"Welcome" to Africa

FROM CLEVELAND TO THE WORLD

In early 1952, after eight busy and productive years of ministry in New York, I returned to my home turf of Ohio, where I became pastor of Smoot Memorial Alliance Church of Cleveland. Wanda and I packed our three daughters and ourselves into our secondhand Dodge sedan for the long trip, and my brother, Clarence, traveled from Oberlin with a big truck to help us transport all the stuff we'd collected over the last decade.

   It felt great to be returning home. We would miss all the precious relationships and accomplishments made in New York, but there was an exhilarating sense of anticipation of new things. In a way, I could relate with the great joy the Prodigal Son must have felt when he walked into his hometown after being on the run for so long — with one big difference. Obviously, my journey away had not been one of carnal living and waste, but of fruitful and God-directed ministry. Still, what a feeling to come home a different person.

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   I needed New York. Our time there matured my perspective on life and my faith in God. Bethany Church had been a challenging assignment in all ways, but especially financially — especially in the early days when I was making just three dollars a week. Although we initially lived in Miss Woolward's apartment rent-free, there was one day we got down to just a handful of pennies, and I was too proud to write home and ask my dad for money. By that time, Dad had gotten over his displeasure with my career choice. Over the years, he had seen my commitment in preparing for the ministry. And though he never said it aloud, I believe he respected my decision to stand my ground and attend Nyack despite his protestations. In fact, he eventually began sending money to support me at Nyack. My dad was a proud man — but he was also a man who was able to acknowledge his wrongheadedness and change his mind. Most importantly, God had been working in his life to soften his heart and bring him around. Dad gladly would have sent us the money, but I couldn't bring myself to ask.

   So Wanda and I went to our bedroom and got down on our knees. And I said, "Oh, Lord, we've just got these pennies. That's all." And suddenly Wanda broke out in laughter. And I shot her a look of mild rebuke. "I'm praying, girl. Why would you break out in laughter? That's sacrilegious."

   But Wanda, ever the cool one, said, "Wait a minute, Howard. Isn't the Lord good? We have one daughter. She's healthy; we're healthy. We've got a place to stay. We shouldn't be complaining." And then I broke out and started laughing. I said, "That's right."

   It was soon after this episode that I started getting invitations to speak at other churches and events, and a little later I

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was tapped to work with the New York Bible Society. With those opportunities came a much-needed infusion of extra income. Times like those revealed God's faithfulness to us in new and marvelous ways. But we would not have experienced those grand, revealing moments of God's grace had we not been forced to dwell in the valleys for a while.

   New York prepared me — and my faith — for the numerous other valleys that lurked ahead of us.

SETTLING IN

   Smoot Memorial was a church with a rich and historic music ministry. During the 1930s and 1940s it had been the home base of the famed Cleveland Colored Quintet, a group of Spirit-filled men who traveled all over the United States and Europe to share their love for the Lord through music and testimony. On our first Sunday there, we were delighted to hear the splendid voices of the church choir. There are few things that can make an African-American pastor prouder than a joyous and robust choir. I knew at once that I would have at my disposal a powerful tool for ministry.

   Smoot was also a pioneering church in the field of black missions. Indeed, from 1913 to 1938, the congregation sent out a cluster of intrepid African-American missionaries to Sierra Leone, West Africa — women and men like Ms. Anita Bolden Fitts, Ms. Carrie Merrishether, Reverend and Mrs. Eugene Thornley, Reverend and Mrs. Montrose Waite, and Reverend and Mrs. Raymond Wilson. And this gutsy heart for missions, I would discover, was still alive and well within the congregation.

   Our new church had a membership of about 200 people

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and a healthy turnout of just over 150 every Sunday. I immediately started up a radio ministry. Though Bethany had been a smaller congregation, my work with Soldiers for Christ and the New York Bible Society had prepared me for leading a larger body. And that was good, because there was much to do at Smoot. There seemed to be programs and classes for every age and need. Still, it was clear that the foundation of all ministry at the church was Bible teaching and evangelism driven by the mandate of the Great Commission to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every man, woman, and child. Since this was the impetus for all of my preaching, I quickly fit in, picking up where I had left off in New York.

   At home things were also eventful. Shortly after we settled in to our new home in Woodmere Village, a Cleveland suburb, Wanda announced she was pregnant again. So, we excitedly prepared for the arrival of yet another member of our clan. And with Oberlin just a stone's throw away, this time our extended family was more intimately involved in the long, joyful journey to the baby's birth.

   Meanwhile, Wanda honed her musical skills by gathering Cheryl, Gail, and Phyllis around the family room piano and teaching them to sing in harmony. Wanda and I had sung duets together at Bethany Church, and we continued to use our musical gifts at Smoot. But after hearing the girls sing together one day, Wanda sensed a call to help the girls develop their voices and ears. It would prove to be an important decision.

One Saturday morning, when Wanda was a few weeks from her estimated delivery date, she was a little slow getting out of bed. "I'm feeling a little tired this morning," she explained. But she insisted nothing was wrong and all she needed was rest. Still, I decided to take her to the hospital,

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where the doctors admitted her for observation. I left her there overnight, assuming everything would be all right.

   Bad assumption. Just as I was about to begin the worship service the next morning, I heard the phone ring in my office.

   "Reverend Jones, this is Doctor Kline," the voice on the other end announced. My heart sank. Was Wanda okay? "I just want to let you know that you have an eight-pound son," Dr. Kline continued. "He was born a half-hour ago. Mother and child are doing fine."

   My jaw dropped. I was rendered as speechless as I'd ever been as a preacher on a Sunday morning. "Are you sure?" I finally managed to say. "Are you sure it's a boy?"

   "Oh, yes," Dr. Kline said with a laugh. "No doubt about it."

   I lifted my eyes toward the ceiling and breathlessly gave thanks to God. I cut the service short that morning. But before I excused myself, the congregation and I took a few moments to raise praises to the Lord and rejoice that my son — Howard David Jones — had arrived safely, even if a little ahead of schedule.

   The Smoot congregation lovingly embraced all our children, but the church especially took to David — our first child to be born in Cleveland. Wanda and I soon discovered the amazing — and sometimes exasperating — differences between raising little girls and a little boy. We didn't have a church nursery in those days; the babies spent Sundays on their mothers' laps, learning to sit still as toddlers. At least that's how it was supposed to work. David had a mind of his own, and he soon proved he could be very naughty. One Sunday, when David was about three, a parishioner with a

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unique voice (some might call it grating) read the Creation story before the congregation. David listened for several minutes and then shouted, "Shut up, man!"

   Wanda quickly hushed our son, and from my seat on the platform, I winced. Both Wanda and I wanted to disappear. But the words had been spoken. the congregation, however, loved it — the sanctuary was filled with the howl of their laughter. But that did nothing to abate Wanda's and my embarrassment.

   Still, despite the occasional face-reddening incidents, both family life and church life were good. Though different from the frantic pace of our New York ministry, our time in Cleveland was no less exciting. In fact, with four rapidly sprouting kids plus a bustling church full of evangelism-minded saints, we had our work cut out for us.

THE INVITATION

   As a preacher, I enjoyed reading periodicals — to keep abreast of what was happening in the world but also to find compelling stories and anecdotes I could adapt for sermon illustrations. Reader's Digest, Times, and several religious magazines were on my must-read list. One day as I was catching up on my reading of Christian Life magazine, I ran across a small advertisement from ELWA, a new 10,000-watt Christian radio station of the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) in Monrovia, Liberia. The station was looking for audio tapes of Negro spirituals produced by black church choirs. According to the ad, the Africans loved Negro spirituals. I realized this could be a ministry opportunity for the Smoot Memorial choir. So in the week that followed, I rallied the

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members of our choir (including Wanda), and we recorded well-known spirituals — tunes such as "Every Time I Feel the Spirit," "Deep River," and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." We prayed over the project like any other ministry effort and shipped it off to ELWA (which stood for "Eternal Love Winning Africa").

   I was pleasantly surprised when, a few weeks later, the radio station responded enthusiastically about the tape. The letter from ELWA program director Dick Reed read: "We want to put you on prime time with both singing and a short message." They told us we'd be able to reach a good portion of Africa with our program. So, naturally, our church was excited about this new outreach opportunity. We immediately arranged to send more tapes. Dick Reed instructed me to introduce myself in a similar fashion each time. He suggested I say, "This is Howard Jones, a Negro pastor from Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States." When the Africans heard that, they'd know I was black.

   We began sending tapes of our music and preaching on a regular basis. By this time, Wanda's little experiment with our young daughters had turned into a full-blown ministry. Cheryl, Gail, and Phyllis — a.k.a. "The Jones Sisters Trio" — sounded extraordinary together. Their angelic harmonies had stirred listeners at Smoot Memorial and many other local churches. So I decided to include a few of their songs on our tapes to Africa, and they were enthusiastically received.

   The short sermons I would include on the recordings were simple salvation messages that transcended culture: "It doesn't matter who you are," I would say. "Christ died for all. He died for black people; He died for white people; He died

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for male and female, young and old.

   "The tremendous African audience that's listening to me today, I want you to know this is a message to Africa as well as a message to United States and other nations around the world: You've got to repent of your sins. What do I mean by repent? I mean you may be walking in one direction, but the Lord gets a hold of you and turns you around. So to repent means to change your mind about sin, your attitude, and then it means to reverse your position. Maybe you've been walking in one area of life with sin. You can turn away from it, right now. Turn your back on that old sinful life and embrace a new life in Christ.

   "If you're listening to me right now and you are guilty of your sins and going through a hellish marriage and on drugs or dope, wherever you are, right here at this point, I'm going to give you that chance to repent right now. You can give your heart to Christ at this very moment. And then you write to this station and tell us what the Lord did in your life, and we'll send you some helpful literature to get you started in the Christian life."

   After just a few weeks of sending our tapes to ELWA, we were inundated with mail from Liberians who had been converted through our program. They said it was the first time they had ever heard the voice of an American black man. And consequently, our program became ELWA's most popular broadcast.

   Soon, our radio program mushroomed to the point where the SIM staff invited me to come to Africa and preach to the people in person. They asked if I would conduct a three-month series of evangelistic meetings in Liberia, Ghana and Nigeria. If I went, I would be the first black evangelist to

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hold crusades of such magnitude in West Africa, their letter said. In fact, the whole idea was an experiment to survey the nationals' response to an American black clergyman. Several white missions had agreed to sponsor the tour — if I would agree to go.

   I immediately thought back to that fateful Friday evening at Nyack when I had once and for all told God I would go wherever He led me. I had no idea then that the place might be Africa — in fact, we had always been told how unlikely that would be for a Negro missionary. But there I was, just a "Yes" away from not only one of the most significant decisions of my life, but also one that would have widespread importance for evangelical missions in general.

   Obviously, I had to pray.

   It was not an easy decision, but after many hours of deep prayer and reflection — along with godly counsel from trusted friends and family members — both Wanda and I sensed God's hand in the opportunity to tour Africa. What's more, our church was willing to back us with their prayers and financial support.

   Of course, the most difficult part was leaving behind our four precious children for three whole months. At first, I thought Wanda would remain at home with them. But as our prayers became more focused and intense, we saw God opening the door for Wanda to accompany me on the trip.

   Providentially, the Lord brought a loving, trustworthy couple in our church who were between housing situations to gladly volunteer to take care of our children while we were away.

   So with the strong prayers of many faithful believers across the country and zeal to take God's Word to the farthest

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reaches of the earth, Wanda and I embarked on our most ambitious journey yet. "Well, sweetheart," I told my wife as we sat in the plane, "I promised to take you around the world, and here we go. God just had a different plan for our travels."

TO A LAND FAR, FAR AWAY

   In January 1957, we arrived in Liberia to great fanfare. Being the first black American clergyman to hold major evangelistic rallies in West Africa turned out to be a cause for great celebration in the country. When we got off the plane, awaiting us were our hosts Ray de la Haye, ELWA's superintendent, and his wife, Sophie, along with ELWA members Dick and Jane Reed, Bill and Betty Thompson, and others. And standing next to them was Mrs. Tolbert, the wife of Vice President William Tolbert of Liberia. If we had any doubts up until then that this was a special occasion, they were wiped away at that moment.

   As we traveled through Monrovia and smaller villages, the people went crazy. It was as if we were the Beatles arriving in America for the first time, except we weren't importing rock 'n roll but the Rock of Ages.

   There were large banners and signs strung across the streets welcoming us to Africa and announcing our crusade. Liberia's president William V.S. Tubman hosted a special banquet in our honor. The Liberian people beat drums, chanted, and said, "Praise the Lord, the big bird has brought our brother and sister from America." Wanda and I looked at each other, overwhelmed at how much of a joyous spectacle our presence there inspired.

   We quickly understood that a big reason for the people's

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excitement was the fact that we were black Americans. Wherever we went, people would squeeze our hands tightly, pull us toward themselves and say, "Where have you been? We've seen the white missionary, but we've never seen a black preacher from America."

   Time after time, the question would come again like a stubborn echo: Where were all the black American missionaries?

   The West African people had heard about the big, vibrant Negro churches in America, yet they only saw white missionaries coming to Africa. Why didn't the black churches send doctors, teachers, and ministers? Didn't the black American Christians care about their brothers and sisters in Africa?

   Indeed, black American Christians had been conspicuously absent from the missions scene in those days. But the real reason behind their absence was not apathy but ignorance and institutional racism. Few black Christians were encouraged to become part of international missions work.

   Blacks actually were among the first American missionaries to live and work in Africa. One of the most prominent among them was the Reverend Lott Carey, who was born a slave near Richmond, Virginia, and was hailed as the first black Baptist missionary to Africa. In the early 1800s, Carey formed an African missionary society and raised funds to sail to West Africa, where he founded missions in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

   But by the early twentieth century, when colonial governments controlled large portions of Africa, black Americans were denied visas and blocked from serving as missionaries. Part of the reason was colonial anxiety that black missionaries would incite rebellion and inspire calls for liberation among Africans.

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   Then there were the other more mundane reasons — many of which we had heard mouthed at Nyack: the children of black missionaries wouldn't be able to mix with the white missionary kids, Africans would "drag" black missionaries to "their level," et cetera. To discourage blacks from applying for mission service, many white sending agencies engineered racist application structures that were similar to the unconstitutional literacy tests many southern U.S. states required blacks to take before they would be allowed to vote. Consequently, prospective black missionaries often didn't meet the stringent academic, marital, or theological requirements that many white mission-sending agencies demanded.

   For these and other reasons — such as a failure among many black church leaders to promote the importance of missions to their congregations — there were only scant numbers of black Americans doing work on foreign mission fields. When I had time, I explained this history to my West African friends. But usually my standard response to their inquiries was something like, "Many of us would have liked to come, but the mission agencies held us back." Thankfully, ELWA radio, the Sudan Interior Mission, and other mission organizations defied the conventional thinking among white evangelical groups of that era and worked to extend the privilege of missionary service to black Americans.

TWISTS AND TURNS

   Some people who had heard me on the radio doubted I was Howard Jones because I looked too young. In their culture, wisdom and authority was normally associated with bald heads and portly guts, and I had neither.

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   Many were also surprised by my light complexion. Some even doubted I was black, until they ran their hands through my hair.

   Throughout the cities and bush countries, people turned out by the thousands, some walking as far as forty miles to get to the crusade meetings. We learned from friends back home that Time magazine had done a short feature on our evangelistic tour. The curiosity of a Negro evangelist drawing massive crowds in Africa proved to be too much for even the mainstream press to ignore.

   At each stop I was assigned a translator who skillfully relayed my English preaching into the language and dialect of the region. While traveling through Liberia, Wanda and I were introduced to Wilfred and Betty Quimby, a black couple who were full-time American missionaries in the country. They were a fine couple whose ministry was an exception to the "all-white missionary" rule. The Quimbys however, spent most of their time in the rural "interior" areas of the country, so many of the urban nationals who turned out for our crusade were not familiar with them or other black missionaries who served in the interior.

   I discovered that Wilfred had a wonderful solo voice, so I asked him if he would join me for the rest of our tour, and he agreed. His singing set the perfect tone of praise and worship before I took to the podium to declare the gospel.

   One of the unusual surprises of addressing the large crowds was the manner in which they responded to a speaker or singer. I had to get used to the soft clicking noise that the crowds would make with their mouths to express their joy and approval. Often when I would have expected to hear applause, the outdoor air was filled with their delightful clicking.

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   I was especially pleased that Wanda also had the opportunity to share special messages with the female members of the crowds. At first, she was hesitant to address such large crowds. But after much prayer, and some gentle nudging from her husband, she rose to the challenge and presented heartfelt talks that I believe truly ministered to the women.

   In Ghana our tour schedule was packed. Most of the crusades were held during the day, since there was limited electricity for lights. So sometimes I was asked to share a brief message four or five times in an afternoon. Though my body soon began to acknowledge the effects of such a demanding schedule, God always supplied the extra strength and grace needed to move on to our next appointment.

   Whether it was Liberia, Ghana, or Nigeria, the response was the same. The people were hungry for the Word of God, and they responded in gigantic droves to my invitation to receive Christ.

   Our travels had gone off without a hitch for the most part, until several weeks into the tour. One morning we had breakfast with one of the respected Ghanaian politicians. He was a Christian, and we were guests at his home, a beautiful house constructed of stone. About midday, Wanda complained that she wasn't feeling well and began to have a vomiting spell. She became so weak that she had to lie in bed the rest of the day.

  I called a doctor. He examined her and concluded that she was suffering from food poisoning. Wanda had consumed some bad fish for breakfast that morning. The doctor suggested we admit her in a local hospital, which we did right away.

   For the next two days, she continued to vomit and could barely move from her bed. She wasn't getting any better. So I

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sent a wire to the SIM hospital in Jos, Nigeria, the Bingham Hospital (a fine medical institution), and I talked to the doctor. I told him I'd feel better if my wife could be at his hospital, and he said they'd send a plane right away.

   Soon Wanda and I were off on the two-hour plane trip to the SIM hospital. After getting her admitted, I realized I had a tough decision to make. The crusade tour was at a crucial point in Ghana at this time, and thousands were counting on me to preach in their cities and villages. In her brief moments of lucidity, Wanda encouraged me to carry on with the tour. But I was not convinced. We were in this foreign land, thousands of miles away from home. How could I leave her alone there? "Dear Lord," I prayed, "what should I do?"

   At once, I felt God directing me to keep my commitments and trust Him (and the able staff at the hospital) to take care of my beloved Wanda. So I uttered a desperate prayer of protection and healing over my wife and left to resume the busy crusade schedule.

   Though I flew back to Jos to see Wanda whenever I could, I was essentially separated from my dear wife for about a month. When Wanda was finally well enough to rejoin the tour, she joined us for the meetings in Nigeria. At first I made sure she took it slow, but soon she was back in ministry mode, speaking to crowds of women and loving every minute of it.

GOING HOME

   Our West African tour was one of the most life-changing and profound experiences of our lives, but Wanda and I had missed our children from the moment we'd left three months

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earlier. We knew it was time to get home to them, even though our hearts were full of love and affection for the people of Liberia, Ghana, and Nigeria.

   Our tour officially came to a close in Kano, northern Nigeria, a land where the aroma of peanuts permeates the air. When we prepared to board the Pan Am clipper back to the States, the African people were crying — and so were we.

   "Pastor Jones," they said. "Go home and get your children and come back. We need you. We love you."

   The prospect of us returning to Africa to stay was not a far-fetched idea. Both Wanda and I had frequently entertained the notion of extending our ministry there. In fact, when we were preparing to leave the ELWA headquarters in Monrovia several weeks earlier, Mrs. de la Haye had taken Wanda down by the ocean to look at lots where we might build a home. The two women actually placed a stake at one particularly scenic lot overlooking the sea and prayed for God's will to be done. "Wanda, I believe God's going to bring you and your family back here," Mrs. de la Haye said.

   And in my heart, I knew Mrs. de la Haye was on to something. I felt we were going to come back. When I had left Cleveland three months earlier, I had told the congregation, "When we come back, we're going to build a new church." But when I got to Africa, preaching to thousands of people and seeing the Lord save souls in miraculous ways, I forgot all about building a physical church. I was in a spiritually famished land building the church, the Church of Jesus Christ.

   When we got back to Cleveland, Wanda and I couldn't hug and kiss our kids long enough. David, who was now five, had grown so much. I could see Cheryl, Gail, and Phyllis blossoming into beautiful young ladies. While we were away,

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they had continued to develop their music ministry as The Jones Sisters Trio and had performances lined up for months to come.

   We were also thrilled to see our church family at Smoot Memorial. As I stood in the pulpit our first Sunday back, the church was packed. Afterward, there was a noticeable buzz among my parishioners. "That was a powerful sermon the pastor gave," I could hear some say. "But do you detect something different about him?"

   And, of course, they were right. I was different — a different preacher and a different man. I had always possessed an evangelist's heart, but before it had been within the context of my primary role as a local-church pastor. Now that passion had grown, and I knew my calling had changed along with it.

   When an unexpected letter arrived from New York a few weeks later, it was further evidence God might have a different plan for my ministry — and for the Jones family.

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