MOM’S MEMOIRS – IRENE LOUISE (NEE KUCKKAN) MUELLER
(Continued)
Mom’s Autobiography – Chapter 11 – In Book, Page 25
First Furlough, 1961-1962, Lecturing, Back to Africa, Move to Nyasaland, Kabula Hill Home and Break-In, Nelson Invitation
BACK WITH OUR LOVED ONES IN THE UNITED STATES
Our plane touched down in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and we were back from Africa for our furlough on December 3, 1961. We were in Northern Rhodesia for four and a half years because there wasn’t a missionary to take Dick’s place. The usual tour was for three years, but because we were in Africa longer than that, we received nine months furlough time. You can imagine the reunion we had with relatives and friends when we got to the States! My “little” sister, Jannie, had been eight years old when we left, and now she was quite tall, and very cute. We did not know her, and wondered who the pretty girl was who gave us all big hugs and kisses.
Since there was no furlough house for the missionaries to live in at that time, Dick rented a house in Watertown at 1418 Willow Street for us to live in. It was not furnished, but our relatives and friends came through for us, and borrowed things for our use during our furlough. I made a list of everything so that when we returned to Africa after our furlough, we could return everything to the people who were so kind to us. Our school-age children, Debbie, and Dickie, attended St. Mark’s Parochial School during our furlough.
Many congregations (organizations, mission societies, etc.) asked Dick to lecture at their churches. He had scheduled lectures even while we were still in Africa, and sent long letters listing what he would do at the lectures. I left the lecturing to him because we had four children by then, but we did go along with him whenever we could. He had taken many slides in Africa which he showed to the people, spoke about the people and our work among them, and answered questions. After the lectures, they always served delicious refreshments.
Our first furlough of lecturing was to ask for help in building a Bible Institute where Africans could come and be trained to help missionaries in their work of spreading the Gospel. (Dick had already been doing that at our home in Lusaka). The people in the United States were very interested, asked many questions, and generously contributed, thanks be to God. On August 25, 1964, the Bible Institute of the Lutheran Church of Central Africa was dedicated to the Lord’s service.
LINGUISTICS COURSE
Also, we packed up our suitcases and children and moved to East Lansing, Michigan, for the summer of 1962, where Dick attended a Linguistics course at Michigan State. In the evening, when he could be home with the children, I attended a First Aid course so that I could be of help in giving first aid treatment to the people in Africa, and our growing, active, children.
BACK TO AFRICA
In the fall of 1962 we headed back to Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia, Africa. Dick made good use of the Linguistic Course he had taken at Michigan State by teaching the missionaries and their wives, including me, Chinyanja, using the methods he had learned at Michigan State. He wrote a wonderful course which was of much help to all of us (it is now in the possession of Missionary Steven Lawrenz in Lusaka, Zambia).
(Note: Before we went back to Africa in 2003 for the 50th anniversary of the Zambian Lutheran Church of Central Africa and the 40th anniversary of the Malawian Lutheran Church of Central Africa, Dick wondered if he would remember Chinyanja, and I said, “Dick, as soon as you set foot on African soil, you will remember.” And he did! The Africans, missionaries, wives, and friends were astounded when they heard him speak Chinyanja to them. The Africans wondered who he is. It had been thirty-one years since we had been there. God gave him a precious gift. For more information about our blessed trip back to Africa in 2003, please read AN ARTICLE FOR FORWARD IN CHRIST, written by retired Pastor-Missionary Richard William Mueller, December 15, 2003, Missionary in Central Africa from 1957-1972 – "SO IT WAS ALL WORTH IT" Also please seeWELS CONNECTION, June – 2005).
The people of Nyasaland were calling, calling, for missionaries to come. Many people had moved from Northern Rhodesia and were on the mailing list; also Chinyanja was spoken in Nyasaland. It was decided to make an exploratory trip to Nyasaland. On May 1, 1962, Missionaries Mueller, Sauer, Cox, and Pastor Waldemar Hoyer (on the Executive Committee of the Rhodesian Lutheran Church – cf. June 28, 1963, issue of THE NORTHWESTERN LUTHERAN) drove the 650-mile trip from Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia, to Blantyre, Nyasaland, on the Great East dirt road. Dick still tells me about the nine-foot black Mamba which stood up and looked at them in their little “bug” (Volkswagen). Needless to say, they were a little shook up. (We saw a Gaboon Viper – a beautifully colored snake – on that road once, but thank God, it didn’t climb up into the open windows of the car. There was no air conditioning Oh, yes, we had lots of snakes in Africa. Once I remember our boys carried a dead Puff Adder around on a stick between them). The people of Nyasaland welcomed our missionaries with open arms. They were eager to hear God’s Word, the Gospel of their salvation.
OUR MOVE TO NYASALAND (NOW MALAWI)
The Board for World Missions encouraged the immediate development of our work, so the Cox family and we, with our family, moved to Nyasaland. I was pregnant, and because of a near miscarriage, was in the hospital for a week. Our doctor, an American, told us that I could not travel on the 650-mile trek over rough dirt roads to Blantyre. So Dick took Dickie, Timmy, our little Terrier dog, and cat in the car and drove. The doctor advised me to fly to Nyasaland, so I took Debbie, Susie, (and Stephanie Ruth, still in the womb and born December 4, 1963) with me. At that time we had to fly to Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, first and then to Blantyre, Nyasaland.
After we arrived at the airport, we took the bus to the Ryalls Hotel in Blantyre. (There was a man on the bus by the name of Mr. Walker, an Englishman, who kindly helped us out with bus fare from the Blantyre airport into town. I did not have the right kind of money for Nyasaland yet.) While we waited for Dick to come, we walked down the streets, exploring everything. There was an empty marketplace, because it was Sunday – banana peels all over! It was quite a thrill, not having been there before. The next day Dick, the children, the dog, and cat arrived. We slept in the hotel overnight. The next morning we found that the car had been broken into, and almost everything in it stolen – except the dog and cat!!!!!
The Kabula Hill house – oh, my, how can I describe the rented house in which we first lived. We had never seen it before. It sat on a cliff on the edge of the Great Rift Valley which runs nearly the length of Africa. It had many rooms, and coming into it at first, reminded me of some of the horror movies I had seen as a child – high ceilings, wide halls, sprawling, alone on the edge of a cliff. Hot water for our use had to be heated with a wood fire under a tank of water OUTSIDE. We moved in with the mission furniture we were provided with which hardly filled any of the rooms, with necessities, and with our children, suitcases, dog, and cat. But, we did all we could to make it home, which we did wherever we went. I got as far as making curtains for our boys’ bedroom.
So, we settled in, determined to carry on the work of the Lord in Nyasaland. A Peace Corps executive, Mr. Gordon Nelson, had left a note on a kitchen counter for my husband and Ray Cox, asking them to contact him. He, his wife, Ruth, and children, Gary, and Rita would like to come to an English-speaking service. We were overjoyed!
One night Dick and I heard glass falling….falling….falling at 1:00 a.m., awakening all of us. We got out of bed, and ran down the hall to where the sound was, and entered the room. It was the boys’ room. There was shattered glass all over the floor. Our boys had run out of the room; thank God they had pajamas on which covered their feet with plastic. As we (me pregnant) entered the room, rocks came flying at us from the shattered window, and cool air came in at us. We checked on our children, and they were all huddled under a blanket in the girls’ room. After reassuring them and telling them we wouldn’t let anything happen to them – Jesus is with us – I ran down the hall to call the police, but couldn’t get them. Then I went back down the hall, and listened at the locked door. I heard the bed springs on one of the bunk beds, and said, “Dick, they’re in the house!” He said, “Get the gun!” I said, “Where is it?” He said, “It’s in pieces” (because of our children), and told me where it and the ammunition was. I got them, he ran down the hall, broke a louver in the bathroom window, and shot the gun once into the air. I listened at the door then and said, “I think they’re gone” because I didn’t hear anything. He had scared them away. They left a trail of some of our things dropped in their haste to get away back down into the Great Rift Valley where they lived.
We opened the door, and everything in that room was gone – all the bedding on both bunk beds, the boys’ clothes, and also the curtains I had made! But, thank God, all of us were all right. Then we did get the police to come. They told my husband that it really was against the law to shoot off a firearm, but they did not do anything – another blessing! (Note: We went back to that house in 2003 when we went back to Malawi (formerly Nyasaland) for the 40th anniversary of the Lutheran Church of Central Africa mission. A very friendly African man came out to meet us. We told him that we had lived there, and could we please go inside the house. He invited us in, so here we were again, after thirty-one years, inside that same house. We got into every room except where the boys had slept. He said he had someone staying in that room. He had modernized the kitchen. But, the rest of the house seemed to be in disrepair. He said he was working on fixing it up. When we went to Nyasaland in 1963, an African was far from actually owning a house like that. He also had built a very nice patio on the side of the house where the fenced-in water tank for the house was. We thanked him profusely for letting us come into the house.
And guess what? When we later talked with the missionaries in Malawi, they told us that they knew the place. They went there for lunches or whatever!!! How about that!!!!
Mr. Nelson told us that there was a house in Sunnyside, a suburb of Blantyre, which was empty in which we could live. The house was next to them. So we moved into the house, and also inherited four dogs, a fireplace with a beehive in it, and cockroaches even in the electrical outlets. We lived there, and while we lived there, we had no burglaries.