NO ROOM AT THE INN

Travelling on to the west, we passed through Griqualand, and Griquatown. This was in the area where Livingston had centered much of his work. He met and later marrried Mary Moffat the daughter of the missionary living at the near by mission. I would later preach and teach in this same area and once camped under the trees that surround the Moffat mission.

The area is filled with limestone and asbestos deposits. The result is clearly shown by the many blind Africans who are blinded by the lime dust, and others suffering from breathing problems from breathing asbestos dust. I learned there that "Tiger's Eye," semi-precious stones, are really asbestos ore. A beautiful polished gem that can cause serious lung cancer if you breathe the dust from cutting and polishing it. Water being scarce, the uneducated resident Africans often neglect proper protection and sanitary practices. The result is that they end their lives blind or suffering from lung cancer.

Farther to the west, a mountain of iron ore adds its rusty dust to the air. I understand that magnetic compasses are totally unreliable when flying over that area.

At this point one is travelling parallel to the great Orange River and south of the Kalahari Desert, a waseland of sand dunes, just to the north of the river. I do not have good memories of that area. The road I was travelling was filled with large sharp rocks and my new heavy-duty tires I had fitted to the Chevrolet didn't survive even the first day. We managed to limp into Upington with no spare tire at all, and it was there that I unloaded our heavy trunks and shipped them by the narrow gage rail to my self to be collected at Windhoek. Upington, on the Orange River, is a thriving town, even though the summer temperatures often reach 110 degrees or more. One of their major irrigated crops is the growing of fruits for packing as dried fruit, especially rasins and prunes, but also figs, peaches and other types. The hot dry air is ideal, and the water from the near by Orange River is plentiful. The sheep of this area cease to be breeds used for wool or meat. Instead they are Karakul. The lambs of the Karakul sheep are killed when they are just born to make fur coats from their tightly curled black pelts. If they are not killed very young, they lose the tight curls and they turn to a dull grey. We skipped Augrabies Falls, mainly because we had never heard of them at that time. Not long after that we crossed the border into South West Africa, (German West Africa, now called Namibia). There was no border post there as South Africa had been given mandate over that country by the League of Nations following World War One. From there on, the roads deteriorated until they were simply trails that threaded through the scrubby thorn trees. There was often no pretence of a road being gravel or even having been planned or maintained at all. There were no signs, except perhaps at very obvious forks in the road. This is where we turned north again. Gasolene, called "petrol" was usually obtained from a steel barrel with a measuring pump that was stuck in an opening on the top. That would be standing in front of rare trading store and there might be no sign of life other than the manager of the store or perhaps an isolated farm house. He would certainly not speak English, possibly Afrikaans, but most likely German. They all had one thing in common. They hated Americans. This was 1953! and the Second World War was not long past. Toward evening we came to a small village that had a proper petrol station and a hotel. They also actually had a room available in the hotel, so we could all bathe, scrub the red dust off, and get something to eat, but they had no petrol anywhere in town. Delivery was expected only the next morning.

Much to our surprise there was petrol after we had breakfast and we were able to continue our journey. This time we were driving between the Kalahari and the Namib deserts. The Namib is famous in that diamonds lie scattered on it's surface in places, but do not stop and pick any up or even look! It is illegal to stop here, or to possess a rough uncut diamond anywhere in South Africa. If you happen to find one, it belongs to DeBeers Mining Corporation, and you are required to take it to them. They will give you a price, a price they set. There are still licenced diggers, as the old licences can be passed down in the will of the original holder to his family members. Because of that, there are still private diggers working in some areas even today, especially near or in the rivers.

We made one more interesting stop on the way. That was at Rehoboth. The residents of this community proudly refer to themselves Bastards. They are of mixed blood, German and Namas primarily. We were warned to count our change and watch our belongings if we had to stop there. We needed petrol, but had no problems, even with the unfamiliar money. There was a wide dry sandy river bed to be crossed. No problem, as long as you kept the car moving and stayed on the right path, but some time previously a heavy truck had been lost in a flash flood there. The owners filed an insurance claim for it's loss, and were refused because that was usually a dry river. In time, the company sent a crew who was instructed to dig the truck out of the sand and recover it. As the story goes, they had the truck nearly clear when the cry went up, "The water is coming." Everyone ran for their lives and all made it with their equipment to higher ground, but the second time they tried to dig it out, the same thing was repeated, and the truck was buried again. This time the equipment was lost as well, and the insurance company paid out the claim in full!


Late in the afternoon, tired and dusty, we rounded a curve, and there was Windhoek, with it's German Castle; one paved street, street lights, and even a stop light (robot) or two. It had two, or perhaps three hotels. We stopped at the very first one. There was "No room in the inn." I know how Joseph and Mary must have felt. We had a tiny baby and no clean bed, fresh water, or supper. They did, however temporarily, squeeze us into a tiny room in an alley behind the hotel. I know now it must have been used for their black staff, but it was clean, we could, and did use the communal bath, and we did get food in the dining room. Praise the Lord. We had arrived at the end of a very long journey. We would have to go "house hunting" immediately.

SETTLING IN TO A NEW ROUTINE

At the time we arrived there were three other missionary families ahead of us in Kimberley. Each had his own work. Max Ward Randall was the mission superintendent. The South African government required at that time that there be one person who was in charge and with whom they would correspond and hold accountable. Lynn Stanley was in charge of preacher training, Bill Rees was in Chinese evangelism. Alvin Nicholson had already moved to the coast some twelve hours drive away where he worked with the Zulu speaking Africans. He was in charge of Building and Evangelism. As the new commer, though the Mills’ had actually arrived on African soil months ahead of the Stanleys and the Nicholsons, they fitted in where ever there was a need and had no official designation or standing in the group.

The Stanleys, though they had four lively sons, graciously made room for another five in their home. Obviously the first urgent matter was to find a house. Kimberley did have houses for sale or to rent, so after a search a small house on the other end of the block from Lynn and Lucille was found, a deposit put down, and Bob and Phyllis became owners of a home at last. The basic house was square with four rooms of equal size, a porch across the front, and another at the back. The back one had been enclosed to make a small kitchen and a bath room. The toilet was still a bucket down the path, but there was hot water. (Of a sort) A small, perhaps two feet tall cylinder stood beside the bathtub. It had double walls and an opening in the center of the tube. Water was fed into the wall cavity from the bottom. You put sticks in the center and lighted them. Soon it would start to “perk” hot water and steam into the tub in very small amounts. As an experienced user, I suggest you never feed the fire while sitting in the cold water, the steam and water that comes from the tube at the top is scalding. Needless to say, a new proper electric water heater, and a septic system, were high on the priority list.

Bob became the second teacher at the minister's training school, and he and Lynn made many trips out to farms, country churches, and villages where there was some sort of often derelict building. All of them had to be replaced as soon as possible, so the African brothers set up and E. and B. fund for Evangelism and Building. Each member was expected to make a small annual contribution toward this necessary work. Donations from America were also received and Lynn put his talent for building to work constructing basic church buildings with iron roofs and soon these were started in many places. They had one room, probably two doors, and steel window frames. His first project was a four room school building. Two rooms were for bunk beds, one was a library for the books, and one was used as a class room. They all opened into a walled courtyard on the side away from the street and they were not interlinked. There was no heat and there were no ceilings so everyone always rushed outside between classes to gather in a sunny spot on Winter days or a shady spot in the Summertime

The routine became classes during the week, with trips out to visit and preach and teach at churches on the the week ends. Kimberley had very hot Summers, and freezing cold Winters, sometimes with snow, yet no one had either air conditioning or central heating. City Africans usually lived in rented cement block homes that the government had built everywhere. These did not have ceilings either, but the kitchen would have a wood or coal cooking stove, and usually the roof was made of sheet asbestos, before it was realized how dangerous that was. Hail storms often left them full if gaping holes as well. The rural workers often used “braziers” metal tins the size of a bucket in which they burned what ever was at hand. Unfortunately with the innovation of really tight houses, many people were killed by carbon monoxide, and of course the townships were always thick with coal smoke in the winter time.

OUR SAFARI NORTHWARD

Our “trek” to the north could be called a “safari” with a clear conscience. The scenery was spectacular, reminding us of that which we had seen in New Mexico. We learned later that the area was called the “Karoo,” semi-desert in America it would be called a desert, though there were farms, some times twenty miles apart, or even more. The roads were very poorly maintained of gravel and usually filled with potholes and corrugations. In those days, everyone drove at “safe and reasonable” legal speeds, often somewhere in the vicinity of seventy miles an hour. At that speed the vehicle only hits the tops of the corrugations, and much of the dust is left behind. The dust and the heat are unbearable. Just open the windows and keep rolling, fast! As there were no fences, it was necessary to keep a close watch that there were no sheep or cattle on the road, or even very near. This was particularly important at night when animals often lay down on the road to sleep. Since the only fences were usually at the borders of the farm, all traffic had to stop there to open, and be sure to close, the gates.



Clouds of dust usually announced that a car was coming, so if there were African houses near the gate, there would nearly always be a group of little children who came running to open the gate and beg for pennies. It was several years before these main roads were eventually asphalted and cattle gates replaced the ordinary farm gates. This dust was particularly bad for poor little Ruth’s well being and we were very concerned for her.

As this first leg of our trip was several hundred miles, we stopped at a hotel for our meals and spent the night at the half way mark. We arrived in Kimberley at the end of the second day, and spent a few days in the home of Bill and Melba Rees. It was Bill who was showing us the way. Though there were not too many places one could go wrong. There were, of course, forks in the road which sometimes had no signs. Those signs were favorite tarbets for bored travellers to shoot at. Many were destroyed or the poles eaten away by termites. Termite nests were everywhere and were sometimes several feet tall.

Kimberley, a small city, had two missionary families, the Rees family, and that of Max Ward Randall family. The mission work had originated and spread through the coming and going of the African workers in the mine compounds about fifty years before and it was at Kimberley that the first school for the training of ministers was being established. The Africans considered it to be the "mother church."

Kimberley itself, was the result of diamonds having been discovered there several years before. Of course there was a diamond rush, which drew people from all over the world to rush in and set up a tent city in the old wild-west fashion of America. It was, and is still, rather a cosmopolitan city made up of English, or Afrikaans speaking Europeans, and mostly Xhosa, Tswana, or a smattering of Zulu speaking Africans. To add variety to the mix, there were also the Griquas, the Coloureds, and the Indians, and Chinese. The Chinese were at first brought in to work underground since Africans were not happy to go deep underground at first. The Indians were brought from India to work in the sugar cane plantations near the Indian Ocean coast, because the Africans were terrified of snakes and scorpions. That is understandable, Africa’s snakes are deadly, including black or green mambas, "boom- slungs“, vipers, cobras, and adders, while the python is also common though not poisonous. Black Africans often considered the python to be Satan, and are convinced that it could be there and be either visible or invisible. They nearly always surround their house with a wide hardened and swept area.

The Randall family, worked mainly with the African, Griqua, and Coloured peoples, and the Rees family with the Chinese. The Rees family, later went to China to work in Hong Kong. They spent the rest of their active working lives there.

After a few days recuperation, especially for Ruth, we continued our travel, this time, first westward, then north again after we had crossed the border into South West Africa. Our destination was the capital city, Windhoek. South West Africa, is now an independent nation and has been renamed Namibia after one of the African tribes who live there.

GOODBYE AMERICA, HELLO AFRICA

Bob and Phyllis, with their one year old daughter, Kathy and her six week old sister Ruth, had arrived in New York City a few days before the steamship, African Enterprise, a combination cargo and passenger ship, was scheduled to sail for Cape Town, South Africa. They arrived there in their Chevrolet carryall with virtually all their worldly goods packed in trunks and cases. The vehicle and most of the luggage had to be at the dock the day before sailing. Fortunately Bob had been to New York City before as a summer intern with the Go Ye Chapel Mission, so finding the dock was not a problem, not to say that there were no problems. There were! This particular ship had been selected because it had a doctor and a nurse on the crew. They would be needed!

Baby Ruth had been ill on the trip, so while Bob took everything to the dock, Phyllis took Ruth to see a doctor. He took one look at her limp,feverish, little body, and said, "She has pneumonia." She should have been hospitalized, but didn't the ship have a doctor, a nurse, and a sick bay? Bob had been a sailor, and even the military ship he had been on had a sick bay and a doctor. Wrong assumption! No one said the doctor had to be a good doctor. This one took one look and promptly said, "I don't know anything about babies. Give her an aspirin." Praise to the Lord however! the nurse walking right behind him, took compassion on us and was very helpful the whole trip. We were eighteen days at sea, but eventually docked at Cape Town safely, but still with a very sick baby.

It had been Bob's first crossing of the equator as the ships he had been on, as a crew member, never went into the southern hemispher, so he was initiated by "King Neptune." This consisted mainly of being blindfolded, daubbed with tomatoe sauce,and ceremoniously tossed into the ship's pool. Being an ex-navy man, it was assumed that he would be used to rough seas, but as the ship neared Cape Town, all were wakened in the night to find the baby crib sliding about the room, and things falling off the furniture. The ship was passing over an underwater mountainrange, that marks the junction of the Indian and the Atlantic Oceans. Strong currents cause heavy rolling and pitching of the ship but as soon as it cleared the breakwater into the bay all was calm. That was good, but sadly the bad side is that Bob's sea sickness, always lasts a good day afterwards.

GROWING POPULARITY RESULTED IN PERSECUTION.

Our evening Bible studies rapidly grew in numbers, even with our language problems. South West Africa, now called Namibia, was at that time mostly German, Afrikaans or tribal speaking.

As we grew in numbers, we naturally attracted the attention of the school that all of the children attended. Since there was no other choice for them, that put them in a very difficult situation. They were being punished and threatened that they would be expelled from the school if they did not stop coming to our Bible studies.

The few children had grown in numbers as we switched from small evening groups to a much larger Saturday group using the style of the Daily Vacation Bible Schools we had known in America and I had taught in Harlem the summer that I had worked with the Go Ye Chapel ater my first year at Lincoln Bible Institute. We had to improvise and make our own teaching materials there as well. I had, for example, added further scenes to the flannel-graph lessons we had taken with us so that we could teach basic doctrines as well stories. Most of these children knew nothing about baptism. They had all been sprinkled as unbelieving infants. Now they realized that Bible baptism was the immersion of a repentant believer. In anticipation that we would soon need it, we had a baptistry built at the corner of our house. Before it could be used, a teacher from their school moved in across the fence from us, and his reports all but closed us down. The school was German Lutheran run and they had no toleration for these Americans.

Our attendance dropped drastically, so I asked for Nic Qwemesha to come during the Christmas school break to hold a meeting for us and to evaluate the situation and advise us what to do. That happened also to be at the time our lease expired and he really urged that we should move to Kimberley where language would not be such a problem and where I could teach at the Minister’s training school as well. He would be my interpreter. That is what we did.

I notified our landlord that we would be leaving, and as soon as our third daughter, Donna, was born, I put the family onto a plane for Kimberley, and I loaded our meager furnishings into our Chevrolet Carryall, railed some of our things, and I brought the rest over that difficult road never to return to Wundhoek again.

I had always felt that if we had to leave, as Paul the Apostle had often had to do, we would move elsewhere and continue to serve the Lord where he opened a door for us. It never even occurred to us that we could return to America and “lick our wounded pride.” I started to teach a class at the training school and as, we had already turned to the printed page I expanded that. The Bible Corrspondence lessons was certainly the leading of God. Though we did many other things, as needed, the printed page became our main thrust over the years that followed. It opened more doors than we could ever hope to enter. Our first few enquiries grew into a veritable deluge. The more languages we added, the more people responded. We first started printing in other languages as there were educated people to make the translations. They were not always professional translatrs, but they were a real blessing to people who sometimes struggled to read at all, let lone, in their own spoken language However we did have professional teachers and ministers who helped. I just had to type every word letter by letter and then have them read it to detect the errors I made typing to me "unknown languages." I had not had a single lesson in touch typing in my life.

OUR FIRST HOME IN WINDHOEK

Our first home in Windhoek was a few blocks away, at the other end of the one paved street. It was a larger hotel and it did have a room. There was no check in desk but the manager, with the hotel register, was at his usual position tending the bar off to one side. All hotels in Namibia were like this one in that they were registered as a hotel primarily because a liquor license was always given to hotels, no matter how few rooms they might have. This one was not really so bad, however. They gave us a comfortable room near the communal bath. And a door in the passage just by our room opened onto the beer garden. It was really only used in the evenings, so the paved area with trees and flowers was great for Kathy and ourselves to use when the walls seemed to be closing in on us. There was also a small zoo and park, near the post office, which was only a short walk up the street. Being the city center, that street was lined by a good selection of small stores and shops.

Since the streets were not all named and numbered anywhere other than right in the center of town, we needed to apply for a post office box, and start looking for a proper house as soon as possible. The house search became a matter for urgent prayer and searching. There was an English Newspaper, with mostly Upington news, and it contained small’s adverts. From those, we learned that houses were extremely scarce. Driving around to get the layout of the town in mind, we noted no empty houses anywhere. After a few weeks we were moved across the street to an overflow area of the hotel, where we had a larger room and no bar across the garden, but at the same time we were told that all their rooms were rented a year in advance for the holiday season that was coming up very shortly. We had to be out by then.

We knew we would be happy to leave if we could, because we were not happy with the menu available. All the desserts were laced with wine or brandy, blood sausages featured heavily on the menu and they expected us to order from the bar with our meals. The coffee was so strong we could not drink it. In other words, we were probably as big a problem to them as they were to us.

In our exploring the town, we had driven across the valley to the black community so we were praying for something near there. That was exactly what the Lord provided. One day the paper listed a shop with a house attached. It was a renovation in progress but suited our needs perfectly. The "in progress" stopped promptly we signed the lease of course. The lease was high, well "exorbitant" might be a better word, but it was available exactly when we needed it and it was on the last street with only a dry stream bed that separated us from the black township. That one block long street was lined with trading stores offering very basic foods. Our house was on the corner, with a new porch added on the street side, and a small shop added with that. We had a chapel, a porch, and a study/store room in that half of the building. A separate entrance on the side led to a tiny living room, a small kitchen, and the bath with a cold-water shower over the tub, and a basin. Off the living room were two bedrooms. All the floors were rough concrete, and there was no floor at all outside the entrance to this part of the building at all. Our door had no less than four locks or bolts. A stroll led to the toilet, which contained a bucket that was collected by the municipality occasionally, emptied into the “honey wagon“ and a disinfected bucket replacement installed sometime during the night. The upper yard was littered with builder‘s rubble. and the lower one sloped to the dry stream bed. We would not have believed it could happen, had we not seen a car being swept away in that stream during a torrential rainfall one day. This was to be home for us, the scorpions, and a small snake for the next two years.

IRON BARS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE

It took us only a few days to learn, what the multiple bolts and locks on the door should have told us immediately. There was a reason that all the windows had heavy, about three quarter inch, iron bars. They were not there to keep someone in, but rather to keep everyone out. It is rather a shock when we awoke early in the morning before curtains could be hung, to see a black face peering through the glass only about three feet away. Our bed was directly under the window. We had a tin of kerosene for the stove, and foolishly left it outside so Kathy could not mess with it. It did not survive the first night until it was stolen as our canvas water bag had been stolen from the car the first night it was left outside the hotel. Strangely enough in those days, no one touched the car itself the whole time we were at Windhoek, and it was parked under a tree on the corner of our upper garden, and immediately by the street. The fence was missing there as the builder had taken it down. He also left a great pile of rubble, the home of many scorpions.

Not long after we moved in and started to use the shop as a chapel, there was a knock at the door and when I opened it, an African man was standing there. He let it be known that he was there to buy liquor. I am confident that he had been sent by the police to see if we were using the building as an illegal liquor store. It was illegal to sell liquor to the Africans at that time, but that did not stop nearly all the nearby shopkeepers from selling it, usually through an open window at the back of their shop, perhaps a kitchen. I remember watching in shock as a pickup truck was used in a raid on the butcher shop across the street. It was filled with bottles when the police left afterwards. To involve us, unaware at that stage as to what was going on, a police lookout had hidden behind our toilet to spy on and report that shop. That occasion did not make for friendly relationships. The manager of the shop next door to us made it a point to turn his back on us any time we went outside. Two shopkeepers, sisters, whose shop was directly across from where I parked our car, and who did not live on the premises, were the only neighbors to treat us with any form of friendship at all. I don't think they sold liquor, but they did sell bread, milk, sugar, flour and other necessities and we often bought those small items from them. It was from them that we learned a few German words and expressions. We did our weekly grocery and meat shopping from shops down town. At the butcher shop we mainly had to point at what we wanted as they had different names for so many things. We wanted hamburger meat, and it took a while to discover that it is called "minced meat" In those days most of the meat was cut from a carcass that was hanging on a hook in the open shop. A cleaver, and a knife were used to hack off the piece you wanted. The grocer had a small shop with counters and all the food was displayed on shelves behind them. The Jewish grocer soon made us welcome and suggested that we come behind the counters and select what we wanted and just set it on the counter.He would take over from there. He suggeste that after we wanted a can of creamed corn, which he knew as a tin of "mealies", never mind that it said "creamed corn" on the label. Fruit and vegetables came from the "green grocer's" shop or from open air markets. In some of the other stores we got a "cold shoulder." The attendant simply turned and walked away as soon as he heard our accent. Our first Sunday in Windhoek, while we were still living in the hotel, we went to the Methodist church services, the only English service we could find and the church was just around the corner from the hotel. We soon learned that even though the words were nearly the same, the tune was often quite different. Even if the people did speak English, they ignored us completely. After that, even in the hotel, we had our own communion service and Prayer and Bible reading. I was reminded of Paul when he first came to Philippi. He went out to the riverside where he found a group of women who gathered there for prayer. Lydia and her staff believed and were baptized. We had no riverside and found no one.

STRANGE VIEWS FROM OUR BEDROOM WINDOW

The only window in our bedroom faced the dry stream bed and across the valley the township beyond. Through we learned many different and interesting things. On our first night there had been a death nearby so there was a wake that lasted all night. That is a custom common to all African people. Of course it prevents the very common rats from getting to the body, but it is also a part of the ritual. Later in South Africa we became accustomed to African funerals and learned of the tradition that the widow must huddle in a corner of the room under a blanket until the funeral is conducted, that a candle must be burning by the body, and that the shovels that dug the grave and will be used to cover it must be ritually washed afterwards before the feast that is inevitably served. It was more in curiosity rather than being disturbed that we listened to the singing that continued all night, that first night in our new home. They sang hymns softly, but all night long. This was a first lesson in African culture. Another strange thing was that there seemed to be a lot of activity going on in the open area under the thorn trees at the week ends. Women came and went carrying large tins on their heads. They carried everything on their heads. I remember seeing a woman with spike heeled shoes balanced on top of her head, others with pails of water, and even one carrying a bedstead. These particular women seemed to be carrying something that they had dug up from under a tree. They always replaced it with a full tin they had brought with them. This seemed always to happen at the beginning of the weekend. Then it dawned on us. They were bringing a sweet mixture with yeast, which they buried, in the hole where they had just removed the tin they left there the week before. In this hot temperature, the sugar and the yeast, and what ever else had fermented. This was their "brewery" in action, African style. No one would arrest them for this. This was another lesson in African culture. Never drink just whatever is set before you unless it is a factory sealed cola or a hot cup of tea. On another day we noted, a very strange many-legged "creature" that crept across the horizon of the ridge far in the distance. It was bewildering to see a house, one of the tin shacks really, that appeared to have sprouted legs and was walking away. It was a medium size structure, probably a eight by ten feet, but a group of people, probably men as their bare legs showed from above the knees down, had walked inside, picked it up and were carrying it over their heads to a new space. This was moving day African style.

HOW THE WORK STARTED

Our furnishings in Windhoek were very few. We had no bedroom furniture at all, and we slept on a folding couch in the living room. The kitchen had a table and four chairs, and I seem to remember an old refrigerator. There was electricity only a half day. We bought everything from a second hand store.

The chapel was a different matter. As soon as we had a few folding chairs, and had accessed our trunks and supplies, we started turning the lights on in the chapel, set up a flannel graph tripod with a basic scene on it, and at the same time each evening we opened the door wide and set a record player out on the porch. Then, African style, we turned it up loud, very loud, with a speaker directed toward the nearest houses. The record was of hymns played on the chimes. That carries and it had to compete with "Mocking Bird Hill" that was blasting from the beer hall a quarter mile away. After the record was finished, we started with our own devotions and prayers. At first, no one came, but we were being heard, and unknown to us, being watched and listened to as well.

We were beginning to be despondent about what else we could do and one evening decided to have our devotions in our own kitchen. When nothing happened in the chapel that night, we were startled to hear a timid knock on the door. And behold there was a small cluster of children there. They wanted to know, weren't we having Bible. The oldest girl, Fredrika Pieterson, a young colored lady and her brothers and sisters and their friends had been listening and watching from the dark street as there were no street lights in the area. This was the start we had been praying for. A few weeks later a school teacher offered to interpret for us and to give us Afrikaans lessons. We were exuberant. From that start, the young group grew and grew so I bought wood and built simple benches for the chapel. We expanded our lessons to include a Saturday afternoon time using vacation Bible School type lessons with handwork. And were learning a little Afrikaans. We met and made friends with one of the African ministers from the area. When the group began to grow, we naturally attracted the attention of others, and the devil got involved. We were being too successful. There was only one school available to these children, and they all attended there. That school was a mission school operated by the Rhenish Lutheran Church. At first they merely threatened the children, but when that did not stop them, they started to beat anyone who came to visit us and threatened expulsion from the school. Our interpreter turned out to be a police spy, as several politically activated missionaries had been investigated and two priests expelled from the country. About that time the shop keeper beside us rented an outbuilding in his yard facing our home to a teacher from the school who moved in there solely to write down the names of all the children who came to our services. They were to be expelled if they did not cease.

Of course, the parents stopped their children from coming to us, and I decided it was time to make a greater effort to contact English-speaking adults who would not be intimidated so easily.

I prepared, and using a hand operated stencil machine printed copies of a basic lesson series of studies. To get them into the hands of English speakers, I placed an advertisement in "Drum" , one of the English language magazines published particularly for African readers. The small single column advertisement did not cost much at all, so I was really surprised when requests started coming in from all over Africa. The only problem was that none of them were from South West Africa,(Namibia) where we were. Another surprise was how long these adverts were still being replied to after the date of the issue that carried them. A year later some of those adverts were still producing mail.

We had letters from South Africa, the Rhodesias, Malawi, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Nigeria, Ghana and even farther away. Two editions of that magazine were printed each month and they were being read all over the British Commonwealth nations of Africa! As time passed, we received letters asking for us to come to work in Nyasaland, Rhodesia, Nigeria, and Ghana. We could not say yes to them all, but we did keep track of them and it was from those invitations and contacts that new missionaries wereable to open new missions in Nigeria and Ghana. Others went to other places where there had already been missionaries, but more were needed.

This was the beginning of what was destined to become our main emphasis; publishing the Gospel in printed form.

AMOTHER WAY TO REACH OUT

Knowing that we needed to contact adults, Bob bought a small hand cranked Gestetner stencil printer, prepared a series of correspondence Bible lessons in English, and placed a one column 2" advertisement in "Bona" and "Drum" magazines. I chose magazines because people don't throw magazines away the way they do newspapers. Both Bona and Drum are Africa, English language magazines. Both are very popular all over Africa. What I did not know is that they are published in several editions, depending what country of Africa may be their source of publication. Those two adverts reached out to South Africa, South West Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, both Northern and Southern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Gold Coast, and even beyond. Those are all countries of the British Commonwealth sp English is taught in the schools. After a slow start, the requests rolled in, including invitations to come to their countries to work. Two new mission fields actually opened because of that decision. God had led in this! And He had chosen me because of my particular talents and personality.

That was how Bob became a self trained "printer and publisher" for soon the Gestetner had to be replaced by an electric offset printer and then larger and more effecient offset presses; until finally finally there was a "roll back" when he reverted to an electronic Risograph. Actually it was a new innovation to printing. Yes, it uses a stencil but much differently than the old machines and far cleaner, but that is a whole new blog to come later.

At this early stage, Bob invited a man to come from the Minister's Training School in Kimberley, to hold a meeting and advise as to what should be done about Windhoek problems. Nick Qwemesha came during the Christmas Summer break at the school. It had been arranged that he would stay in the home of the minister of African Methodist Episcopal church, perhaps a quarter a mile away from us. He and his family were to be out of town. That was arranged because it was illegal for Nick to stay in the home of a white family. Those were Arpartheid Years and as foreigners, we could expect to be under surveillance. We had already had the experience of the Police Spy interpreter. On the second day, Nick came to the Mission, cap in hand and asked to be allowed to stay with us. He would sleep anywhere! Even the little children were drunk in the township, and I am sure that he was frightened to stay there and walk back and forth to our home. Of course we took him in and made a plan, though there was not even one spare bed anywhere on the property. I think he put the benches together and put a mattress pad and blanket on them. He was happier, and we came to know a literally, life long friend. Many years later his family phoned to ask me to come over 400 miles to preach his funeral, and His widow traveled hundreds of miles to see us when we returned to Africa to be at the wedding of a granddaughter. It would have been a very difficult trip for Gerty in the heat of season and riding in an overloaded car.

Nick was very upset that there was no telephone in this house right on the very edge of the township. When even the tiny ones who came to the meetings had obviously been drinking, He made it very clear that we should leave as soon as our lease expired and come and help teach at the Preacher Training School in Kimberley where he would be my interpreter. Phyllis had our two older girls and by that time Donna had just been born, so she and the children flew from Windhoek to Kimberley and Bob followed by road retracing the route followed two years before. This time he knew where he was going and what to expect. A new phase, a new home, and new friends lay ahead. We were to spend a happy twelve years in Kimberley and the family had many friends there.

OUR FIRST CONFERENCE EXPERIENCE

Every year the African churches came together at a host church's invitation for their annual conference. This was a time for preaching, teaching sessions, discussion of various problems and such like. There would be at least two sermons each day of which one would be preached usually by a representative of one of the tribal groups, and some by missionaries. After the preaching sessions were completed, the women had their own more or less parallel sessions, perhaps in a borrowed building. Their first conference after Bob and Phyllis moved to Kimberley was an eye opener to them. It was held in a Douglas not far from Kimberley, but there had only been missionaries on the field for a few years after many years with none. The churches had many leadership and spiritual problems because of the lack of properly taught leaders, so the missionaries were called aside to try to deal with these in a short time. What the congregations themselves should have handled was dumped on the shoulders of a few leaders, resulting in many hours of listening to and trying to help in the limited time available. It took years to undo old habits that had grown over the years.

All the missionaries were really new to African culture and African problems. It seemed like endless discussions with no conclusions to Bob. In addition, he was not permitted to contribute as he was the new missionary there and had no official standing. The first year, any newmissionary was expected to watch, listen, and not say anything. Added to that was the fact that Bob did not enter South Africa under the auspices of that particular mission in the first place. He had came from South West Africa and a different mission.

Near the end of the conference, there was a business meeting when each person was confirmed to to continue in his job for the next year. All the others were to continue as they were, but Bob was given the job of being the Railway Concession Registrar. At that time all ministers were able to get a railway discount to go to various parts of their preaching circuits and conferences. That was Bob's first job, in addition to teaching at preacher's trining school, church visitation, preaching an occasional sermon, and of course his own work, the Bible Correspondence Lessons was increasing rapidly and was getting more and more demanding of time.

There was a short time when Bob was asked to preach a few times in a major white church of the city. The Presbyterian Church downtown had, a large building, with a music minister, and a very formal service. Bob was asked to fill the pulpit when their own minister was away. This was the church with a number of leading and wealthy members of the city. After a few times, he asked to be excused as he found that he had to neglect his African work. A smaller Presbyterian congregation across the city also invited him on occasions. Shortly afterwards the Mills' opened their home for house church services each Sunday evening. By that time, the Randall’s had been called to minister to the Polo Road Church of Christ in Cape Town and had moved there, but there were still six adult missionarys and their children as well as several Chinese young people who needed an English language service. This worked well until it was learned that the Afrikaans Language Baptist Church had built a new building and desired to sell their old one. This was bought and it enabled the work to have it’s own building and for both the Chinese work and a growing Colored congregation to form a blended work. Bob added this pulpit ministry to his other jobs, and the Kimberley Church of Christ was born.

AN EVENING VISIT TO A FARM CHURCH

Visits to the Kimberley area farms for preaching or other occasions never failed to be a blessing, both to us and to the workers on the farm. A farm in South Africa was often much larger than the farms we had known in America. They always had a staff of several black or colored families in addition to the white farm manager or owner. There might be both the owner and a manager or even married children living there. Any visitor was a "special event" to all.

As Lynn had a filmstrip projector that worked from the car battery, one trip I remember was an evening visit. We were expected, but still, we made a courtesy call at the house before going on to the area set aside for the African residents. Two, or three, or more families always meant that there would be a number of children. Of course the farmer would want to know who was on his property, and often he and his family also came, especially if it was a Sunday worship service. For that, someone, the farmer or the black families would have a special Sunday dinner waiting. The farmer also often had dogs that needed controlled. One farm we visited was surrounded by rocky hills and baboons lived among the rocks. That farmer had greyhounds, which drove those away from the planted corn and other foods. Left to roam, the baboons would scatter through the corn patch and rip off the ears as they went. They would take a bite or two and discard that one and rip off another doing great damage to the crop. Unfortunately the dogs also attacked strangers and were very vicious.

This being before television had reached South Africa, we could count on almost every able person to attend and listen carefully to all that we had to say through our interpreter. You might think that using an interpreter would slow the speaker greatly. Not at all, if he is a good interpreter and he knows your manner of speaking. Nick Qwemeshwa not only knew where Lynn or I were headed, but he could anticipate and overlap. He was always my interpreter of choice. In the Orange Free State, we were definitely into Afrikaans speaking country, and the farmers often did not understand a word of English. It also took a brave man to go with us to those particular farms, as the farmers were often very suspicious of strangers. That was another good reason to stop at the house first. Nick could interpret into Afrikaans, Xhosa, or Tswana, from English or in reverse when needed. Many Africans from the Northern Cape, where we lived, were afraid to go through the Free State and often would not even get out of the car until we crossed through and into Natal on the other side, or had returned to the northern Cape.

We had a wonderful neighbor next door to us. Bing was an excellent auto mechanic, and he could speak Afrikaans or English fluently. He told me once of a man from the Free State who had brought his car to him for work and who wanted him to speak only Afrikaans to him. Bing knew that the man was not well educated but he agreed and explained everything using the Afrikaans terms for everything. As there were often no well-known Afrikaans words, it has been the custom to coin new words as technology developed so rapidly. Bing used all the proper new words, and soon the bewildered man stopped him, saying "Use the English words, I understand those." The fact was that he was very against anything English, but at the same time, did not know his own language all that well. This was not that many years after the Boer War between the English and the Afrikaans. The English may have won the war, but they then lost control politically afterwards. Unfortunately the English soldiers had burned the farms to the ground during the fighting because they were supplying their fighters their men with supplies. They had then placed the homeless women and children in concentration camps. Since the food source was destroyed, many people died there. A good friend we knew had lost his grandmother in such a camp. He will never forget, nor forgive that she had died there. Winston Churchill had been a reporter in that war as a young man and was a prisoner for a time.

SCHOOLING PROBLEMS!

When it came time for our children to start school, our problems began, and they continued until we eventually moved from the Northern Cape to the Transvaal Province. Travsvaal had a far more international culture. When the girls started school, they attended the same girl's schools most other English speaking little girls did. The fact that it was an all girl's school was no problem; not the uniforms, nor the fact that it was a bus ride across town. Our real problems started when the school board hired a new principal. She started cramming children every where. Prefabricated class rooms filled every possible playground space, and there was talk of adding a second floor to the building. Even the entrance lobby was made into a classroom. I think the problem stemmed from the fact that the new principal was through and through Afrikaans and had a totally different idea as to the goals she wanted to accomplish, and what was important.

The newspaper ran a cartoon block block about then that illustrated it perfectly. It pictured a row of children walking into a machine on one side, all were different. They came out the other side, every one identical. We prided our children's individual personalities and talents. She seemed to want them to be robots, and to accomplish that every pressure was used to force conformation. They, and others, clashed with the Afrikaans language teacher who felt that all she needed to do was to read Afrikaans folk stories to children who knew no Afrikaans at all. She also often left them to read Afrikaans language books while she went on errands downtown. Another teacher, apparently felt one of the girls had many of her own personality problems and took exception. She was determined to change that, and sent undecipherable notes to us complaining about our daughter's penmanship. She also refused to accept the way she used the American style of writing 4's and 7's. If they were not changed to her choice, the math was marked wrong. The same child also learned in America to cross her T's. This was totally unacceptable and marked as misspelled. Why? Because the crossed T's reminded the teacher of a cemetery with crosses. She would not grade such a paper. The same child also loved to knit, and the class was told to do a knitted project for the inspector to see. Unfortunately, she did not hold the needles the way the teacher liked which created more problems.

Years later after we went on a furlough, the people who rented our home decided they would like to buy it. When we returned, we lived in a different house. We took that opportunity to change th girls to another school not far from the new home. It was a bi-sexual, bi-lingual school, but was predominantly Afrikaans speaking with one class for English speaking children. Everyone was happier. It had apparently just been the principal and two of her teachers. Eventually we would re-locate to live in Randburg, a suburb of Johannesburg. Things were much improved. A different daughter turned us grey there!

Now that I an look back on it, I praise the Lord that we have four healthy girls who preserved their differences and refused to be exactly like everyone else. One is now a nurse, for some time in charge of a Children's home, one is running her own business keeping the books for small businesses. The youngest and her husband operate their own business. Becky once astounded her instructor when she took an IBM computer course and got a 100% mark. They refused to admit that anyone could do that, but she did. She later came to America for a few years and worked, as a temporary help to teach people with graduate degrees how to use IBM equipment. The other one hated book-keeping in school, but has made a profession of accounting and works for a large hospital directing their accounts department. The Lord uses each of us as only He knows where we are needed most, and what we are equipped to do. We are not all alike. That I ended up creating a job as a printer and publisher is proof of that. Isn't God great! What job did He create you and prepare you for? Be sure that He did. Remember Philip the deacon and evangelist. God prepared him and used him to take the gospel to an African man opening a new continent. See Acts 8.

TWO HUMONGOUS HOLES IN THE GROUND

Kimberley’s great claim to fame might be said to be its two great holes in the ground, or perhaps it is really what came out of them. Someone else has pointed out that it is the only city in the world with a mile long street studded with diamonds. The tiny diamonds came out of the great holes. The holes are there because diamonds were found in those two volcanic pipes, and the diamond studded street is the result of the crushed stone that was dug out being completely diamond free when it was hauled down the road in leaky ox carts to be dumped in heaps all around. Diamonds, diamonds everywhere and not a one to keep. That is because they are so small as to be for practical purposes at that time, considered to be useless. All uncut diamonds belong to the De Beers Mining Company, and it is strictly illegal to possess an uncut diamond unless you have a digger’s license. New licenses are not issued. The only way to get one is to inherit it from a licensed digger. These still exist; in fact every time a really old building is moved or demolished, a digger will come in with his ancient “washing machine” and he will wash the soil and crushed stone from the original building site and search by hand for any remaining diamonds.

The mines look like a huge funnel set into the earth. They have steeply sloping sides at the top then drop almost straight down to, and far beyond, the water level. They have been heavily fenced to prevent suicides. A fireman has to go down on ropes to retrieve any body remaining on the slopes. If it falls as far as the water, it is blown up, as it is impossible to retrieve it that far down. In our first years living in Kimberley, we often heard “thunder” out of clear skies. Then we realized that what we heard was the sound started far down the shaft when people tossed stones into the open mine. It worked much like using a megaphone. It is now illegal to throw anything into the mine. A museum beside the opening now features the oldest buildings that were still standing in the city but now have been relocated to a street next to the "Big Hole." There are a boxing gymnasium, a bar, a church, a house and more are added from time to time. These actual buildings now stand in a row while, while several individual rooms are featured in indoor displays.

An aerial photo, hanging in my bath room, showing the “Big Hole” Mine, was taken and printed by Max Ward Randall from the same negative as a giant print which he also made for the DeBeers head offices near the mine itself. The picture above is of the second mine, located just on the other side of the down town area.

Diamonds are the life of Kimberley. I once took a tourist friend to a working mine a few miles out of town. It is hard to realize the tons of blue stone that must be crushed, put through large washers to separae the heavier stones which are then washed across grease tables where the diamonds stick to Vaseline. They remain dry while the wet stones are carried away with the flowing water. A week’s recovery of diamonds is hardly a good cup full, and most of those are only of industrial quality. At intervals the Vaseline is scraped off the sloping table and put into an ordinary frying pan and then warmed so that the Vaseline can be poured off and used again. Under camera supervision, we were each handed a large stone to examine it more closely. I am told that you can no longer visit the mine itself. Instead you must now go to the sorting plant near the head office. I have been there as well. There, you now see the diamonds only through plate glass, and on the second floor which has locked heavy oak doors at both the top and the bottom of the stairs. Workers can be seen hand sorting by color, size, and quality, at their tables behind a plate glass wall of one side of the viewing room. They are constantly being watched and work under camera. A friend who started working at that job, says it is utterly boring work. He was eventually transferred to the head office and given challenging job. The last time I saw him, he had advanced high in the company.

All sorts of wild schemes have been tried to steal diamonds, and some of them have worked in days past. They usually involved the workers in the mine itself and living in the dormitory housing. Workers are now scanned as they leave the premises. There is a special branch of detectives in the police force that specializes in this type of crimes.

All this, and yet the most precious gems of them all are the workers themselves. They come from all over Africa as contract workers who return home after completing their contracts every few months. The mission started and grew through some of these workers who became Christians while they were at the mines. When they returned to their homes they carried their new faith back to their families at home. The same thing happens at the prisons. Our correspondence Bible study booklets featuring topically arranged Scripture texts have been spread by the many thousands through those two avenues as well as through the scholars living the countrys many boarding schools. They also return to their homes, sometimes in other African countries. At the end of the term. Some of these actually fly back to Europe for school holidays.
Jesus said, "as you go, teach all nations, baptizing them..." Matthew 28:19.

THE KIMBERLEY CHURCH HOUSE

With the passing of time, our small living room because too small for the young church to be comfortable in it, so we were delighted to learn that the Afrikaans Baptist congregation had built a new building and were looking for someone to buy their old building. Brothers Stanley and Rees investigated this and agreed on the price so we came to have a much larger place of worship. While it had only three rooms, the sanctuary and two dressing rooms, large enough for small classes to use, it was also blessed by having a baptistery. We all set to and with a lot of work; cleaned and repainted the interior. The pews had been left behind so seating was no problem at all. The piano was moved from our home to there to provide accompaniment for the worship services. By this time I had bought a Commer Van so we we began operating a "church bus" as another of our jobs in addition to my filling the pulpit and teaching a Sunday School Class. However, it was not long until pressures from The apartheid policy of the government began to be a problem when bringing the students from all over South Africa to Kimberley to be trained for ministry. Since brother Stanley was the principal of the school, he dealt with these problems and decided to follow government advice and to move the school to a predominately black area near Port Shepstone, on the coast. He privately purchased a portion of a sugar cane plantation at Umzumbe. One boundary of his property was divided from similar land only by a single lane cane road from a large area in a black Zulu homeland. Brother Nick Qwemesha, bought a small portion on the other side of that road. The two of them went to work and built a home for the Qwemesha's and a dormitory for the men on the Zulu side of the road, with a church/classroom building on the other side. Later other buildings were added. A building for the visiting nurse to use as a clinic, a women's rondavel residence, a utility building, and the last was a kitchen and dining room. Nick ministerd to the congregation of that church and continued to teach and interpret for the school. It was a good plan, except that the students were not happy in that they were expected to help with the garden to grow their food and help maintain the road as part of their tuition expenses. They regarded this to be beneath their dignity, even while they were students. Unfortunately the road to the school was only a cane track for the heavy trucks to collect the sugar cane to take it to the mill for processing. They made it almost impassable in ordinary vehicles. The last mile or two, was also used by the other residents, and was simply "a dirt track". Large stones, deep ruts, and a high center ridge with weeds and grass made it almost mandatory to use a pick up truck. At least one visitor driving a small car knocked a hole in his fuel tank on that road. After that he refused to drive over it at all. That was after he drove over it in daylight and saw just how far down the steep slope of the mountain fell away!

We did not move to the coast as someone was still needed in the huge Northern Cape area which had many black churches, so we stayed on as the only mission family still in Kimberley at that time. That was the last of Bob's teaching regularly in the minister's training school. He ministered to one of the churches in Kimberley, visited the black churches of the Northern Cape to preach and teach when possible, particularly on Saturdays, and coped with the growing enrollment in the Correspondence Bible Lessons with a monthly news letter to them. Those were being mailed to thousands scattered all over Africa's many English speaking former British colonies.

A BAPTISMAL SCENE AT CONFERENCE TIME

This particular blog reminds us of the reason why we went to live in Africa for all of our working life. We went there in obedience to the Lord's command, "Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." (Matthew 28:19,20)

South Africa is a land of many languages, though those in the picture are mostly English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu or Tswana speaking in their own homes though some of them can converse in several of those major languages. Our daughter, Ruth, in the foreground of the picture, married a South African gentleman. Now, many years later, is in America to assist her daughter at the time when Nickie's first son is to be born. Nickie married an American. Our eldest daughter, Kathryn, a nurse, lived in South Africa where she managed a home for abandoned and aids children, has returned to America to be near three of her children. The two young boys in this picture are Larry and Duane Stanley.

We began by publishing Bible tracts and booklets in the five basic languages used in the mission's members but, gradually added more as translators came available. By the time of our retirement, we had 33 languages represented in our web site, but since our retirement from Africa, this number has continued to grow until there are nearly fifty languages at the present time. All thanks and praise to our Lord Jesus.

THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINES

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After they had moved to Kimberley, the basic Bible Doctrines lessons by correspondence really began to bear fruit. The first English version booklet was printed commercially in Kimberley as the hand cranked Gstetner stencil machine simply could not cope. Soon Bob located a tiny Multilith offset printer, but this one had to be hand fed and required two people to operate it. One person fanned small stacks of about fifty to a hundred sheets of paper and handed them to the operator who using a rubber finger-tip fed them a sheet at a time into the hopper. Soon it was apparent that other languages were needed so Bob was printing, processing the returned booklets, typing the material for new languages as the translations were available and preparing tracts and a monthly newsletter to accompany the returned materials to the students. When other languages came on line, the distribution mushroomed.

The small printer was sold and a new A.B. Dick Offset Printer was bought. This machine was a great improvement. One person could operate it with a greatly improved output, but now it was necessary to add dark room equipment to prepare the metal printing plates. This learning process was not entirely without problems. Bob was learning as he went, and one finger of his left hand has to this day a damaged nail where one of the paper strippers penetrated the base of the nail. This was, fortunately, an injury during the clean up process when the machine was being rotated by hand and not by motor.

The mailings became huge, as there had been literally hundreds of thousands of packets of lessons mailed out and were many to be marked and returned as well. They were being mailed in large quantities to boarding school children as well as to prisons and others who simply learned of them by word of mouth or through the magazine advertisements. They could only be handled in the many languages because they were almost entirely of Scriptures with brief comments.

Praise to the Lord that three other countries opened their doors and people askd for missionaries to come and work there. Through them also at least three excellent black ministers in South Africa attended the Minister's Training School after completing these the introductory lessons and being recommended to continue their study in the classroom. They would never have known anything about the New Testament Church had they not received those lessons.

It was at this stage that Bob was granted the Restoration Award plaque, reading "Fifth Annual Lincoln Christian College Alumni Association Restoration Award, presented to Robert S. Mills for Outstanding Service in Christian Missions, March 6th, 1970" but it wasn't Bob, it was the Lord's Word that did it with the His blessings.

Read the Word.

II Timothy 2:15s.
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

CAMPING AT CONFERENCE TIME

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During our early years in Kimberley, we went to conference gatherings in various host churches scattered over South Africa. At first a tent was sufficient for the family, or in some places where the town had a campground, we sometimes hired a "Rondavel" such as the one in the attached picture. I think this picture was taken at Graaff Reinet in the Karoo. Monkeys played in the trees and we could never leave anything accessible to them or they would carry it away. We were not used to this, as there were no wild monkeys at Kimberley.

As the mission printer we not only had to carry our camping supplies, but also the mission's printing, and the minister's supplies which were distributed there. We also made available Bibles, hymnals, and any tracts or study booklets that had been prepared that year so that they could be used to teach the members of the churches. At first I bought a small luggage trailer, which had a water-tight seal around the lid, to carry these things. It did not last long! First, it was not large enough as more and more items became available, but it also had to be disposed of as people used it as a seat at the gatherings and they caved in the lid. After that of course, it was no longer dust or water tight. The rain or dust damaged what ever was on the inside.

We made a series of changes as the family grew, and eventually when there came to be six of us, we either planned to hire a camp cottage, stay in a trailer camper, or as a last resort, to go to a hotel. Hotels were still affordable at that time. Eventually I bought a "kiosk" and mounted it on the back of a pick up truck. When I was traveling alone, I could sleep over the cab in the extention addition that I had added to it. Even though it was not adequate to display the 400 different publications that we eventually published and carried in stock in the bookstore. We never attempted to carry other publisher's materials with us other than Bibles from the Bible Society, and hymnbooks. At that time the Black churches normally used the Methodist Hymnal and we bought those from the Methodist Publishing House in whatever language we needed. All the Christians carried their own Bibles and Hymnbooks. None of the churches left those in the building for use in worship. We also stocked Bible and Hymnbook covers as they usually covered both. Even so, they suffered damage as most books were also used as an improvised "tambourine" since the people sang without any instrumental accompaniment of any sort. This was simply a practical choice, and not doctrinal. The churches could not afford instruments. Even if they could, they could not safely leave them in their buildings which were usually used as school classrooms during the week.

A PROBLEM SOLVED

The printed Word in the language of the people is vital, and delivering it from press to reader can be accomplished in many ways. Today as I browsed through a scrapbook of our monthly newsletters of the time, I came across two with drawings of our Bible van. I had forgotten that we gave it the nick name of "turtle" as it was comparatively slow, and especially so if there was a head-wind, as there seemed always to be on a long trip. But it had wonderful blessings to bestow as well. In another blog you saw a picture of the first trailer that we used to carry all our supplies. We now move forward several years to 1989 and see the how very differently we handled the books and Bibles distribution. This was practically a traveling billboard. People saw it, on the highways, and they responded positively. It was truck mounted, with had a side serving hatch, and absolutely no one sat on top of this one like they did with the small luggage trailer! I did walk about on it when I mounted the sign for our first Bible Shop. At first there was terrific wind resistance, but after I designed and built the bunk over the truck cab, the air flow was much better. That was another problem solved. As the original box had been mounted on a trailer, and was designed to be a traveling Hot Dog Stand, I occasionally got a ribbing that someone wanted ice cream or a hot dog with mustard and pickles. I used it at the preaching conference, and at the minister's week. At the Barkly West adult camp out I was able to park it in a space absolutely adjacent to the covered outside walkway around the main kitchen, lunch hall, and assembly building. The walls facing it, were made of folding doors that were pushed open all day every day we were there in order to catch the breeze. When I visited African churches to preach, I drove it by choice, as I could carry lots of materials in the language that church normally used, and everything was always visible, while no set-up time was necessary. Not only that, but my lodgings were right there with me, so I could eat with the congregation and could park it anyhere.

Back in Johannesburg later, a Flea Market opened on the big show grounds near Soweto. I drove the van there every Saturday. It was like being at the State Fair and on the main drag. The management gave me free parking and a reserved spot. Unfortunately that venue closed after they went bankrupt. Those were troubled days and too many people were afraid to be that near to Soweto and to leave their cars in the open parking lot outside the fence, even though there were armed horseback guards there, and probably half or more of the people in attendance were carrying weapons. I understood why, as I had been issued a permit to park in down town Johannesburg, adjacent to the African railway station terminal. That would have been a prime spot just outside the police station, but was still near to the European terminal. That station was a target for bombers, and thr whole area was definitely "high crime" rated. I am afraid I felt my face was the wrong color, and considering the times, that was not the place to park all day long. Instead I hired an office in a building across the street for a while, and set up a publisher's show room there, and travelled in by bus. A building next to the station and across the street from our office was bombed and for a while it was thought that it was damaged beyond repair and would have to be torn down.

Now that I am in Texas, every time I see a huge "Horse" Trailer being towed by a pick up truck, I think, "Under the right circumstances, I would love to have had something like that available in South Africa to adapt with fluorescent lighting, greeting card type displays on both the very long sides and a dropdown tail-gate with an awning over it. I wouldn't need a shop at all! People could come right in. Some of these vans I have seen are actually already fitted with factory installed sleeping quarters over the truck bed. The Scripture says something about old men, "dreaming dreams." At my age, that is all it can be and particularly as South Africa is even more troubled today in many ways than it was before. The country is going through the "carpet bag" period after the turmoil.

NOT FURLOUGH TIME ALREADY !

During our forty-seven years in Africa we took many trips back to America on "furlough". There are many reasons to take a furlough. Some climates are so unhealthy that it is recommended that the family take a break from them to return home for their health’s sake, and they may do so every three years or so, or it may be a requirement that an annual trip be taken to someplace other than where they are working for a complete change. Malawi, for example was for many years considered to the virtually a cemetery for missionaries, because of the heavy toll from Malaria and other diseases. I understand that in India many take breaks in the mountains during the hot season. That was not true of South Africa, however.

In South Africa, because of the apartheid laws for many years, most the time of our residence there, except for day visits in African areas, we were required to stay in European (white) areas at night. We frequently spent the day, even late into the evening in the villages or townships reserved for non-white residents, but we slept in hotels, camping sites, our own homes, or those of friends or other missionaries. Our breaks were usually for a conference gathering, a missionary retreat, a minister’s retreat, a Christian Youth Camp, or very rarely an actual vacation break to a game park. When our daughters were young, we often picked them up after school during the summer months on a Friday afternoon and drove the eighteen miles out to Kimberley’s waterworks and resort campsite in the Vaal River. One could fish, swim in one of the pools, play on the playground equipment and prepare a cook out or picnic. They also had large aviaries with parakeets, and other colorful birds and a large area with huge land turtles. A weir across the river made it wide and deep enough so there were boats and water skiers to watch. Not many people swam in the river because of the danger of Bilharzia, though the danger is really on shore as part of it’s life cycle is by way of snails that live in the damp foliage. I don’t know of anyone who had that disease, but there were caution signs by most waters that swimming is not permitted.

Where we lived in South Africa, the climate was much like Dallas, Texas so it is not particularly uncomfortable. Few houses had air conditioning, and probably even fewer had central heat. The ceilings were high, and I know we suffered more from the cold in the winter than from the heat of the summer. Everyone wore warm sweaters and used a lap robe in the evenings along with portable heat of some sort. Most churches did not even attempt to have night services though we tried with poor success in winter. Evening small group Bible studies worked better then as a small room could be warmed easier than a large auditorium, especially as no window or door was ever free of drafts. It did not help that the building codes at that time required a small grid covered opening above every window for ventilation. Most of us taped a paper cover over those!

It was not because of the weather that we took furloughs about every five years, depending on our work load, the availability of someone to care for it, and when the other near by missionaries were taking theirs. That was our routine for most of our time there, except for the fact that after we opened the Bible bookstore, and became so involved in ongoing projects, publishing, and a local congregation, we took much shorter trips back, but at the same intervals. We first chose three months as they were easier to handle and we could re-visit all the churches that supported the work in that time and report back to them first hand of the work. At the time we first did that South African Airways was offering a big discount on three month round trips and some of the American airlines were offering very favorable prices for more distant places, but always linked and with no back tracking. I was able to use that one furlough, but most of our travel had to be by car. Loan vehicles or rentals were the only choice. Buying a car you are only going to drive for three months and buying insurance and licenses is totally out of the question.

Furloughs are clearly necessary, but are far more difficult than staying put in familiar surroundings and in familiar routines. Especially when they were young, our children suffered through the many hours in the car and among strangers, not to mention hearing dad say much the same thing over and over; even finding a place to live that will accept four small children and with no lease. Putting them in a new school if it happens to be during the school year. I recall one such stay when we were living in a basement apartment, which had few windows. One Sunday, they were all tired and Ruth cried to "go home." We assured her that we would be home soon, thinking of the apartment. When we arrived back, she took one look and began to sob over and over, "I want to go home!" It is heart breaking for a small child to give up everything to live in a car and out of a suitcase. She is one of the three of our four daughters who married and is truly at home in Africa. Two of her three children now live in America and the situation is now reversed for her. Her oldest son has a boy and lives in Cape Town, and her only daughter is now married and presently lives in Oklahoma, while the younger son has an American girl friend, and also lives in Oklahoma. Our fourth daughter married a Scotsman and they are "home" in Dallas: so much at home that Jim has taken out American citizenship. One of Becky’s children lives in England, one in Botswana, and the youngest plans to go to England in a short time. They all pretty well bring an end to any thought of a "family reunion!" It is a fact that we have not seen any of our great-grandchildren, though the next one soon to e born, will live in Oklahome, at least for the time being.

On our return to Africa there was always the period of getting back into a routine. Problems caused by the absence have to be dealt with. In one case the church had disbanded, and my signature on the funds account was forged. I have no idea what happened to the money. Things can no longer be found. In one case, we had a postage franker to cope with my large mailings. The mail had accumulated and was months old, and the franker had not been taken to the post office for setting the whole time. In fact the whole meter was gone. Real troubles! Another furlough, we could not balance the books for the shop at all, and had to simply close them and start over. That was not intentional. I am sure, he just didn’t notice. Added to all this is the small adjustment to driving back to the left side of the road, once having found a car to drive again.

Not furlough time again so soon! Please!!

CROSSING THE OCEAN AGAIN

Even though, or perhaps because I was in the Navy, I am not a fan of ships. Our first crossing was, aside from being long and with a sick baby, was only a real problem when we came to the Cape Rollers, near our destination. I arrived surely with a rather greenish complexion, and remained so for a full day after putting my feet back onto solid ground.

A few years later we took another ocean trip, this time 0n a Mail Ship. This one followed the coastline up Africa stopped at the Canary Islands, then crept on to South Hampton, England. This was truly a passenger liner, though very old. It had served as a troop carrier in World War One as well as in World War Two. Here we had our first taste of British elegance. Phyllis and the girls were booked in a small compartment with two sets of double bunks that had nets over the open side so you could not fall out of the upper bunk. Ruth was ill again and we were quarantined as they felt she had measles. She didn’t. She had an allergy reaction to the fact that our bath water was salt water and in a copper tub. She has an intense reaction to most metals, even gold, so her wedding ring and any jewelry she wears has to be silver. We did not know that then of course, so the quarantine remained in place.

I was booked to sleep in a tiny space under the stairs in a forward "broom closet" if there ever was one. There were no windows at all. I took one look and simply moved back with my family. The girls were small so slept at the opposite ends of their bunks and we all fitted in nicely. I knew that in that forward part of the ship, there would be a lot of pitching as well as rolling, and I would be seasick, calstrophobic, and bedfast in that closet size room. As it was, I was far better off, though still ill.

We were seated for our meals at a table with a very English sounding couple. Our waiter for the trip was a Cockney speaking fellow. He understood us quite well, but we could only catch a word here and there when we concentrated closely. I thought the others would understand, but by the end of the trip, we were translating for them. It did not really matter at all, in any case, as no matter what the menu said, the potatoes were small, boiled with the skins on, and the meat was roast beef. We just ate what came. There was really no choice.

The children were not permitted to eat with us, so we took them to the children’s dining room for their meals. They weren’t given a menu to choose from, so that was not a problem. What was a problem, however, was that there were flies in their dining room, and the mirror over the buffet became absolutely fly specked more and more as the trip continued, and the floors were not scrubbed so that by the end the chairs were actually sticking to the floor. No one was happier than we were to see South Hampton. We waved with everyone else when the Queen Mary liner on its way out met our sister ship in the channel. Both ships blew their whistles in greeting. Both of them were from the Cunnard fleet.

At the dock, we were soon transferred to a train heading for London, and then to a taxi to take us to the Finchley Mission Home where we would stay a few days until we were to sail for New York City. London was dull and smokey. We were amazed to hear the locals referring to the "beautiful sunshine" one day. What we saw was what looked like an orange trying to peer through the smoggy overcast sky. We were not impressed. Our room was at the top of the stairs. I think it was the fourth or fifth floor, and it was icy cold. There was a coin-operated gas burner in a small fireplace. I had spied a bank about a block away where I bought change for that meter.

We soon learned that the subway was near by. In fact the train passed directly under the building and the vibration was startling every time a train passed underneath. Meal time was another lesson. We knew the time they would be starting to serve, so always started to lead our children down the long stairs so that we would be there on time for the prayer. Every meal, as we had reached a few landings down, the servers banged a huge Chinese gong that stood on the bottom landing, and every meal our girls were so frightened that we always arrived at the bottom trying to sooth them. Ruth was still ill, and one of the other guests, a young lady from Kenya offered to care for her so we could take a bus down town and see a little of London. We really enjoyed walking about there, but soon returned to the home, and went back of it where we found a green-grocery (fruit and vegetables)shop where we bought some fruit to give the girls as they were not eating very well. England still had rationing and the meat was sliced so thin that I really believe you would be able to place it over a printed page and still be able to read the page. Perhaps that is a little exaggerated.

Our trip back to South Hampton was uneventful, and we were ushered into the huge SS United States liner for the last leg of our trip back to New York. There was only one stop, and that was at France just across the English Channel.

At that time the SS United States held the world’s speed record for this crossing. Our cabin was below the water line, so we could hear the water rushing by outside and of course there were no portholes. The weather was cold and rainy with rough conditions, and at the speed we were traveling, there was considerable movement. was very sick and stayed in bed. They saved on my food tab as I survived the trip eating only crisp toast and drinking black tea. The stairway was beautiful, but impossible to climb, so we tried the heavily padded elevator up to the dining room the first day. As soon as I smelled the food, I decided on the tea and toast diet. Phyllis ate alone, and to this day does not forgive me for being sick. A glimpse out the spacious windows of the lounge area showed the weather and the hundreds of huge chunks of floating ice to remember. It was a beautiful ship with a wonderful catering, and every convenience, even in our cabin, but I simply could not enjoy it.

Our return trip back across the ocean to South Africa was on a freighter. Most freighters had room for twelve passengers in staterooms, and they were really very comfortable, though the ships were not fast. You ate your meals with the ship's officers. It was there that the captain asked to deliver the Sunday sermons.

This was the last time we traveled the ocean by sea. As with most missionaries, we traveled by air after that.

WE TRY FLYING

Our next trip back to America was by air. We had learned a few things, but not enough. This trip we would not be bringing a car back to Africa, never again. Our luggage would be light, that is as light as one can travel with four daughters and clothes for a year. We would have an interesting encounter over that.

To save money important in those days, we booked our trip and paid, including the hotel in Luxemburg, Germany on a discount price airline. Trek Airways was South African registered, and their only plane was a beautiful Super Constellation, with its very neat tri-tailfins. It was packed like a sardine tin. Every seat was filled, with a small child sleeping on the floor in front of a door, and there were thirteen tiny hammocks hanging overhead with babies. The aisles were very narrow as were the seats, but we took off with no problems.

Over Rhodesia at that time, the fire alarm sounded, but we droned on, as this was a propeller plane. The crewmembers came through the cabin and apologetically started pulling up the floorboards. That is when we learned that the luggage was all loaded through the cabin and through the floor. They were looking for smoke, or smell, or anything that would tell them why the alarm had sounded. As they found nothing, we continued on until we came to the first stop where we could land. Because of sanctions, by that time South Africa registered airlines were not welcome over Africa. There, I think it was Entebbe, we were thoroughly sprayed in case we were carrying any insects, then the seal was broken, and we were ushered at gunpoint into the terminal and to a room there where they posted a guard at the door and we could use the rest rooms and wait while they unloaded the baggage and checked the plane thoroughly. Eventually, it was discovered that one water line leading to one of the two restrooms was leaking and that was why the alarm sounded. All was loaded back, and we headed on to the North, with only one restroom available, eventually arriving at Cairo, Egypt. There all our passports were collected and we were again ushered at gunpoint to a room where we were under armed guard. As we returned to the plane one of the women passengers slipped on a pool of oil on the concrete and got oil all over her from the fall. She was ushered into the plane as she was, still under armed guard.

From there, after 32 hours on the way, we landed at Luxemburg where we soon learned that our travel agent had not booked and paid for our hotel room. There was a meal and a night, and we had only $75 in cash to house and feed all six of us. We went to a currency exchange bank to change this; we had even been misinformed as to what currency was used in Luxemburg, and the teller kindly suggested that we not try to go to the hotel where most of the passengers had gone, but to go around the corner to a sort of youth hostel kind of hotel, clean, comfortable and cheap. That is what we did, and our evening meal was a big bowl of onion soup.

We were scheduled to fly on by Icelandic Air to Iceland and from there to New York City. When I stacked our bags for the six of us at the weigh in, the ground crew almost flipped until I laid out our tickets one by one counting them as I did. That was fine. That cleared, Kathy lost her doll, a homemade doll with a long skirt and a head at each end. We eventually found it at a counter, where, without doubt, it had been x-rayed to make sure there was nothing inside other than stuffing. Doll and girl, together again, and tears dried, we waited. It was snowing outside, and they were trying desparetly to defrost the plane. They finally gave up and announced that the flight was cancelled until morning and that we would be bussed back to the hotel for the night. They covered the cost that time. I am not likely to forget that supper included a baked fish, head and beady eye staring at us. Try feeding that to four squeamish little girls. In fact try eating it yourself. By morning the storm had passed and our flight over Scotland was magnificent. The pilot came on the intercom to point out the snow-covered mountains and said that he had never seen them so beautiful before. Scotland was usually covered by clouds.

After flying over the glacier we landed at a military airbase in Iceland for a meal at the hotel and prepared to fly on to Greenland. As the plane raced down the runway, the pilot suddenly aborted the take off and taxied back to the terminal. His only explanation was that he was not happy about something and we would have repairs before continuing. There was a lot of complaining, but I personally was very relieved that we did start over the North Atlantic arctic conditions if he was not completely satisfied. We left later with no problems and stopped briefly in Greenland. From there flew on to Kennedy, where we changed to another airport and airline to continue on to Chicago. In Chicago we managed seats on a small commuter plane to Champaign. We were home!

After that furlough, we returned by the return half of the flight. It started badly from the moment I phoned to confirm our booking. From Luxemburg on was confirmed, but the leg from New York to Luxemburg was not. Taking a chance, since we needed to get to Luxemburg for the longer part of the flight, we flew in to Kennedy and presented ourselves at the counter with our tickets. At first they insisted they could not get us on the flight, but after checking the other connections and perhaps putting their own staff on other flights, they suddenly had seats for six people and we flew out as scheduled. This time we were accommodated at the hotel in Luxemburg and we flew by what they called the "Leisurely Route," flying by day only and staying on the ground at night in a hotel. We loved that. The first stop was to Athens, Greece, where we could see the Parthenon on a distant ridge while we had a leisurely dinner in the roof garden dining area. We relaxed to the string music accompaniment. Early the following morning, we took a bus tour past the Colliseum to the Parthenon, Mars Hill, and a nearby Greek open air theater. From there we went straight to the airport where we boarded and flew to Cairo, Egypt. As it was still early, a bus collected us all and we went to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx. The bus then headed for the markets so people could buy souvenirs, but as we had changed no money for Egyptian money and the bus was stopped by traffic in sight of the hotel where we were staying, we left the bus there and took the children back to our rooms. The airline was hosting us at the Nile Hilton, and they had given us a two room suite because there were six of us. We were told later that that was the only hotel in the city that would guarantee that they did not have bed bugs. Our windows overlooked the Nile River and we watched the boats with their very unusual sails lower the sail to slip under a low level bridge and we gazed at an unusual house boat on the far shore. It was several decks high. Our evening meal was served in the massive dining room facing the Nile, where we all sat together on a reserved indoor balcony. We were served a special menu. It was a very American, delicious meal. Thanks to Trek Airlines. I think we drove them broke, as that was their last such flight.

There were official problems at the airport again, but we were eventually allowed to fly on to Kenya, where we were lodged in a small hotel that made us feel like we were finally back in Africa. Shoes to be polished were left outside the door, and everyone was awakened and served a cup of hot tea before showering and going to breakfast. That is the way it was done in Africa in those days.

This was definitely the last trip of that sort Trek ever did and must have been one of the very last flights over Africa for any South African registered airline for several years. Once we were back home, I lodged a complaint about the cost of the hotel and was promptly refunded that. The airline also changed their agents after that, but too late, they soon folded. After standing unused at an airfield, that plane ended it’s life as a walk through exhibit in a pleasure resort north of Johannesburg. We had learned another lesson, "Always fly by a regularly scheduled airline!"