All of the traveling took a physical toll on C.T., who still suffered from frequent bouts of malaria. But C.T. went on traveling and speaking. On November 2, 1915, he wrote in his diary.
Hughes Jones, my host, brought in a doctor, who forbade me to go out and speak that evening and said that I must go home at once. I laughed and spoke for an hour and a half; [the] next day at Carnarvon, two hours; then Bangor, three meetings; and then Aberystwyth. Oh, these train journeys! So slow and cold, but God is always there.
C.T. refused to spare himself in the cause of bringing the gospel to Central Africa. In another article he wrote of his vision for the Heart of Africa Mission to be the first of many missions to unreached tribes. He ended the article by saying, “Worldwide it is! Thank God I don’t know how to retreat!”
Letters from Alfred Buxton were for the most part encouraging. Although one of the newly arrived missionaries had died from a tropical disease, the rest were “on fire,” as Alfred put it, and getting results. Six months after C.T. had left the Congo for England, Alfred reported that eighteen people had been baptized. He wrote, “Each of these Nala baptisms would make stirring headlines, ‘Ex-cannibals, Drunkards, Thieves, Murderers, Adulterers, and Swearers enter the Kingdom of God.’”
C.T. was thrilled as he read more of Alfred’s account of what was happening at Nala.
At the meeting for the confession of sin, we had some remarkable testimonies: “I have done more sin than there is room for in my chest.” “My father killed a man, and I helped to eat him.” “I did witchcraft from the finger nails of a dead man, and with the medicine killed a man.” Each [person] is greeted, when they first come, with “What have you come here for? Because I tell you frankly there is not much money to be got here; our men have enough to live on, but all we really care about is getting men to learn about God and to read His Word.” In spite of such a greeting, one and all have answered, “We do not care a snap about money, what we want is God.”
Finally, by June 1916, C.T. had gathered eight recruits to take back with him to the Congo. Among them were his daughter Edith, who planned to marry Alfred, a female pharmacist, and a carpenter. It had taken months to get the money together for their passages to Africa, and just as they were ready to leave, C.T. received bad news. George Buxton, Alfred’s older brother, who had been planning to join Alfred in the Congo, had instead been conscripted into the British army as a pilot. George’s biplane was shot down flying over enemy lines one day, and George was killed.
Saddened by the news, C.T. continued to prepare for the group’s departure. In July everything was ready, and C.T. nailed posters up around London.
All day prayer and praise, 10:00 am to 10:00 pm, Central Hall, Westminster. Inauguration of Christ’s Crusade by the farewelling of Mr. C.T. Studd and party for the Heart of Africa. Your prayers are earnestly invited for the outgoing party leaving Paddington on Monday 24th, at 9:40. Confetti would be out of place, but a shower-bath of Hallelujahs is always in season.
And hallelujahs there were as C.T. preached to an enthusiastic crowd that day. C.T. thundered from the pulpit, “Christ wants not nibblers of the possible but grabbers of the impossible. Some wish to live within the sound of church or chapel bells. I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell!”
A huge crowd gathered at Paddington Station on July 24, 1916, to see the band of missionaries off. Priscilla was there, this time saying farewell to not only her husband but also her daughter. As at other times, C.T. and Priscilla had said their good-byes privately before going to the station. Finally, with a hiss of smoke from the train’s engine, C.T. Studd was once again on his way back to Africa.
The sea voyage from England held extra dangers this time. German U-boats were prowling the Atlantic Ocean, torpedoing British ships. All of the portholes in the ship the missionaries traveled on were blacked out, and a constant watch was kept for the enemy. Because of the tense situation, no idle sightseers were on this ship, only the missionaries and a large contingent of Belgian officials being sent to man postes in the Congo. Some of the Belgians mocked C.T. and his eight missionary recruits, but C.T. did not care. As usual, opposition only served to focus his thoughts and spur him on.
Besides, C.T. had more important things to consider than the taunts of the Belgian officials or German U-boats. In his care were eight idealistic young people, none of whom, with the exception of Edith, had ever before been out of England. C.T. did all he could to prepare them for the primitive conditions that lay ahead. But even as he did so, he wondered how much of it they were able to comprehend. Could they even imagine a world where there was no running water, no familiar food, and no privacy? He called his “troops” together every morning to study the Bangala language and each afternoon to study great heroes of the faith from the Bible. They spent their evenings praying for what lay ahead.
They encountered no German U-boats on their voyage, and finally, on September 27, 1916, the ship sailed into the mouth of the Congo River and docked at Matadi. The missionaries camped there for five days while they gathered supplies and waited for a train to take them on a twelve-hour journey to Kinshasa. The long, jarring train ride was followed by a voyage on a steamer two hundred miles up the Congo River. There was no wind, and it was stiflingly hot, but C.T. continued to drill his troops every day. When the steamer docked at the confluence of the Congo and the Welle rivers, Alfred was waiting to greet them.
A few awkward moments followed as Alfred and Edith got reacquainted, but by evening Edith was beaming. After three and a half years apart, Alfred was still the man she remembered and wanted to marry.
Before setting out on the next leg of their journey, Alfred caught C.T. up on all that had happened in his absence. The stories Alfred told warmed C.T.’s heart. There were now sixty baptized Christians in Nala, and many of the chiefs from the surrounding areas were requesting that missionaries come to their villages.
“I won’t deny that we’ve done a lot of work,” Alfred said, “but we have also seen God working miracles. One of our missionaries came across a tribe who asked him if he was English. When he told them he was, they brought him to a man who recounted the most astonishing story. Several years before, when he was a teenager, this man had a vivid dream. In the dream God told him, ‘Wait for the English; they will tell you about Me.’ Ever since, the people of the village had questioned any white person who crossed their path, asking if he was English. They did not know that English was a nationality and assumed it meant a god-person. Our missionary was able to set them straight and introduce them to Jesus Christ.”
C.T. smiled. “God still works by giving dreams, just as he did to Daniel. If every conversion in Britain is a miracle, any conversion in Africa is a thousand times greater miracle!”
The group boarded a smaller steamer for the one-week journey up the Welle River before they set out on foot for the last three hundred miles of the journey. By the time they neared Nala, they had been traveling for four months and were all exhausted. C.T. had battled his familiar bouts with malaria, though he preferred to think of them as bouts with the devil from which he emerged the winner every time.
The group was still several days’ trek from Nala when it began to encounter groups of African Christians along the track. These Africans marched beside them singing hymns and reciting Bible passages. More than once, tears sprang to C.T.’s eyes as the enormity of it all sank in. In the two years he had been away, Christianity had taken root in one of the darkest places he knew of.
Finally C.T. informed his weary band of missionaries that they were within a half day’s walk of their destination. Their spirits rose and their pace quickened at the thought. By noon they were at the outskirts of the village. Cries of joy went up from the Christians as they rushed out to greet C.T. and the new missionaries. One of the first to greet them was Sambo, the first convert from Nala. Sambo had waited nearly two years for C.T. to return.
C.T. laughed with delight when he saw Sambo. Sambo had with him three friends, and between them they balanced a long native drum on their heads. Propped on top of the drum was a four-year-old boy, who beat the drum with a stick. Sambo told C.T. that he wanted to welcome him back in style!
The people of Nala had prepared a tropical feast for C.T. and his companions. Pineapples and bananas adorned roughhewn tables, and roast chicken, sweet potatoes, and greens soon emerged from ovens and were placed on the tables.
As they ate, C.T. eagerly questioned the remaining four missionaries who had arrived soon after his departure for England. He was keen to learn what each one had been doing while he was away.
When the meal was over, C.T. sat back and surveyed the scene. The last time he had been in Nala, it consisted of a few abandoned buildings surrounded by huts and an avenue of palm trees. Now it was a thriving village, the Christian center of the region. It had many new houses, including small ones for each of the new missionaries.
That night the regular Friday evening service was held in a huge, open-sided meetinghouse. C.T. watched in awe as two hundred Africans quietly took their places on wooden benches. The peoples well-oiled bodies gleamed in the lamplight, and their faces shined. C.T. thought he had never heard anything more beautiful than the hymns they sang that night. The hymns were Bangala hymns that Alfred had made up and taught to the people while C.T. was away. One hymn, which they sang with particular gusto, went like this:
The road to hell is broad,
The devil keeps it well swept.
Very many people travel on it,
Because madness has seized them.
The road to heaven is difficult,
There is a stream to cross.
But there is only one canoe to ferry you over,
The name of the canoe is Jesus.
Following the hymns came a time for sharing testimonies, and there were many testimonies to tell. C.T. was humbled by the faith evident in them. One man, who had a sore on his leg, stood and said, “I have walked many a mile through the forests on these legs to do my own will. Now I have given myself to God. I only wait for my wound to heal, and I shall use them to preach the gospel.”
Another man then rose to his feet. He had no ears. “I am Miyeye, and many people ask me what happened to my ears,” he began in a high-pitched voice. “The truth is I have eaten them. Many years ago I was a slave in a chief’s village. My life was very difficult. I worked harder than most, but I was paid less, and I was often hungry. One day I happened to talk to one of the chief’s wives, who was also being treated badly, and we decided to run away together. As soon as it got dark, we ran and ran. But we were not fast. I was a boy and she was a woman, and soon the chief’s men caught up to us. They dragged us back to the village, and a big fire was lit under a pot. Before my eyes the wife was killed and cooked, but when it came my turn, the chief’s head wife ran through the crowd: ‘We must not cook the child. It will bring a curse on us all if we eat a child, and we shall die.’
“The chief stared at me for a long time and then nodded. ‘As you say, we shall not cook him, but he must be punished. Chop off his ears, cook them, and make him eat them.’ And that is what they did. It was terrible, and I was sick for many days. But now, all these years later, I have heard of the God who forgives me and asks me to forgive others, and I have forgiven the chief. My heart dances with joy.”
Tears streamed down C.T.’s face as he listened. He wished that all the skeptical Christians in England could sit right where he was and listen to testimonies like these. There was no doubt in his mind that the power of God was at work in the dark jungles around them.
