Chapter 25 - Machine Guns Make Me Nervous

“Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt

revive me:...”

—Psalm 138:7

The Lord had seemed to close the door to

Ghana; we moved to Abengourou and started
another local church. Our French was still not very
good; therefore, Linda and I decided to make a trip
to Liberia, since it was an English-speaking country
to see if we should start a church there. This trip
proved to be a big mistake.
    We left our children with missionary friends near
Abidjan and headed out early the next morning. It
was a long drive; we hoped to make it to Monrovia,
the capital, before dark. Nearing the town of Man,
we left the main paved road and headed east down a
washboard road that rattled our teeth for two hours
until we reached the Liberian border.
    At the Liberian border, the sights and experiences
were nerve-racking. The border guards were
drinking, wanting money, and carrying loaded
machine guns. The only thing we had to give them
was gospel tracts. Fortunately, they accepted them
and let us pass. We then obtained our visas and
headed toward Monrovia.
    The narrow road was filled with rocks, and—
bam!—we hit one. The Peugeot became difficult
to Steer. I stopped to check it out and discovered
damage to the outer tie rod end. We made our way
to the next town and found a welder to repair the
stripped tie rod end. Finally, we arrived in Monrovia,
but it was nine o’clock and dark.
    We began looking for a place to spend the night
and spotted lights on a hill. Heading up the curvy
road, we suddenly got the surprise and fright of our
lives. About ten soldiers with machine guns rushed
out of nowhere, screaming and shouting, “Stop!
Stop! Stop!” One soldier ran up to our car while
the others trained their guns on us. The one at the
car demanded to know who we were, and we told
him we were missionaries from Ivory Coast looking
for a motel. He seemed reluctant to believe us, even
though we showed him our papers.
    Explaining the situation, he said, “This is the
president’s palace, and we are on high alert. We
have been told that someone from Ivory Coast is
coming over here to try to take over our country.”
    “That is not us!” we protested. “We just came
over to see if the Lord would have us do missionary
work here.”
    We were forced to sit awhile until a woman who
worked at the palace came along. “You’re very
lucky you didn’t get killed tonight,” she sternly
reprimanded. “Didn’t you see the barricades at the
bottom of the hill?” We explained that we had seen
nothing but lights on a hill and had come up looking
for a motel.
    The entire time all this was going on, we were
earnestly praying, “Lord, just get us out of this
country and we’ll never come back!” By then all we
wanted was to get out of the place. Linda was not
saying much, but I knew she was hysterical on the
inside.
    After we had sat there for two hours with
machine guns trained on us, the boss walked over
and said we could go and that one of his men would
take us to a motel. A man got into the back of our
car. By now there were roadblocks everywhere, but
the man directed us through them. When we finally
arrived at a motel, our guard said we would be safe
there for the night. We did not sleep much, though,
as we waited for dawn so we could get back on the
road to Ivory Coast.
    At daybreak we were out of there. We drove
until we were stopped at a checkpoint, where we
were ordered to park our car and go inside. The big
boss there claimed we did not have all the necessary
vaccinations to be in Liberia. When I objected and
asked him to look more closely at our records, he
refused, saying, “You’re going to have to have more
vaccines,” and he threw our passports and records
into his drawer and locked it.
    Linda and I went outside, sat down, and prayed.
About three hours later, the big boss called us back
inside, returned our passports and records, and told
us we could go. And go we did! We headed off
so quickly that we ended up at the Guinea border.
The border guard said we had missed the road to
the Ivory Coast border by twenty-five miles. How
did that happen? I wondered. The guard told us to
go back twenty-five miles, look for two big trees
on the left, and turn between them. When we backtracked
the appropriate distance, there were the two
trees, but where was the road? Nonetheless, we
maneuvered between the trees and found something
resembling a road.
    After a short distance, I told Linda that this was
indeed the road because there were the big rocks
sticking up in it. All of a sudden—bam!—I hit one,
almost in the center underneath the car. The Peugeot
started steering like a two-horse wagon. Checking, I
discovered the rock had broken the rack and pinion
steering.
    Wanting to reach the border before dark, we
decided to keep going, though steering was difficult.
When we finally reached the border, the gate
was closed and locked. The guard said we could not
pass through until the next morning, since the man
with the key had already left and lived far away.
    Oh no! Not another night in Liberia! This cannot
be, I desperately thought. Aloud, I said, “I have one
twenty dollars bill in my pocket for the man with
the key if you will take me to see him.” He agreed to
my proposal and took me to the man, who actually
lived within walking distance of the gate. But he
refused to open the gate until I persuaded him with
the twenty-dollar bill. After he let us through the
gate, I gave him the money, just as I had promised.
    We were so happy to be out of Liberia that we
almost got out and kissed the ground. We rode our
two-hour washboard road back to Man; this time we
had no complaints about our constant teeth rattling.
We got on the main paved highway, and in comparison,
it was like a cloud, soft and smooth.
    We were extremely happy to be back in Ivory
Coast, where we spent the remainder of our time in
Africa. God had us right where He wanted us, but
we had to find that out the hard way. However, one
good thing did result from the trip to Liberia: we
were able to give out gospel tracts all the way there
and back. By the way, Linda was pregnant with our
fourth child at the time, but we did not know it.
Eight months later she delivered a healthy baby boy.

(Copyright by Jay B Ayers)