Congo Rescue “By The Lord” NEW YORK (CP) —Three Canadian mission workers talked calmly Monday nigh about the possibility of returning to The Congo, where less than a week ago they were hostages of rebels wagin a bitter civil war against the central government.
“I think we should all be willing to go back when peace returns if we can be useful,” David Grant, 39, of Saint John, N.B. told reporters as the refugees arrived here en route to their homes.
But they all described the Belgian Army’s brief return to The Congo as a high point in their lives.
“Our rescue was a miraculous by the Lord,” Grant said.
His wife, Sonia. 38, said “I hardly dared believe the talk that was going around about the Belgian Army coming in to get us out. It was the sort of dream-like episode that you think of as wildly improbable until it happened.
“But it happened to us. There was a pause, then she said: “To some of us.”
Viola May Walker, 59, of Vinemount, Ont. said: “We are so thankful the soldiers came when they did. It was too late for some poor souls but the rest of us have something to be grateful for.”
Miss Walker was in the group of hostages, held in a mission house five miles outside Stanleyville, from which Rev. Hector McMillan of Avonmore, Ont. was taken and shot by the rebels.
“There were 25 of us, men, women and children in the house” she said. “On the last morning we were held, a group of simbas (rebels) came into the house, told the women and children to stay inside, and took the two men, Mr. McMillan and an Irish minister, Rev. Robert McAllister, outside.
“After they had been taken out some of the simbas shot through the room to terrify us. Two of Mr. McMillan’s children were hit.
“Mr. McMillan heard the shooting while he was being walked away from the house and apparently he turned around and came back to see what was happening to his family. At that point he was shot and killed.
“I believe he died instantly, wondering what was to become of his family.”
Grant said the arrival of Lhe Belgian paratroops in was “one of the most joyful moments of my life.”
The three Canadians and a fourth mission worker who returned with them are members of the Unevangelized Fields Mission. They went immediately to mission headquarters in Philadelphia where they will spend a few days before visiting their homes.
Mrs Grant said rumors that Belgian soldiers were coming to rescue them began circulating in their hotel prison several days before they were saved, “but I believed them until I saw the Belgian uniforms in the street below.”
The Grants, in The Congo since 1955 except ior two vacation periods at home, were working at a mission station in the jungle, 60 miles from Stanleyville, when the rebels seized them a month ago and took them into the city. He is a carpenter and mechanic, she is a nurse.
All three Canadians said they hope lo be reassigned to mission work shortly. Miss Walker, a gray-haired Bible teacher who had been in The Congo since 1936, said there is a chance they will return there “when things settle down.”
None of the Canadians reported ill treatment, apart from the wild shooting that Miss Walker witnessed, but all were threatened with death at various times.
Mrs. Grant said “I don’t think they were sure whether they were going to loll us or not.
“When the rebels seized us, they asked us our nationality. My husband said ‘Canadian.’ The simba standing in front of him looked blank but the one next to him said ‘American’ and us to go with ‘The rest of the Americans.’
“But later one of them looked up Canada in an atlas and said we weren’t really prisoners because we weren’t Belgians or Americans. However, we weren’t allowed to go, either. There was a Col. Opepe who seemed to like us and tried to keep us out of harm’s way.”
The Grants and Miss Walker were flown to Brussels from Stanleyville, along with some 70 other refugees They arrived in the Belgian capital Monday and then were put on a nonstop Sabena flight to New York.
— The Windsor Star, Dec. 1st, 1964.
