Donald Hugh O'Keefe

I had expected West Africa to be primitive and undeveloped, and yet, looking down at Liberia from the commercial jet, I was stunned by the jungle with its rough dirt roads connecting distant villages. The villages were a scattering of brown mud huts with grassy roofs in compounds barren of any vegetation.

As a boy I had seen pictures just like the scene below me, but this was real. It wasn't some far-off exotic land to dream about. It was here and now. Suddenly, the romance of Africa was replaced with the sobering thought that my family and I were going to live here. This wasn't a camping trip where we would briefly rough it in the great outdoors, nor was it a two-week vacation where we would see the highlights prepared for tourists and then run back to our comfortable California home. We were going to live here.

When the plane touched down at Robert's Field we were excited, but dog tired from the all-night flight. When we walked into the sunshine we met another reality of West Africa: the humid equatorial climate that surrounded us like a sauna. We were soon sweating through our clothes and wishing we had worn lighter garments.

Over by the airport buildings we saw our welcoming party waving and yelling greetings to us. We were really glad to see them.

Of course, we had to go through customs and immigration procedures. Going through customs in West Africa is an unforgettable experience. Books could be written about the things that happen to people going through customs. No inexperienced person should attempt it on his own. One time a missionary's wife had a customs agent take her undergarments out of her suitcase and hold them up for public display while he and other agents laughed and made silly comments about them. She was red faced, but bravely ignored their game. There was no malice in this act—it was just the way West African customs operates.

Some things that happen in customs are not so harmless. If you do not know the ropes, or if nobody meeting you knows the ropes, you can go through some very unpleasant harassment and efforts to relieve you of your money or your goods. Thankfully, we were met by the Liberian missionaries, and with their assistance we survived customs.

The trip from the airport to the missionary's home was forty to fifty miles. Along the way it became evident that this land not only looked different from the air, it was different.

Women walked down the road topless, and men took baths in public completely naked. Teenage girls with their bodies painted white walked single file down the road as they participated in the initiation rites of the Bundo Society, a women's society based upon devil worship.

In some areas the road was lined with kiosks selling a wide variety of goods: used clothing, rice, palm oil, used motor oil, devil charms, and artifacts. The markets swarmed with people haggling over prices. The noise, the color, and the ripe smell of the markets are a part of the culture that everyone should experience—at least once.

The little add-on air conditioner in the Peugeot struggled to keep the passengers in the front seat cool, but it did little for those in the back seat. The dirt road we now traveled was not only rough, bouncy and winding, but, in addition, it had to be the dustiest road I had ever seen in my life. The dust rose with each passing vehicle to the height of a two-story building. Opening a window was completely out of the question. To see where we were going, sometimes we would have to stop until the dust raised by some passing vehicle settled. It seemed strange that such a dusty road would be lined on both sides with some of the thickest jungle in the world.

Finally, we reached the house, located in a little settlement called Brewaville. There we met a number of the Liberian church members who had come to welcome us. The people of West Africa are, for the most part, very friendly and hospitable. They are pleased to have visitors, they love missionaries for the message that they have brought, and for the social and educational benefits derived from their labors.

It was good to be in a house surrounded by things familiar to us as Americans. Even though the electricity was off as much as it was on, and even though the well was going dry, we were glad to be there.

The dry well did cause some difficulties. We learned to take a bath with a single teapot full of water, for both lather and rinse. Sometimes we would go to a nearby river to bathe and wash clothes.

We had only been in Brewaville a few days when we had our first experience with driver ants. It was late at night and we were in bed when we heard a loud shouting outside. All of us flew out of bed and into our clothes. The missionary shouted to us, "The driver ants have come!" We didn't know what driver ants were. We had seen ants before, so what was the big deal?

But we had never, never seen ants like these. They came by the millions. It was an organized military attack by an army of voracious, carnivorous beasts intent on devouring everything in their path. Their black bodies were about a half inch long and very hard. They were vicious and aggressive. I found my distress that these meat-eating mini monsters can bite like bulldogs and hang on just as tenaciously. If you pull them loose from your skin, a little piece of skin goes with them in their jaws.

In the darkness of the night I looked for the advancing horde that had already invaded the penned-in area where chickens, rabbits, goats, and pigs were kept. The Liberians frantically spread kerosene across the path of the ants and set fires in order to divert their migration away from the house and the farm animals.

This battle continued for hours. As I watched the war from what I thought to be a safe vantage point, I suddenly experienced a series of stinging bites on my legs. I looked down, and I was standing right in the ants. They had begun crawling up my legs, intent on consuming me.

I commenced a dance that was not in the Holy Ghost. I performed steps that were new to me and for which I had received no formal training. I realized that it was time to flee the scene. I made a dash for the privacy of our assigned bedroom where I could get my pants off and pick the black bulldogs off me. After I dispatched my assailants and got my trousers back in place, I went back outside to see how this epic battle was going. This time I was more careful in choosing a secure observation point.

After several hours of serious effort, the ants were diverted to other targets. None of the livestock was lost, and the ants did not get into the house. They could be a serious threat to life if a person was unable to escape them. Finally, we crawled back into bed in the wee hours of the morning.

The next several days were calmer, and we spent our time getting oriented to our surroundings.

As one of the Liberians spoke to the missionary, I asked someone what language he was speaking. I felt shocked and embarrassed when I was told that it was English. Later, when my ears became accustomed to Liberian speech I could discern that it really was English. The people have a singsong manner of talking that, when combined with their national accent and their habit of dropping all final consonants, makes their English incomprehensible to the uninitiated American ear.

The next weeks were a blur of activity: mission school closings, preaching assignments, meeting national preachers, attending rallies, learning administrative procedures, and so on. It seemed that people received the Holy Ghost in every evangelistic service. It was common to be in services where the church was literally overflowing. People had to stand around outside because they could not get inside. And the inside would be so tightly packed that people were actually like the proverbial sardines in a can.

Our first church service in Africa took place on a Sunday morning at the headquarters church in the capital city of Monrovia in an area called Sincor. The air was hot and oppressive that day, and inside the church, which was filled to capacity, the heat was even worse. My wife passed out during the service and had to be taken to the nearby home of Brother and Sister Albert Stewart to recover.

Brother Stewart was an army sergeant posted to the United States Embassy in Liberia who had come to the Lord while there. After a while he became the pastor of the headquarters church. He and his good wife were very kind to us. Later he and his family received full appointment as United Pentecostal missionaries to Liberia.

As we became better acclimated, we were able to cope better with the heat.

At the headquarters church my youngest son, Don, received the Holy Ghost and was baptized in the wonderful name of Jesus Christ. It was beautiful to watch my ten-year-old boy come out of the water with his hands in the air praising God in an unknown tongue.

During our months in Liberia, my oldest son, Mark, was used wonderfully of the Lord. Right from the beginning he took a liking to the African people, and they equally loved him. He seemed ready to adjust to the culture, and he endeavored to be used of God for revival. At this time, he was sixteen years old and had been preaching since he was fourteen. The resident missionary began to take him night after night to preach revival services. Always people received the Holy Ghost. In those first months, more people received the Holy Ghost in Mark's services than in mine. God used him in a way that was awesome, and he showed a spiritual maturity far beyond his years. He preached at the Liberian National Conference with an unction and power that brought sinners to the altar and the church to its knees, both preachers and laity.

When the rainy season begins each year, termites swarm at a certain time in the evening. The termites have wings and look like a flying larva or worm. Of course, they are attracted to a light at night. consequently, at church, whether the light was a lantern or an electric bulb, the termites flew around it, multitudes of them. This made it difficult to preach, because the light was always in front of the preacher. So I preached and swatted, preached and swatted. The termites got in my hair, on my clothes, on my face, and on my Bible. Strangely, after a while they would fall to the floor as they lost their wings; then they crawled all over the floor. Just when the situation would look hopeless, the termites would stop swarming and amazingly disappear just in time for the altar service.

It was a special day the first time we went to the historic Bomi Hills mission station. We had heard much about Bomi Hills ever since coming to the Lord.

We lived for two months in the very quarters on the mission station once occupied by Sister Valda Russell. Her favorite chair was still in the house.

We talked to people who were present when Missionary Jack Langham's daughter was shot to death. As I stood in the room where she died, I felt that I was standing on ground hallowed by the blood of spiritual pioneers, giants of faith who had dedicated themselves to reach the African people. I stood by the grave of this fine girl and thought of the sacrifice made by the Langham family. Every sacrifice had been made with love.

Brother Langham was not at home when his daughter was shot. When he reached the house later and heard about his daughter's death, the police brought the perpetrator to him. He was a young man who worked regularly on the mission compound and was well known to the Langham family. The man was deeply sorry and said it had been an accident. The Liberians wanted him to receive the greatest penalty allowed by law, but Brother Langham pleaded for him to be released and forgiven. Some of the Liberians told me that his display of Christian love changed their life and convinced them of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I saw where Sam Latta's airplane crashed on the mission school's playground. Momentum carried it across the main road and into a store building. Brother Latta climbed out of the plane uninjured. No one else was injured either, but the plane was a total loss.

The roll call of missionaries who had served here was long, I thought of Mother Holmes, Pauline Gruse, Velda Russell, Ena Hylton, Laverene Collins, Gladys Robinson, Porter Davis, the Parks family, the Basil Williams family, the Cupples family, Brother and Sister Harvey Davis, Else Lund, the Garlands, Sister Bailey, and Brother and Sister Otis Petty.

I could not remember all the names and wished I could. A person did not have to be there but a few days to realize that these men, women, and children had made truly great sacrifices in giving themselves to the work of God for Liberia. And it is tragic for such sacrifice and service to go unremembered. The names of some of these missionaries to Liberia could well stand alongside the names of faithful heroes in Hebrews 11.

At the back of the Bomi Hills mission station were a number of undeveloped acres. Every day that I could, I would go there and spend hours alone walking through the trees praying, meditating, weeping and talking with God, asking Him to use us and give us souls. The Lord was wonderfully close as I walked with Him there. His words, "Go . . . and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" were precious to me. I held them as a personal promise.

When the time came for us to take a trip to Fassama we were excited. Fassama was just as famous as Bomi Hills, but much more remote. At that time, there were two ways to get there: you could walk for three days orcharter a small plane to take you there. We were going to fly, thank God. Fifteen of us were going, so we needed two airplanes. On boarding, we separated the parents of each family to ensure that no children would be left as orphans in case one of the planes went down.

The passenger door of the plane I was on was tied shut because the door catches were broken. My plane arrived first and we landed on the very short, uphill, uneven dirt airfield that was full of potholes. It was good to be on the ground again after flying above the vast green expanse of jungle that had never revealed a gap.

Because of the shortness of the airfield, the other plane had to land at a village about twenty miles away. Then our plane went to pick up the other passengers to bring them on to Fassama.

When Sister O'Keefe's turn came to disembark, she missed the step and fell towards the ground. Fortunately, the pastor of the mission, Joseph Yarki, caught her. We all had a good laugh, but it had been a tense flight low over an impenetrable jungle, a jungle so dense that a plane lost in it would be swallowed up as completely as if submerged in an ocean, never to found again.

In Fassama, as in Bomi Hills, we felt surrounded by history. Here, Sister Laverne Collins had given her life. Just six months after her arrival in Liberia a malarial fever took her. Her grave site was a memorial to a life unselfishly laid down for her Master.

Sister Gruse had walked through this jungle to bring salvation here. She built the house that she lived in and that still stands—a round mud hut. Here, in front of many witnesses, she was killed by a bolt of lightning. As she lay dead on the ground, the villagers felt that their heathen gods had shown their power in striking down this purveyor of a strange new religion. But then something happened. Sister Gruse rose from the dead! She stood up! Healed! Alive!

The people were stunned. Her God was greater than all of theirs.

On another occasion, some villagers tried to kill one of the missionaries by putting a deadly cobra on her bed while she slept. The snake would not bite.

The next day the village witch doctors confessed that they had been trying to kill the missionary with the snake and with devil curses. They acknowledged the failure of their gods and admitted that Jesus Christ was greater. Revival came to Fassama.

I thought of Brother Harvey Davis, who contracted a case of amoebic dysentery, of the horrible suffering he experienced with what was at that time an incurable disease. He was sent back to America to die with his intestines destroyed. Conquering the powers of darkness require a high price. These pioneers paid that price.

Things were different now. A large mission station prospered that had trained many of the dedicated ministers who were now the national leaders of the United Pentecostal Church of Liberia. The sacrifices of Sister Gruse, Sister Collins, Brother Davis, and others were not in vain. What they built lives on now and shall forever more.

The next few days were restful. We thoroughly enjoyed the church services, the good African food, and the fellowship. Then, my son Tom was stricken with malaria, the same dreaded disease that had killed Laverne Collins at the same place. His fever raged for days. Fortunately, we had at the mission station some antimalarial medicine. Tom responded to the medicine and prayer and was soon well again. Thank God!

While at Fassama, a group of men and boys decided to hike ten miles to the next village to check on a radio transmitter. It was a relatively easy walk on a well-worn dirt trail with many little bridges to cross, if I dare call them bridges. Usually the bridge was just a single log stretched over a murky, scummy, disease-infested creek. Sometimes there would be a shaky handrail, but usually there was none. You had to keep your balance or you would land in the creek. Several people slipped on these bridges but always managed to catch themselves in time until my son Mark slipped. He caught the log under him in a bear hug and a scissors grip, but instead of staying on top of the log, he slipped underneath it and briefly hung upside down. Then he lost his grip, dropped into the filthy, stagnant water, and disappeared beneath the surface. Fortunately, it wasn't deep, and Mark was soon standing, sputtering and spitting. He was completely soaked and thoroughly disgusted. We all broke up laughing; we couldn't help it. The gymnastics of his entrance into the creek were too spectacular. Mark soon recovered his good humor and suffered no ill effects from his dunking.

As we continued our hike, we passed many long, thick vines hanging down from the high trees. I remembered from my boyhood stories of Tarzan swinging through the trees from vine to vine with a knife between his teeth. That gave me an idea: if Tarzan could do it, why not I? I selected a strong-looking vine, prepared myself to rend the jungle with the wild cry of the king of the apes, and then threw my weight onto the vine. The vine came loose from its moorings, and all sorts of jungle junk cascaded onto my head. By the time I finished brushing myself off and combing my hair, I was thoroughly disillusioned with Edgar Rice Burroughs and his Tarzan. This time the group had a good laugh at my expense.

It is commonly said that you do not have to be crazy to be a missionary, but it helps.

After a few days, we left Fassama and flew back to Monrovia, and then were driven back to the house at Brewaville.

In February 1976 the United States Embassy invited us to a celebration of America's Independence Day. In the United States we had always observed the occasion on the Fourth of July, but in Liberia there is too much rain then. Consequently, Americans living in West Africa celebrate the day in February.

The prospects of seeing other Americans was, in itself, exciting. In addition, the embassy advertised that there would be a cookout with genuine American hotdogs and hamburgers.

Our group dressed for the occasion and made our way to the designated site for the festivities. The activities were loosely planned and casual. There was a lot of friendly chatter, meeting new people, and invariably the question "Where in the States are you from?" was asked when we made acquaintances.

It is strange, but Americans in Africa begin feeling that another American in Africa is almost a relative. The become so isolated from American culture that the slightest sound of an American accent will draw them through a crowd to ask a stranger, "Are you an American?" The feeling of kinship with that stranger seems very real.

At the close of Independence Day activities the American embassador made a brief speech reminding us of the meaning of this observance. Then there was a drum roll, and we all stood to our feet as four uniformed U.S. Marines marched in with the Stars and Stripes. The flag was set in its stand, and the Marines held their salute at attention while we all repeated the Pledge of Alliegiance. As we sang the national anthem, hundreds of us wept unashamed for love of the country we had left behind. Never in my life had I been so moved by a flag ceremony. Never before had I felt so patriotic. Rolling in my soul was the prayer and the song "God Bless America."

I have come to the conclusion that no group on earth can sing that song with greater feeling than American foriegn missionaries. There was a lump in my throat and an ache in my heart. It was not that I wanted to leave Africa, definitely not. I was there in the will of God and considered my missionary calling as the highest honor in my life. Still I loved and missed America, my country.

While we were still in Liberia I was introduced to a young man who was a citizen of Sierra Leone. He had not been in Liberia long. He had gone to America to attend a technical college, but had had difficulties with his studies, had dropped out of college, and was therefore deported. He was ashamed to return to his family in Sierra Leone, so he came instead to Liberia. While in Liberia he met Brother Albert Stewart, who converted him from Islam to Christianity.

This young man was in dire straits. He knew no one, had no money, and had no place to live. The missionaries took him under their wing, gave him a job as a tutor for three youngest missionary children, and gave him a place to live.

He was congenial and intelligent, and we took a strong liking to him. Inasmuch as he was a Sierra Leonean, we hoped that he would be able to open doors for the gospel in Sierra Leone. At that time, we had no idea of the various roles he would play in our life and in the work of God in Sierra Leone.