Monday Musings #31 January 29, 2024. Adapted from a longer article in Heroes of the Faith, Book 3.
H. B. Garlock, an Assemblies of God missionary, arrived in Liberia in the fall of 1920. Early in 1921, he accompanied another missionary on a trip to the interior. They were seeking to contact the Pahn tribe, a warlike people who had not yet heard the gospel and were reported to be cannibals. Here is the story:
After wading swamps and swollen rivers, and passing through dense forest we finally reached Rhodilly, a large Pahn village. The people were suspicious of us. No one in our caravan could speak the Pahn language, but some knew a few words of a language used by a neighboring tribe. Using gestures and faulty interpretations, we assured the people we meant no harm. Finally, after giving the chief a blanket, we were assigned a place to set up our army cots for the night. Knowing we were among cannibals made us ill at ease, but we were exhausted from the nine-day trek through the jungle. After committing ourselves to the Lord and praying for His peace and power to prevail, we slept.
The area was primitive, and except for a few Barroba Christians who went along to help us get settled, we were isolated. The government had no outpost there. Communication with the outside world was nearly nonexistent. In fact, the last government official to visit the area had been killed and eaten!
The Pahn people had not yet heard the gospel and practiced their ancestral ways, including cannibalism. But their hearts were hungry for the truth. When we told them the story of Jesus, they wept and said, “Tell us again.” This introduction to the Pahn people helped open a door to the gospel in Liberia.
IN TIME, HENRY REOPENED AN ABANDONED MISSIONARY STATION in the Gropaka area of Liberia. It was a big task because so much of the property had crumbled and had been taken over by heat, humidity, and encroaching trees and undergrowth.
One evening the Barroba believers were returning from a preaching trip when they found a dying woman lying beside the road. They carried her to our mission where she was cared for until she recovered enough to tell her story. She was a native of the Kru tribe who lived along the coast, but misfortune overtook her and she fled to the interior. Further disaster followed and her two children were taken into slavery by Pahn villagers. She tried to rescue them, but was severely beaten and left to die.
At the mission she accepted Jesus, but her health continued to deteriorate. More than anything she wanted to get her children to the mission so they could be brought up as Christians. She begged us to help her. Her young son was in a village where we had made friends with the chief, so he was rescued without any problem. But the daughter was living in a village some distance away. The mother grew weaker and pleaded to see her daughter before she died. The daughter was with a part of the tribe that was hostile toward the part of the tribe where we lived.
I gathered a group of Barroba Christian men, and we went to the village where the child was. One of the men knew the child by sight and pointed her out to me. I appealed to the chief but he denied any knowledge of the mother and child. Finally, he said another woman had taken the child away and he didn’t know where she was. I told him I knew the child was still in the village and requested that she be brought to the gathering. Otherwise, I was afraid she would be hidden and we might lose her entirely. Reluctantly, the chief had the child brought to the circle. By now it was getting late, and I offered to redeem the child by paying the price for a fully grown woman, but the chief refused. I increased my offer, but he still refused. Since he accepted none of my offers, I told him I would take the child to see her dying mother. If he wished, he could come to the mission in a few days, and we would discuss the matter further.
I handed the child to one of the men with me. We said our farewells and left the village. Traveling as fast as possible, we went three villages away before we stopped for the night. The chief there allowed us to camp in a large hut overlooking the village courtyard. Before we retired for the night, we held a short service and brought the first gospel message they had ever heard.
About midnight I was awakened by the sound of drums, yells, and screams. I rose from my cot and knelt on the ground to look through the low doorway, the hut’s only opening. I saw a mass of warriors decorated with war paint and brandishing weapons. “Where is the white man?” they asked those who came out to see what was happening. “We know he is here, and we have come to kill him. If you don’t tell us where he is, we will burn down the whole town.” A frightened townsperson pointed to the hut where we were staying.
The warriors rushed forward, screaming and yelling. In front of the hut was a large stone where the village people sharpened their hoes and hunting tools. The war party stopped to sharpen their weapons and talk among themselves.
John Yeddah, one of the Christian men with me, knelt beside me, “Do you hear what they are saying?” he asked. “Yes,” I replied, “I hear.” The warriors were taking a vow–the strongest one known in their tribe — to neither eat nor sleep until they killed me! With tears in his eyes, John asked, “What shall we do?”
“There’s only one thing we can do,” I said, “and that’s pray.” And pray we did. We didn’t search for flowery words; we poured our hearts out to God, asking for His protection. While in prayer, I felt impressed to go outside and face the mob. John begged me to stay inside and let him go out and try to reason with them. “It is I they want. You just continue to hold on to God in prayer,” I said.
I stepped outside the hut where I could be seen. John stood in the door to help me with the language. The mob rushed forward, shouting, “Kill him! Kill him!” Their long knives and cutlasses gleamed in the moonlight.
The men had been drinking palm wine and had worked themselves into a frenzy. They would not listen when I tried to talk, but kept shouting and threatening me. Finally, as calmly as I could, I said, “You have taken your vows and made your threats, but I am trusting in my God to protect me.”
The leader rushed toward me with his knife raised to behead me. I bowed my head and repeated that Name that is above every name, “Jesus! Jesus!”
Suddenly the yelling stopped, the drums were still, and there was a deathlike silence. I waited what seemed like hours, expecting the blow to fall any second. When nothing happened, I cautiously looked up. All around me the warriors stood with their weapons drawn, but they were frozen in place! No one moved, including the man who had intended to behead me!
I stood still and waited. As if in slow motion, these angry cannibals relaxed and backed away. They retreated to the village courtyard beside the great rock where they had sharpened their weapons and taken the oath to kill me only a few minutes earlier. Then their leader advanced slowly toward me, stopping every few feet to bow. He knelt in front of me and grabbed my ankles in a show of submission, begging me to have mercy on him and his men and spare their lives! “I see that your God fights for you,” he said. “If you will forgive us, we will accept your offer to settle the matter.”
I assured him that we meant him no harm. We measured out items of trade equal to the price of a grown woman, adding a blanket for the chief and some small gifts for the young men who would carry the load. They accepted the goods and thanked me. The drums began beating again, and they set off into the African night.
Our party spent the rest of the night praising and thanking God for delivering us. At daybreak we continued our journey. When we arrived at the mission station, the brass ring denoting slavery was pried loose from the child’s neck and she was reunited with her mother. That same night the mother died, but God had let her live long enough to know her children were safe and would be raised in a Christian environment.
I never knew what the warriors saw that night. Whatever it was, it stopped a mob of wild, angry cannibals when reasoning and persuasion failed. We never doubted that God performed a miracle on our behalf.
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Personal notes. We serve the God of heaven, the One who commands hosts of angels. Only the power of God can turn around the mixed-up political situations in our nation. May He send His angels in answer to our faithful prayers.
Out of Church Tales 