Go to Africa? Who?? Not Me!!

Copyright © 2016 Mrs. Shirley L. Dennis Richards.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-4156-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-4157-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-4155-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016907560

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/20/2016

Table of Contents

Dedication

A Foreword To The Reader

Foreword

Introduction

SECTION 1 Pre-Birth Family Teen Years

Marriage Proposal

My Unusual Birth

Abuse

Grandpa Was Murdered

My Parents Were Sharecroppers

Stealing The Car

Don’t Run With The Crowd

Fighting In The Church Parking Lot

I Didn’t Deserve All Of That

I Am A Proud Product Of Lausd

Will All The Sinners Raise Your Hand?

Remembering My Sister Willie Mae Terry

Section 2 Marriage & Ministry

Girl, Don’t Be No Fool!

Royal Send Off To The Military

Who’s Gonna Be A Preacher’s Wife!!!!!!

Not Greedy For Filthy Lucre

Who’s Stingy?

Learning To Fly

Flying The Real Airplanes

Godly Influential Women In My Life

Sunbeams

Abused Friend

Cancer

Section 3 Life in Liberia

Leaving Home Ain’t Easy

Adjusting To Life In Liberia

Meeting New Friends In Liberia

We Finally Got A Son

That Refrigerator Ain’t Heavy

Giving And Forgiving

Aunt Margaret Traub

Brother Luther Mitchell And The Banana Pudding Bowl

Learning Book

Scholarship - Rice Program

Don’t Work, Don’t Eat

Radio-Controlled Model Airplane Ministry

We Want To Fly

Money Finished

Tribute To Mother Elizabeth Johnson

Theo

How Can You Have Two Mothers?

Crying After Liberian Civil Wars

Eleanor, Brave African Woman

AK-47s

The Rice For Me

Who Fixed The Pump?

Don’t Go, Aunt Shirley, You Are Not A Rebel!!

Never Go To Africa Again

Section 4 Ghana Benin Mali

Too Sick To Dance

Digging A Well In The Desert

Hospitality Shown In A Fulani Village

I Found My Little Girl

Your Daughter Needs A Canoe

Stop Testifying In Church

Buduburan Refugee Camp

School For Refugee Children At Buduburan

Bring Toilet Paper

Section 5 Missionary Travel Experiences

Missionary Travel Experiences

Missionaries Mark and Lou Ann Kangar

Being Held Accountable

West Angeles Cogic Mission Conference

It Will Cost How Much???!!!

A Heart For Missions

80 Years Old And Still Going Strong

Becoming a missionary at retirement age

Section 6 South American Mission Trips 1965-1973

Jungle Bound

Jungles Of Colombia

Guatemala

Needles! Needles!

Flying – On My Knees

May I Have Your Order Please?

Explo ‘72

… But, Lord

Missions Come Alive

Friends And Amigos

I Wish I Couldn’t Taste

Will You Come Back?

Section 7 Retirement Latter Days

Who’s Pushing The Wheelchair?

Adjusting To Life Without Hubby

Unexpected Birthday Cake

Memories Of Hubby

50th Wedding Anniversary Celebration In Africa

Tribute To Rev. Willie Richards

Alone, But Not Lonely

Why Am I Complaining?

Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony

Last Wish Granted

Retirement From Field Superintendent For Africa

Let Me Be A Light

My Tears

Who Will Get The Credit?

Why Didn’t You Ask Me?

Are We That Different?

My Beautiful Black Child

A Deft Definition of Right

Flying On The Zephlin Eureka

Ebola

Dedication

God blessed me to be surrounded by so many friends and relatives who have assisted me in my writings. Page after page could be filled with their names.

Most gratitude goes to my Lord Jesus Christ who called me into the ministry of missions. He not only saved me but blessed me with an enriched life and a zeal for serving Him.

Anita Jefferson, Writer

Mary Cates, Writer and Former Missionary in Brazil

Helen Jacobs, Friend and Encourager

Ethelyn Taylor, Friend, Proofreader and Encourager

Cousin Yolanda Wright Bozant, Writer, who made trips from California to help me complete this book. Without her capable assistance, I probably would have been 90 years old before the book was published.

My WONDERFUL SON, EDMOND A. RICHARDS, whose love and devotion exceeds what any mother could have hoped for. Many of my friends envy me for being BLESSED with such a caring son. PRAISE GOD!!

Two precious granddaughters (Celeste and Colette) who encouraged me, did proofreading and helped to enhance my computer skills.

A Foreword To The Reader

By Bishop Robert L. Winn

As you read this book, you are bound to hear the heartbeat of a veteran missionary’s love for people and her passion to fulfill the writing of the Apostle James, Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their afflictions, and to keep themselves unspotted from the world… James 1:27. Sister Richards and her husband, Elder Willie Richards, heard the call of God as a young couple, and it delighted them to take the Gospel to their local communities. They lived in Southern California, and to regions beyond: first with Wycliffe Bible Translators in South America, and then to West Africa, where they served with their Church denomination, the Church of Christ Holiness U.S.A., World Mission Board (WMB).

For over fifty years Sister Shirley has inspired people of all ages and nationalities with her powerful testimony of the saving grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and many have come to know Him as Lord as she has demonstrated a life, wholly surrendered to Him. You will be delighted as you read and discover how the Lord has used this precious jewel to reach the lost and the dying through her compassionate love and selfless life. Though retired as Field Superintendent with the WMB for West Africa, she continues to encourage the young and the old to become involved in Short-Term Mission endeavors. When given the opportunity, she still speaks at various schools and Mission Conferences throughout the United States.

Sister Shirley’s leadership, along with her colleagues, have forged their way into villages of West Africa to begin mission outpost endeavors, and have established churches that continue to fulfill the call from God for the preaching, teaching and making disciples for Jesus Christ while meeting various needs of those in abject poverty. Her sacrifice, and selfless service for world evangelism is a reflection of obedience to Jesus’ teaching of his disciples; [t]here is no greater love than this that a person would lay down their life for their friend. John 15:13

We commend Sister Shirley Richards for sharing her autobiography in this moving life narrative. May her life story remind the readers of the common salvation described in Holy Scripture, Jude, verse 3, and may it serve as a catalyst to inspire us to reach beyond ourselves for sharing with those who have never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ for confession of faith and true obedience.

Our Missionary Prayer

"May we the Indians of the world

Be broken before Thy Throne,

Diverse in ways and acts of life

But one objective cloned.

To know Thee without measure

To commune with Thee, sister, brother,

This shrinking world against thy glorious throne

Our creator, to know, through the Savior."

Humbly Submitted,

Bishop Robert L. Winn

Church of Christ Holiness U. S. A.

World Mission Board, Chairman

Foreword

By Thelma Brownell-Cato

Friendship

It is such an honor to be asked to share my thoughts of the good times shared over the years with my friend, Missionary Shirley Richards.

I do not recall the exact year, but the location was Liberia. She and her husband, the late Rev. Willie Richards, were neighbors of mine in Sinkor, the Joe Bar, Old Road community in the capital city of Monrovia.

I recall vividly seeing the small radio controlled airplanes flying overhead and wondering, What on earth is that? Later I learned it was Rev. Willie, the genius behind that adventure.

You see, he used that airplane to get the attention of curious children in our neighborhood so that they would come and see. Shortly thereafter we would be in a Bible study with him.

I could go on and on about the times she and I spent in Bible study, sharing experiences close to our hearts and times just being Sistas.

When I was overwhelmed with my life and marriage, Shirley was there for me. Her help to me was a voice that God raised up to speak to my heart using His Word to guide me. I am grateful.

We would lose contact for a number of years. I left Liberia, and then came the Civil War. However, God had it already planned. We were reunited in the U.S.

I could never express my thankfulness for the countless times we shared, especially the trip to the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Ceremonies in Oslo, Norway.

Even though decades have passed since our days in Liberia, Shirley has been my dearest friend through the years of constant changes. We have laughed, cried and prayed together. Thanks will never be enough; however, as they say in Liberia: Thank you, plenty, my friend. I love you dearly.

Thelma

My grandmother has been waiting to publish this book for quite some time now. I found out how much there is to life – more than me and my friends going to the mall and shopping. She has been to Africa 29 times and counting. Hopefully I will get to go during a youth mission trip and start at a very young age and try to spend as much time traveling with her as I can before the Lord brings her home. I’m just so very proud of her. She got to finish her dream. I love her very much. She inspires me.

Coco

What’s most beautiful about this book is that I am one of the few people who was able to see the love, laughter and tears that went behind it. I may not be able to recall all the memories of each story shared by my grandmother but I can feel the emotions that went with them. BE PREPARED!

Sissie

Introduction

How can you encapsulate…

How can you relate…

How can you clearly tell of….

almost 80 years in 400 pages?

How can you adequately describe all those years with:

… Its joys

… Its sorrows

… Its sickness

… Its disappointments

… Its tears

… Its VICTORIES!

Who would have thought that there would be anything of interest for me to write about my life? There seemed to be nothing outstanding in my life. In fact, the prediction was that my brother Alfred and I would probably amount to nothing because of the reputation of our daddy.

I am a witness that God takes the weak things of the world to confound the wise. Yes, that would describe what happened to me!

My arrival into this world almost began in the dewberry patch. This was prevented because family members were able to carry Mother into the small two-room house just before she gave birth to me.

Sharecropping was the occupation of my parents during those years of Jim Crow segregation.

My father knew that he did not have the temperament, as a Black man, to live in the segregated South. After moving to other cities in Texas that were larger than our little country town, he set his sights on a big city that was NOT IN THE SOUTH! He chose Los Angeles, California.

There Alfred and I attended school, met our future spouses, got married and started lives of our own. Jim Crow was not dead, not even in Los Angeles. We experienced housing and job discrimination but were determined to MAKE IT!

What a miraculous change took place in the life of my husband and then me, when we graduated from church membership to having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The truth had set us free.

All those details and what happened after that is what I eagerly share with you. Perhaps that was the starting point of something interesting that I could write about in my life.

It has been joyful, challenging and sometimes a difficult experience writing this book. Remembering some things was hard and I preferred to bury those memories in the past, but God let me know that I needed to be transparent in writing this book. I have tried to do this on the following pages.

To God be the glory!!

Missionary Shirley L. Dennis Richards

Memoirs

~ Section 1 ~

Pre-Birth Family Teen Years

Marriage Proposal

Ms. Mandy, I want you to give me your daughter to be my wife. Daddy, who was nine years older than my 15-year old mother, was asking grandmother’s permission.

Daddy did not have the best reputation. He was one of nine boys raised by a single Black mother after the White folks killed her first and second husbands in the early 1900s. Drinking, gambling, fighting and chasing women had gotten him an admirable reputation among those with whom he associated. Others in the community who did not embrace that lifestyle WERE NOT IMPRESSED!

Grandmother (Amanda Wright, whom her grandchildren affectionately called Ma-Mandy) was in the latter group and NOT flattered that George Dennis was asking for the hand of Maurine, her eldest daughter. Maurine was an outstanding high school student who lived with an uncle in Center, Texas. Her uncle was a professor and able to provide many of the things Grandmother could not afford. She was even taking piano lessons.

During breaks, she would return home and George was always glad to see her. He described her as being chubby, shapely, with big legs, long hair and smart in school.

Ma-Mandy was far from being a timid person. She was also a single mother of four and the daughter of former slaves. Looking Daddy straight in the eyes she replied, I didn’t raise no daughters to give away! R.D. Canton, Daddy’s good friend and a few others had come to watch the fireworks. When Ma-Mandy made her statement, R.D. could not hold back and was down on his knees laughing as hard as he could. Daddy and Ma-Mandy kept straight faces as they continued this discussion.

Daddy must have been prepared for the type of answer that was given to him. Like Ma-Mandy, he was not a timid person and continued to present his case. Mother’s younger sister, Aunt Lorine, said there was a silent stand off for a while. Daddy asked Ma-Mandy to think about it and then let him know. She mumbled, I have already thought about it.

Family members began to give Ma-Mandy advice: If you don’t let her marry him, she will probably run off and do it anyway. What a shocking thought this was! After much discussion, Ma-Mandy RELUCTANTLY agreed that Maurine could marry George. Aunt Lorine said they went to the home of Rev. John Bolton that same evening and got married. Ten months after the wedding Alfred was born. Another twenty months later, I was born.

My Maternal Grandmother

Amanda Wright

Daughter of former slaves

Allen Nash Wright & Alice Thorn Wright

Granddaughter of former slaves

Cyrus Monroe & Celia Mitchell Goodman Thorn

MY MATERNAL GREAT-GRANDPARENTS

(Parents of Ma-Mandy)

My Unusual Birth

I have something to boast about. My birth was unusual. Just ask any of my relatives who loved to recite the circumstances. When I was younger I did not consider it to be flattering but a little embarrassing.

It was a hot summer day. Mother, who was nine months pregnant, had a craving for her favorite fruit: DEWBERRIES! Even though she knew how much the snakes enjoyed them, her craving was so great that she decided to take her chances.

She and her 16-year old sister, Lorine, were picking dewberries and had about three gallons when she began to have labor pains. Aunt Lorine confessed that she might have had something to do with that. Knowing that Mother was scared of snakes she thought it would be funny to jokingly say, Oh look sister, there is a snake! That is when the labor pains began. Aunt Lorine rushed to get someone to help. Aunt Vi (Ma-Mandy’s sister) who lived nearby, got scared when told about the situation. She admitted that she had never delivered a baby. Ma-Mandy was the one who had delivered all of Aunt Vi’s children.

Mother, still out in the field, had to holler loud for someone to hear her. Finally Aunt Goldie, who was eight months pregnant with my cousin W.C. Dennis, heard her and came running to help. Both of them hollering got someone’s attention and help came running. They didn’t know whether Mother or Aunt Goldie needed help.

Daddy heard the commotion and also came running. Mother was about to deliver … in the dewberry patch. Someone go get Ma-Mandy, my daddy instructed. Ma-Mandy was the local midwife and also my grandmother. She had delivered all of her grandchildren and most of the other children in the community (both Black and White).

Lord, have mercy! Ma-Mandy cried when she saw the situation. Get her to the house as quickly as possible. Mother was not a featherweight and the extra pounds from pregnancy made her quite a load to carry.

No! I was not born in the dewberry patch but according to Aunt Lorine, they managed to get Mother inside the house a few minutes before I made my entrance into the world. Aunt Lorine was given the honor of naming me. Everybody’s favorite movie star was Shirley Temple, and then she honored me with her middle name: Lorine.

Of course, the relatives still enjoy telling the story of how I was born in the dewberry patch … but now you know the facts!!

Abuse

Childhood can be horrible! Reading about storybook families - the peace and harmony in the home - seem unreal. Father going off to work every morning and returning home to a joyous and happy time with the family…. Mother being the homemaker, keeping the house clean, cooking delicious and nutritious meals for the family and always smiling…. Happy children who ride their bikes and play games after coming home from a day of learning at school….

In many cases, this is not happening in the real world. UNFORTUNATELY!

My childhood was not horrible but it was far from the storybook families that I read about.

My daddy was not lazy and went to work five days a week. He was seldom absent. Mother worked six days a week. She did not drive but rode the bus to work every day. I don’t remember hearing of her being late and she was rarely absent.

I work for my money so it is mine to enjoy…, Daddy once told me when I got enough courage to ask him about some of the things he did, …because, he continued my pleasure comes before my wife and kids. I didn’t push my luck by saying anything else. He had made his position very clear.

Drinking, gambling and running the streets were pleasurable to Daddy. He would get paid on Friday and sometimes we would not see him until Sunday night. He would come home broke, mad and we all had to walk softly.

Even worse were the times when he would gamble, lose all his money, and come home demanding money from Mother. Naturally, she would resist and that would result in a fight. Mother suffered abuse from him more times than I would care to remember.

As she was being abused I felt helpless, angry and even hatred. After he had forcefully taken all her money, he would leave to go back to whatever he had been doing. Mother would be injured and crying. I also prayed and