Wisconsin, they met in their home country of Cameroon some 24 years ago.

“While Clement and my story is an interesting one, it is certainly not one of those ‘love at first sight’ stories. In fact, if someone had predicted that we would end up together, I would have said absolutely not,” wrote Abby on the couple’s wedding Web site.

Abby was 11 and a first-year student at Our Lady of Lourdes Secondary School in Cameroon when they met.

She and her classmates at the all-girls school went to the nearby boarding school for boys, Sacred Heart Secondary School, for an annual school feast celebration. One of the boys there was Clement, a classmate and good friend of Abby’s older brother, Osric.

While Clement recalls feelings akin to “love at first sight” when he met Abby, he kept his feelings to himself. Over the years, the two remained friendly, but not romantically involved. As for Abby, she only considered Clement a friend of her brother’s.

At age 17, Abby left Africa and came to the United States to study. She attended the University of Iowa, and after receiving her master’s degree, worked for Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare in Wheaton, Ill., from 1996 to last April.

At that time, she moved to Wisconsin to Wheaton’s Milwaukee office where she is vice president for strategic planning.

In August 2002, Clement also moved to the United States, but before he left, Abby’s father, John-Patrick Navti, gave him Abby’s phone number and encouraged him to contact her. Clement had been working with her father following his graduation in 1997 from a university in Nigeria.

In time, friendship between the two grew and in May 2005, Clement flew to Chicago from California where they met face to face for the first time in nearly two decades.

By December of that year, they were engaged.

“I certainly possess the virtue of patience,” wrote Clement on the couple’s wedding Web site. “I had to wait for 22 years to realize my dream…. Abby has always been a special person to me even before she knew it…. I am confident that I am the right man for her and I will always treat her with respect. She is the heart of my heart.”

The Feb. 24 wedding at St. Matthew Church, the parish she joined when she moved to Wisconsin last July, incorporated several African traditions, said Abby, explaining it included a Lectionary procession after the opening prayer where the Bible was brought forward.

“Typically, ladies dance up; it’s just a small thing preparing for the Word of God. This is something we do back home,” she said.

The couple also followed the African tradition of collecting alms during the wedding Mass. The money is donated for a cause the couple deems worthy. Money collected at the Abongwa wedding was divided between St. Matthew Church and Cardinal Tumi for use in his West African diocese.

During the Mass, Cardinal Tumi had special words for his niece and her groom.

“He preached quite a bit on the values of marriage,” recalled Abby, noting that he stressed divorce is not acceptable nor is it an option. “We come from a culture where polygamy is more prevalent than divorce, but both are not acceptable. He told us to love each other, have respect for each other because marriage is a covenant for life.”

With most of the guests visiting from warm weather climates, Abby said the snow presented challenges in driving around the city, but caused no real problems. Rather, she said, some of the guests from Africa, California, Texas and Atlanta were excited to see the snow.

The cardinal, however, took it in stride, said Abby, noting that as a regular world traveler, snow was nothing new to Cardinal Tumi.

Following the Mass, the couple hosted a reception at the Grain Exchange in downtown Milwaukee, which featured homemade, African food, including rice, roasted fish, plantains, huckleberries and corn dishes.

With the wedding behind them, the couple, after a honeymoon in Hawaii, plan to settle in Wisconsin. Clement, who has been living and working in Walnut Creek, Calif., will begin a job with the City of Kenosha shortly.

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