What was it like for a foreign missionary to come and work in this country? Heidelind Pohl observes:

“Stepping off the plane it felt like coming into a sauna bath. Arriving at the Treichville missionary home, I was amazed to see shutters but no windowpanes, which were not needed, of course, in this climate. In fact, it was so hot that often during the night I climbed out of bed and lay down on a mat on the cement floor to cool down a bit.

“In the territory people were very kind. I hardly spoke any French at first, but everyone was so patient. Sometimes they would ask what we had in our witnessing bags, and pull out a book they wanted. Starting Bible studies is no problem. There were times I had 20 or more.

“One man I called on took a ‘Truth’ book and started coming to meetings. He wrote to his fiancée in Benin about his newfound faith. She did not appreciate it at all, and told him to forget about her if he continued in this religion. I called on him for the first time in October. By the end of December he was out in the field service, after he had cleaned up his life. The next March he was baptized, and he now serves as an elder in one of the Abidjan congregations. His fiancée wrote to him asking his forgiveness. He went home on vacation and arranged for a sister to study with her. A year later they were married.”

EXPANSION IN BOUAKÉ

Since the trouble in Bouaké in 1962, when the congregation was dissolved, there had been only three or four Kingdom publishers in that town. What would happen when the missionaries began their work there? In just two years the number of publishers leaped to 50, with an average of 80 attending all meetings. One of the missionaries, Otto Hauck, assisted 12 people to the point of baptism in that period.

In Abidjan, the missionary Marcia Crawford studied with a Baule couple from a village near Bouaké. The woman’s older brother also sat in on the study, but was very critical of what was being taught. The wife, however, showed great interest, and so Marcia was sorry when the couple moved back to Bouaké. Happily this was about the time the missionaries opened a home in Bouaké, and so the study was continued. In time, the husband also progressed in the truth, finally burning all his fetish objects.