The war drums which beat in Europe during World War I found an echo in Angola, Portuguese West Africa. In 1915 Germans from Southwest Africa invaded Angola and the Portuguese prepared an army to expel the invaders.
African carriers were forced to take supplies south to the troops, and hundreds of them left Huambo, each with his load. Among these carriers was a youth named Samusili, who hailed from a village called Kamapenda. He shouldered his box and went off southwards. To his relief he was told, after he had marched a few days, that the war was over and that he might return with his load to Huambo.
Thoughts of his beloved village filled his mind, but great was his disappointment when a labor recruiter informed him that he had to go to Sao Tome. Sao Tome is the famous cocoa- and coffee-producing island on the equator 1000 miles north from Samusili’s home in the highlands of Angola. At that time, “Sao Tome” was a synonym among Africans for disease, death and destruction.
Thrown into a railway freight wagon at Huambo, Samusili, with others, was sent to the coast en route to the cocoa island. There Samusili was assigned to one of the numerous rocas (coffee and cocoa plantations) and set to work. He mourned for his village and his people.
One day a new worker arrived. He told Samusili about a new way of life. He mentioned the name Yesu (Jesus), of which Samusili had never heard. He told him that there was a good book which had pleasant but piercing words which reached the heart. The worker was soon transferred, leaving Samusili to his thoughts. He said longingly, “Oh, that I had a book - that book - to read!”
Far away in Angola a Christian going to a rally in his district took with him his wife and family. The woman carried a basket of beans on her head to barter for a cloth to wear at the rally. The man walked ahead, keeping guard along the path. As the simple caravan wended its way through the bush, the family’s Bible, which had been placed on top of the basket of beans when they left home, began to sink into the beans.
At the trader’s store, in a moment of forgetfulness, the book was poured into the bag along with the beans. That bag of beans was forwarded in the first place to a railway center, and from there it was dispatched to the coast for transshipment to Sao Tome, along with hundreds of other bags. In Sao Tome the bag was assigned to a particular roca, where Samusili was working (and longing for a book - that book!), and he happened to be the one who opened that bag . . .
It happened! As Samusili was working in the barn, emptying bags of beans from Angola into a large bin, to his astonished delight a book fell out. Samusili snatched it up and later carried it to his sleeping quarters; the longed-for book had appeared. Samusili began to look into the book. He recognized that it was in his own Umbundu language. Some of the words were hard and the sense was obscure, but he persevered with his reading. Spelling out letter by letter, he soon recognized that this book dealt with things different from those he was familiar with. He saw the words Ondaka Yiwa (the Good Word) and eyovo (salvation). He had found “the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:1515And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 3:15)).
Samusili, in recounting what followed, said, “I felt that God had spoken to me and that He had given me a new heart.”
At this time an interpreter came to help him. A Christian from Chilesso arrived in Sao Tome on contract labor and was later joined by another Christian from Malange. These three met regularly for prayer, but the two were soon transferred and Samusili was left alone. His knowledge was small, but he did not remain silent or idle. Calling the other workers together in a shed after the day’s work was done, he told them what he had found, and great was the rejoicing at the good news of the grace of God.
There were many who were converted to God by the teaching of Samusili, but he himself declined to accept the opportunity that eventually came of returning to his beloved village, Kamapenda, in Angola. When asked how he could overcome the intense desire to return to his native land and to his own people, he quietly said, “Here in Sao Tome I found Christ; here I remain for the rest of my life to help others to know Him.”
The Christian couple in the Angola Highlands lost their book - but what a find Samusili had, and what use he made of it!