M E R I D I A N M A G A Z I N E
The
Day of Africa
Text by Maurine Proctor and Sylvia Finlayson
Photography
by Scot Facer Proctor
click photos to enlarge
PART TWO
It was August of 1979, that then Elder James E. Faust visited West Africa, where congregations had grown spontaneously and without supervision, where missionaries had only been here a few months and said, “When it will happen, I can’t be certain; it will depend upon the faithfulness of people like yourselves, and it will require a Church membership of about 100,000 people. But one day there will be a temple in Africa.”
Church membership in the West Africa region is 100,000, but one senses as you move among these people that this is a situation much like the brother of Jared. Their faith and pleading prayers called down the powers of heaven in their behalf. Despite the emormous obstacles an environment like West Africa poses, a temple could not be withheld from them. This is their day. This is the day of Africa—and the stranglehold that Satan has had upon the land, the ferocious hold with which he has chained and oppressed the people—is about to be undone.
“Thanks be to thy name, O Lord God of Israel, who keepest covenant and showest mercy unto thy servants who walk uprightly before thee, with all thy hearts…
“For thou knowest that we have done this work through great tribulation; and out of our poverty we have given of our substance to build a house to thy name, that the Son of Man might have a place to manifest himself to his people” (D&C 109: 1,5).
These words, of course, are not from the dedicatory prayer that President Hinckley will offer this day. They are from the dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland temple, but this is a pioneering day in Africa, and so they ring surprisingly true.
Outside, the temple stands Ghana’s own pioneers. One of them, Joseph William Billy Johnson, the patriarch of the Cape Coast stake, can’t hold back the tears. He is the man who had ten congregations in place bearing the name of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for fourteen years before the missionaries arrived. He withstood disdain and jeerings and jabs all that time from people who said he was crazy to hope to belong to a Church who so obviously didn’t want him. “You would want to belong to a Church who won’t let you hold the priesthood?” people scoffed. “I cannot deny the Church is true,” he repeated a thousand times, “for the Lord has told me so.”
“The Lord revealed to me this day would come,” he says of the temple dedication. He recounts a dream where he saw two tape recorders—a black one and a white one, that were then joined together. Accompanying the scene was a message for him, “The day will come when your brothers from the West will come and be one with you.” He held tight to this message. They will come for us. They will come for us.”
“They won’t come,” his neighbors told him. “Leave the Church.”
His answer, “I know they will come because the Lord has told me.”
During the long wait, he and the members of his congregation, felt particularly close to the Mormon pioneers who played a key role in restoring and building the gospel in America. Songs with an invitation to come nearly broke their hearts. They cried when they sang, “Come, Come Ye Saints.” They wept at “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”
“When will they come?” he often asked with unquenchable yearning. “When will they come?”
Brother Johnson is sensitive to dreams and through them felt the urging of his ancestors to do their work. A great, great uncle came to him in a dream and said, “Ever since I took my journey from this world, I have never found my way home. Please cover me before the Savior comes.”
His aunt had died giving birth to her 13th child. He saw her in a dream where she said, “I’m wearing tattered clothes. Come and clothe me and lead me home.”
His ancestors told him, “We would have been better people if we had lived to see your Church.”
In his dream, Brother Johnson was begged by a large group of Africans who were asking: “What can you do for us?” He answered with his own question, “What can I do for you?”
“Our children and grandchildren will be members of your Church. We are rejoicing because there is hope for us to be redeemed.”
“This is the time,” said Brother Johnson, “if only the children will not forget them.”
Brother Johnson said, “I didn’t sleep last night. I wept all through the night thanking the Lord for the temple and the work we are going to do here. We are so grateful to our brothers in the West who have come for us, and we will always remember the sacrifices of the first missionaries who came to us and those who built a temple in our land. We are burning with gratitude.
“I cannot hold my tears. The members are rejoicing. Those beyond the grave are rejoicing. The heavens are rejoicing,” he said.
Click here to go to Part 3 of The Day of Africa
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