wfn.org | Presbyterian Missionaries Leave Zaire

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

16-April-1997 
97162 
 
              Presbyterian Missionaries Leave Zaire 
 
                          by Alexa Smith 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--It's a delicate decision for missionaries to make -- to 
pack up their bags and head home early, maybe for good. 
 
     The decision is no less easy to make in the midst of mayhem, when 
reliable information is hard to get, when the U.S. Marines are running 
evacuation drills across the border and when leaders in the partner church 
are saying it is time to go.  There's still guilt about going -- even if 
all the advice givers say going is the thing to do. 
 
     For Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) missionaries the deciding factor 
between staying and going often is whether they have small children who 
might be traumatized by possible violence.  Another issue is whether the 
presence of  missionaries puts local church people at risk.  To stay may 
cause repercussions that reach much wider than the mission families 
themselves. 
 
     It's just hard to know what to do. 
 
     That is the dilemma of 17 PC(USA) missionaries now working in Zaire, 
where rebel forces have swept across more than 30 percent of the country, 
taking control of three of Zaire's four largest cities and most of the 
mineral-rich southeast.  U.S. Marines are on alert in Brazzaville, Congo, 
rehearsing evacuation of the approximately 500 Americans still in Zaire 
should rioting worsen or government and rebel forces collide in Kinshasa. 
 
     Six missionaries have left Zaire in the past three weeks: Lynne and 
Knute Hernas and their two children and longtime missionaries Ralph and 
Elsbeth Shannon, all of whom worked at the Christian Medical Institute of 
the Kasai (CMIK) in Tshikaji, near Kananga, where government troops 
ransacked the towns -- stealing all of the hospital's vehicles --  as they 
fled the rebel army.    Jeff and Christie Boyd, who were working in 
Kinshasa, Zaire's capital, also left with their three children.  Kinshasa 
has been the scene of continuous rioting as troops of President Mobutu Sese 
Seko attacked supporters of his longtime political adversary, Etienne 
Tshisekedi. 
 
     Remaining in Zaire are Morrisine Smith, Antoine and Marva Harle, and 
Bill Metzel, all near Kananga, site of a major Presbyterian medical and 
educational center. They are reportedly safe. Also staying are Bill and 
Willie Simmons in Kinshasa.  Richard and Judith Brown, also of Kinshasa, 
just left for the Congo, where the Shannons are currently staying. 
 
     PC(USA) missionaries David Law, an engineer, and surgeon John 
Fletcher, also of CMIK, are now trying to leave the country after enduring 
the Zairian army's retreat through Tshikaji.  Law needs to be back for his 
daughter's wedding April 26 in the United States.  Law was repeatedly 
threatened with guns with bayonets when Zairian soldiers commandeered the 
hospital's nine vehicles. 
 
     "There's always the tension of what should we be doing?" said Jeff 
Boyd, describing his family's last days in Kinshasa.  Christie Boyd added 
that she had kept two suitcases packed since October, when the rebellion 
began in eastern Zaire and rumors of pillages by government troops began 
flying around the city.   
 
     "We were asking,  What is responsible as a family?  What is 
responsible as far as working [here]?'" Jeff Boyd said, adding that some 
mornings the couple opted not to go to their jobs  across town so that if 
rumored rioting or looting broke out they would be close to their 
children's school and be able to get to them quickly.   
 
     "You just don't know what's going to happen," he said. 
 
     And because of that anxiety, Boyd said, the executive of the 
Presbyterian Community of Kinshasa advised the family to go across the 
river to the Congo -- getting them out of an increasingly tense city where 
the situation could suddenly go bad but close enough to reassure church 
members that the Boyds intended to return.   Finally, however, they opted 
to formally send the Boyds home in hopes that a careful departure would 
assure them of a speedier return and keep the trust of the PC(USA)'s 
Worldwide Ministries Division. 
 
     The Hernases, too, wanted to spare their children the trauma of a 
military evacuation, so they decided, along with other missionaries nearby, 
that when Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo 
(ADFL) troops got within striking distance, it was time to go.  Lynne left 
first, with Knute hiding a few necessities in their home, tying up business 
with his Zairian dental colleague and following later.  "People here say to 
the children,  Were you scared?'" she said, adding that a fear-filled exit 
is precisely what they wanted to avoid.  "And the children look at me like, 
Were we supposed to be?' 
 
     "[People have] the idea that we were leaving in imminent danger with 
gunfire over our heads.  ... And when we tell them that was not the case, 
it surprises them," she said, stressing that atrocities were happening in 
other parts of Zaire.  What was difficult, she said, was wondering, "Are we 
doing the right thing?  Saying good-bye to people we love -- that was very 
difficult." 
 
     All that emotion is still difficult, according to most of the 
evacuees.  "I do have some feeling of guilt," said Jeff Boyd  in a 
telephone interview with the Presbyterian News Service from his wife's 
family home in Amersfoort in the Netherlands. "I suppose if something 
really does happen in Kinshasa, [that will lessen]. But you have to live 
with the decision you make when nobody knows what's going to happen. ... 
 
     "Is it right to leave when things are getting difficult for the local 
population that doesn't have that option?  Some will believe we're 
abandoning them and they're going to die there.  It's a tension that eats 
at you," said Jeff Boyd. 
 
     PC(USA) mission worker David Law stayed early on in Tshikaji at the 
Christian Medical Institute of the Kasai with PC(USA) surgeon John 
Fletcher, at the request of the local church.  "While no one really blames 
[missionaries] for leaving," he said, "and [people] would not want us to 
get hurt on account of them, still there is a certain disappointment when 
we leave and the Catholic sisters and brothers do not. 
 
     "No one who leaves need feel guilty. ... I just [felt I should stay] 
and I did." 
 
     But his decision had dangerous consequences.  Retreating Zairian 
soldiers came looking for Law by name.  The soldiers stole the hospital's 
nine cars to escape the approaching rebels, and Law was ordered to start 
some and to repair others --  at bayonet point -- while soldiers repeatedly 
threatened to shoot him.  "They alternated," he said, "between hitting me 
in the back with their fists, waving a bayonet in my face, sticking a gun 
to my head and asking me for the keys. ... 
 
     "I never prayed so hard for a car to start in my life," he told the 
Presbyterian News Service, adding that he and Fletcher left the hospital 
with other church people after the soldiers departed and tried to stay less 
visible in the Tshikaji countryside. 
 
     Fletcher said the crisis in Zaire swept across the Kasai too quickly 
for him to make any other decision than to stay.  "I suppose if we had 
wanted to we could have called in a small plane," he said, but added that a 
rescue puts others at risk -- something else he wanted to avoid.  "I felt 
it was important that we stand with our friends and colleagues during this 
time of crisis, that we show we are willing to take the risk -- just as 
they are doing -- to be a witness to the love and faithfulness of our Lord 
and our God," he said.  Guilt about deciding to leave is not necessary, he 
added.  "God doesn't tell us to be stupid and to take unnecessary risks or 
to put others in danger when they have to come and save us from our folly. 
 ..." 
 
     The Rev. Hunter Farrell, the PC(USA)'s liaison to East/West Africa, 
said the denomination supports whatever decision missionaries and partner 
church leaders reach.  "We're ill-equipped 14,000 miles away to make the 
decision for our mission personnel," Farrell said, "so we urge them to 
consult the leaders of the church they're serving." 
 
     Louisville staff provide pastoral and practical support while 
missionaries decide, he added.  "It is an extremely difficult decision to 
make." 
 
     And that decision does have consequences, he said, for how much trust 
the local community places in mission personnel.  "A Tshiluba [Zairian 
language] proverb says:  A real friend sits with you in your time of need. 
 ...' And by leaving, you do lose the right to be a real friend. ... 
 
     "That's been borne out in experience," he said, adding that Zairians 
are acutely aware that foreigners have options to protect their families 
that local people do not --  just another confirmation that missionaries 
are "other," not quite part of the local church. 
 
     But longtime Zairian missionary John Pritchard said he found Zairians 
to be forgiving when his family was evacuated in 1960 and returned in 1962. 
"There was a wonderful appreciation that we were back ... and joy when they 
saw our children," he said, adding that personal guilt is a harder demon to 
conquer.  "There's always the feeling that I let my friends down.  I left 
them in a time of danger and they couldn't leave.  Now that's guilt.  And 
that is tempered by  Oh, but I want to protect our children. ...' 
 
     "But the people [you've] been working with are not able to do the same 
thing.  They have children -- probably more children." 
 
     He said, too, that he knows of the death of one Zairian who stood 
between looters and some missionaries. 
 
     "None of us really knows," said one longtime Zaire watcher about 
deciding whether to stay, go or hide.  "We just put together all these 
little pieces and [try] to get a sense of how much danger there is at a 
certain time. ... 
 
     "No one," he said, "has any security." 

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