Margaret Laird Part 2

[00:00:05] Welcome to Women Worth Knowing, the radio program and podcast hosted by Cheryl Brodersen and Robin Jones Gunn. We are on Part 2, Margaret Laird, but you have to listen to Part 1. Otherwise, it won't make a lot of sense of how we've gotten to Africa with Margaret. And all that she's gone through, she came to know the Lord in Denver, born in the late 1800s. So now it's like 1920 almost? 1925 by the time.

[00:00:35] 1925, okay. And she's off to Africa with training. She speaks French. She has medical training. The French government officials want her there in Central Africa, and they want her training. But she's done this. What a walk of faith. She's done this on her own, even riding her bicycle for 12 days straight just to get to this remote area. And that's where we pretty much left her off. She's so willing to serve the Lord.

[00:01:03] And yet it's all unknown. Yes. But she's so willing to do the unknown. I was thinking, because I was kind of thinking about my days at Calvary Chapel. You know, you and I both lived during the time we called the Jesus Revolution. And I came up with this term, divine spontaneity. Ooh, that's good. It's true.

[00:01:24] I was thinking, yes, when we have our life soon programmed and we know exactly where we're going to go and where we're going to be at each time during the day, you lose that divine spontaneity. And I was thinking about how life with Jesus was all about divine spontaneity. You never knew what Jesus was going to do. You just followed and you knew you were going to have a great time. Yeah, that's the we walk by faith, not by sight. And when that begins to happen, you can just start to see, oh, that's the Lord leading. Yes, I know.

[00:01:52] The last time something like this happened, the Holy Spirit was all over it. And our faith grows and we're willing to take the next step. And I've seen that in the story you've been telling us about Margaret, that she had not expected that this would be her life, but there had been confirmation. There had been open doors. She went to Moody Bible Institute. She had what she needed to step into this. Sounds like it's going to be a great adventure. Right. Can't wait to hear. She's got these nursing skills. She speaks French. And I said it was 1925.

[00:02:22] It was 1923. So I'm sorry, but we will get to 1925. And that's an exciting year for Margaret. So we're going to get there. But now she's exhausted. She did this 12-day ride on her bicycle to get into even this place called Bengaso. And it's right in Central Africa.

[00:02:48] And while she's there and the missionaries give her a bed to sleep on, as soon as it becomes dark, all of a sudden, there is this loud drumming, this screeching, this screaming, and this shouting that is so loud, this commotion. She cannot sleep. And it goes on all night long. Her first night. Until its day. Her first night. And she is traumatized. She's so tired.

[00:03:17] And in that condition, she has to—she's supposed to meet these French officials. And she's just blurry-eyed. And on the way there, she's like, what in the world was going on? And they said that was Bengaso's celebration. And she's like, well, who's Bengaso? And they said he was the original—he was the sultan of this land. And he died a few years ago.

[00:03:46] And so they took her to his grave. And here's this huge cement platform. It's just huge. And cement was not easy to come by. And it's huge. And she said, why is it so large for one man? And they said, because buried underneath that cement is Bengaso and 300 of his wives. And they were buried alive when he died. Stop.

[00:04:11] And not only were they buried alive, but they were buried with sacks of rice, manioc, peanuts, and baskets of smoked meat. Now, the people are starving, but they took all of these surpluses and they buried with the living wives and poured this cement over this grave. And so then the people, once a year, on the anniversary of Bengaso's death, would dance and screech and hit the drums.

[00:04:39] And they did all this because they didn't want him to come back and haunt them. I don't think he was a very good sultan because nobody wanted him back, you know? So anyway, she is so upset. I mean, she's so upset and thinking, I can't live in a place like this. What kind of demonic customs are these? And then they were telling her, well, you're going to meet the sultan's son. And she was already just to not like the sultan's son.

[00:05:05] So in walks this dignified Bengaso man with a suit on with perfect French. And that is the sultan's son, not like his father at all. He had one wife that he was faithful to. And do you know why? Had he become a Christian? He was a born again Christian. Wonderful.

[00:05:32] And he insisted, because he's older at this time, that on his death, there would be no such rituals performed. That his wife would be allowed to live. But at his funeral, he demanded that the gospel would be preached to all the people of Bengaso. And this man became one of her greatest inspirations while he lived. He didn't live that much longer after she came. But during that time, they became good friends.

[00:06:02] And she just had the utmost respect. She said he lived it out. He lived like a born again Christian, kind, good to the people, generous. So that was one of the more interesting facets of getting there. And that also said to her, you can stay. Look what the Lord has done. Look at this transformation.

[00:06:26] If he can take the son of this man who was so demonic and had these horrid rituals and bring this out of it, God can do anything. Well, the first person that Margaret led to the Lord was a young boy named Kongi. Now, how she met Kongi is super interesting. Because when Margaret got there, they didn't have a place for Margaret to stay or to live. So get this.

[00:06:55] They gave her the goat house. So it was a house that used to, you know, it was the shed that used to have the goats. And so she was able to turn that goat house into her house. But what happened is she would go to sleep at night and she would wake up with, you know, something on her. And there'd be a goat standing on her or there'd be a goat nibbling at her clothes or at her hair. And so they hired this little boy, Kongi, who would stay up all night and chase the goats away.

[00:07:23] And so she thanked Kongi for his service. And Kongi could speak some French. And so he was able to help her, you know, further know the Sango language. And she was able to help him with his French. And so the way she taught him French was to open the Bible in French and read him Bible stories. I love it. And tell him more and more about the Lord. And so one day he said, you know, Mama, because he called her Mama. He was the first person to call her Mama.

[00:07:52] Mama, I want to know this Jesus. I want to know him. So she led him to the Lord. Well, a lot of the French were saying, oh, don't you ever trust the Bengoso people. They might act like they're saved, but he's poor. And, you know, he'll steal your goats and don't trust him. But she built up a very strong relationship with him. And later you'll find out, and I'm just going to tell it now.

[00:08:16] But what happened is after she was married and they moved, they owned 300 goats. And they had to get their goats to the place that they had moved to, which was like a 20-day journey. And Kongi volunteered to take the goats. And everyone said, he won't take the goats. He'll take the goats to himself. There's, you know, no responsibility for him. You can't trust him. And she decided to trust him.

[00:08:44] And sure enough, he was as good as his word and brought every single goat. Not one was missing, little Kongi. And he continued to watch the goats. But one day he said to her, Mama, I can't watch your goats anymore. And she said, Kongi, why haven't we been good to you? I thought, you know, you were like a son to me. He said, no, Mama, I can't. God is calling me to be an evangelist. And I just want to share the Lord with everybody.

[00:09:11] So she sponsored him to Bible training in Central Africa. And he went to it. And he came out as an evangelist. And he was evangelizing. And, you know, hundreds of people were coming to the Lord because of Kongi. Just an amazing testimony when he got leprosy. Oh. Kongi got leprosy. And he had to go to this leprous camp.

[00:09:41] And so she went to visit him. And he said, Mama, I asked the Lord to be an evangelist. And he sent me to people that nobody else will go or speak to or evangelize. And so I'm here to lead them to Jesus. And she had one woman. And she felt this person, you know, tugging on her skirt. She looked. And here was this woman who was missing part of her face, missing some fingers in her limbs and could only crawl. And the woman said, I want to tell you, I want to thank you for Kongi.

[00:10:11] She said, I was this chief's wife. And I lived this very regal, wealthy, wealthy life. And I was not interested in the words of the missionaries. I was not interested in Jesus at all. But the moment I got leprosy, the chief threw me off and married, you know, another wife and didn't care about me. And I was rejected. And I came here and Kongi has told me about the love of Jesus.

[00:10:40] And I thank God for my leprosy because now I know the king of kings and I know Jesus. And when I die, I get to be with Jesus. So that was the story of Kongi, who was the first one to respond to the gospel, as Margaret shared. So Margaret was teaching at this time when she was in Bangoso 110 students. And this is like 1923, 1924.

[00:11:10] Four classes a day, 110 students each on a big clearing without a building. So she's teaching the Bangoso people. And that's, you know, that's a lot of people. You know, you've got almost 500 people interested in learning French. And she would use the Bible in French as the way to teach them because it helped her to evangelize.

[00:11:34] So one day the French ordered her and she had to keep a friendly relationship with the French. And so if they sent orders, these officials, she had no choice but to do what they asked her to do because they could rescind her stay in Central Africa. Anytime they could say, no, you can't be here. So she wanted to continue to evangelize.

[00:12:02] She wanted the freedom to do what she was doing and serve the people. So she had to obey whatever orders came down from the French. So they ordered her to go downriver and meet a French couple and escort them back to see what was going on in Bangoso. Because perhaps this man would become one of the officials in Bangoso. The trip took her six weeks.

[00:12:25] And on the boat, she perfected her sango because she met a man, one of the sailors, who was fluent in French and sango. And he taught her over 400 new words that she added to her vocabulary. So once she got to the place she was supposed to pick up the French couple, the French couple refused to return with her to Bangoso. They weren't interested. So Margaret felt like, I wasted that journey. I went all the way down. And now I'm going all the way back.

[00:12:54] But the more she thought about it and she prayed, she thought, no, this is good. I have perfected the sango language. And I know words I wouldn't have known. Also on the return, they picked up two missionary men to take them back to Bangoso. And one of those men was a man named Guy Laird. Now, Guy Laird was a widow and he had a young son named Lawrence.

[00:13:18] He was also a civil engineer and a graduate of Purdue University where he had taken basic French and could speak French pretty well but not very well. On the other side of the world. Well, more than that, he was also from Denver. No. So right away, they hit it off. Sure. And she became his tutor in the sango language.

[00:13:44] And his goal, besides being a civil engineer and a builder, one of his goals was to translate the Bible into sango. So she was tutoring him in both sango and French. And they began to work on the Gospel of John together. And they actually finished the Gospel of John. And her little Baptist church in Colorado said, we want to make – we want to print this up for you. So they made 10,000 copies and sent them back to her.

[00:14:15] But the officials, the Catholic officials, would not let them pass it out at first. So she and I just began to pray and said, Lord, we're sitting on 10,000 Gospels of John. Yeah. What would you have us do? And the officials came back and said, you know what? We've changed our mind. We've realized that the Gospel of John – it's also in the Catholic Bible. They were surprised – would be all right to give to the people. So they were able to, you know, pass it out.

[00:14:44] Now, one of the things that inspired them, one of the events that inspired them to want to make the Gospel of John and the Bible available to the Bengoso people was as she was teaching the people in school the sango alphabet. She gave them John 3.16 to translate. She actually wrote their alphabet for them in sango, taught them the alphabet, and was teaching them to read.

[00:15:12] And so this one man, he's sounding out the words. He's sounding out the words. And all of a sudden, in sango, he says John 3.16. All of a sudden, it clicks, and he can read it, and he gets it. And he stops, and he looks very astonished. And he said, Mama, that paper talked to me. And she said, It's not the paper. It's God and his word that's talking to you. And he looked at it, and he said, Does your God know my language?

[00:15:41] Oh, that's beautiful. So they wanted to put it in the sango language so that they would know that God knows their language. Now, Guy fell in love with Margaret, just deeply in love. He loved her spirit. He loved everything about her. Well, he's not alone. I think you and I have also come to that conclusion. What a woman. You just want to be around her and see what God's going to do next. So he asked her to marry him. And she said no. What? Two times. Margaret. Two times she said no.

[00:16:11] One of them was she didn't want to say yes just because she loved his son Lawrence or because he was a widow. She felt like, you know, there's a certain sympathy, and she had to make sure it was really the Lord. Also, she had this prejudice. She wanted to be, if she was going to get married, she wanted to be the only woman in that man's life. And to know that there had been a woman before, and she had heard incredibly great things about Ruth. She didn't want to be like in second or be compared to his first wife.

[00:16:41] So she said no. And Ruth, so that we backtrack it, we had Pam Wing on the podcast. And as Pam is telling us her story of how her parents were atheists, would not allow her to pray, go to church. And yet then when Pam came to the Lord, she discovered that she had a grandmother on her mother's side who was a believer. And that grandmother. Her sister. Her sister.

[00:17:10] So it would have been Pam's great aunt. There we go. Great Aunt Ruth. Great Aunt Ruth was the first wife of. Guy Laird. Guy Laird. And so then Margaret is saying, I can't live up to that standard. Can't live up to Ruth. Of Ruth. And so she's turning him down. That's right. Even though it does seem obvious to us. Like, he came all this way. Look how well you get along. You're working together. You're furthering the kingdom as a team.

[00:17:39] Of course he wants to marry you. Yes. Margaret. Well, Guy came to her and said, you know what? I can't stay. I'm moving on. And she's like, why? You know, we work so well together. And one of the things Guy had done, which I forgot to mention, too, is that he had built a school for her. Oh, minor detail. Yes, minor detail.

[00:18:03] Well, he had, because he was a civil engineer, he had designed and built a school for the students to go into. So they wouldn't have to meet in the open field. But he said, you know, I've got to leave. And she's like, why? You built the school. You're such a service. We've, you know, translated. And they were working on the Old Testament in Sango. And he's saying, you know, no, I've got to leave. They'd finished the New Testament by this time. And he's like, no. He said, I am so in love with you, it's become a distraction.

[00:18:31] And I don't, I can't stay by you just knowing it's just too hard. And so he left. And almost immediately she regretted her refusal. She began to realize how deeply in love she was with him. She missed his camaraderie. She missed his friendship. She missed working, you know, with him. Oh, Margaret, Margaret. And a few weeks later, Guy returned on a stretcher because he had black fever.

[00:18:58] And Margaret nursed him back to health, praying for him the entire time. And when he finally regained his health, he asked her for a third time, will you marry me? And this time she said, yes. Yes, yes, yes. So she wrote her mother back in Colorado and said, you know, I'm going to be getting married to this man, Guy Laird. He's a widow, told her mother all about it. And her mother wrote her back a quick letter of like, absolutely not.

[00:19:26] It was your father that kept me from the mission field. I don't want that to happen to you. And I don't know who this Guy Laird is. And, you know, what are you doing marrying a, you know, widow? And so in the meantime, her mother had gone to church and met a man there who happened to know Guy Laird and said, Guy Laird, your daughter's engaged to Guy Laird. Well, he's the godliest, most amazing man. And told him all about Denver. Denver.

[00:19:54] So her mother sent her a telegram as quickly as she could saying, you have my approval. Forget what I said in the first letter. Exactly. So Margaret and Guy were married in Africa. Just for. Wait, I just have to say, like, my imagination is picturing this. Could we please make a movie?

[00:20:14] Can you just, the way that the Lord worked out their story and the true human nature that we all can relate to and all the, you know, insecurities or whatever that Margaret felt. But when you are surrendered to the Lord, he accomplishes his purposes in your life. He does. Just sometimes funny to look back and see how he does that. Exactly.

[00:20:36] So it was 14 months after she went to Africa, landed in Africa, Margaret and Guy were married. And after a year, they had their first child, a little girl named Eleanor Louise. But she died four months after birth. Oh. And so they were given a furlough to go to Denver two years later. And that was right after the birth of their second daughter, Arlene. And so they were saying, you know, look, why don't you take a furlough?

[00:21:05] So let's make sure this baby gets really healthy. Well, they were in Denver and it was time to return to Africa. But she's pregnant at this time. And not only that, but the church said, we don't know what to do. We do not have enough money to pay your way back. And we are sorry, but we don't know what to do. So they prayed.

[00:21:28] And it was interesting because another family hearing about what had happened just said, we want to support you. Use this money any way you want. And it was exactly the amount they needed with 15 extra dollars to get back to Central Africa. And I was thinking about her whole story as we go further. We're going to have to do a number three. I don't mind a bit. But her whole story is one miracle after another.

[00:21:58] And, you know, as I was studying and as I was reading this and I was enjoying this so much, I was realizing that faith always requires a deficit, a need, the unknown or, you know, an impasse to be exercised, to be seen. Because, you know, if you don't have an impasse, if you don't have a deficit, if you don't have a problem, if you don't have an issue,

[00:22:26] if you're just doing the status quo and what you know you're able to do, you never really have to exercise faith. But what you see is faith, you know, one time after another. So the church couldn't pay their way back to Africa, but God did. Upon her return, the nurse that was supposed to be serving her had taken a furlough. So she didn't have anyone to help her to deliver the baby. They prayed because there was absolutely nobody.

[00:22:54] And then Guy happened to hear that a midwife was just visiting the area of Fangoso. Her name was Madam Bintz. And she was the best midwife known to anyone. Just happened to be visiting the area of Central Africa. That's right. So their daughter, Marion, came in 1927, which is the same year my mother was born. And a perfect birth. And these two little girls.

[00:23:24] Well, it wasn't long after that, after the birth of her second child, that they were asked by the French government to move to a place called Ippi. Now, Ippi was a very dangerous, dangerous place. And, you know, we'll get into this in the third installment. Okay. But it was known for cannibalism. Oh, sure. And the people there were called the bandas. And they were cannibals. Wow.

[00:23:54] And just months before, they had killed and eaten a French official. And then they had eaten a Portuguese coffee plantation owner. And now they're sending Margaret, her two little girls, and her husband to this area of Ippi where the people are known for cannibalism. And the French official said, you know, Mrs. Laird, I am sure they will not eat you.

[00:24:21] Of all the people that I could recommend, I recommended you because I knew they would not eat you. And she was like, why are you saying that? He said, because you have become very co-auto, which means very large. He said, you're too large for them to eat. They won't eat you because you're too large. But they also said they will not eat you because of your love and your medical skill. And when they see that you really care about them, they won't eat you.

[00:24:51] But they felt exploited by the French official and insulted by him and by the Portuguese coffee plantation owner. But they knew that Margaret would be safe. And as you will hear, when she and Guy and their family moved to Ippi, they are perfectly safe. And that's only part two. So everyone else to come back next week for part three of Margaret Laird. So worth it. So thank you for listening to Women Worth Knowing with Cheryl Broderson and Robin Jones Gunn.

[00:25:20] For more information on Cheryl, visit CherylBroderson.com or follow her on Instagram or Facebook. For more information on Robin, visit RobinGun.com or follow her on Instagram or Facebook. Join us each week for a lively conversation as we explore the lives of well-known and not so well-known historical and contemporary Christian women. We hope you've enjoyed today's episode. Make sure you rate us on your podcast app, subscribe, and share it with a friend.

[00:25:48] Thank you again for listening to Women Worth Knowing with Cheryl Broderson and Robin Jones Gunn.