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"We'll be glad to go with you," said Mr. Wilkie. Mary and her friends first visited Itu, where they met Colonel Montanaro, who had first taken Mary to Itu. Then they went to Akani Obio. Here Chief Onoyom had a big party for them. "Ma, when are you going to come and stay a long time with us?" he asked. "I want you to bring the Gospel to me and to my people." "I hope it will be soon," said Mary.
She had passed in succession two snakes attempting to cross the stream, and was watching the efforts of a third when a small canoe shot out from behind a clump of bushes and bumped into her craft. She apologised to the man in it, but standing cap in hand he said, "I meant it, Ma; I have been waiting for you; my master at Akani Obio sent me to waylay you and bring you to his house."
Another brought a message from a chief in the Creek; "It is not book that I want; it is God!" The chief of Akani Obio again came. "Ma," he said, "we have L3 in hand for a teacher, and some of the boys are finished with the books Mr. Wilkie gave us and are at a standstill."
"O Britain," said Mary, "filled full of ministers and church workers, but tired of Sunday and of church, I wish that you could send over to us what you are throwing away!" Blessings Unnumbered God blessed Mary's work in cannibal land and more and more people were won for Jesus. Chief Onoyom stayed true to his faith. "Come," he said to his people, "we must build a church here at Akani Obio.
As Mary went down the river in her canoe, she thanked God that He had let her open this new field to the Gospel. Suddenly there was a canoe barring her way. In it was a tall native. "I have been waiting for you. My master at Akani Obio sent me to stop you and bring you to his house." Mary told her rowers to follow the native to his master's place. Soon they came to a trading place.
Nothing gave her greater joy than the rapid development going on at Akani Obio. Chief Onoyom had never swerved from his determination to Christianise his people, and, although knowing practically nothing of the white man's religion, had already started to build a church, using for the purpose L800 which he had saved.
On the party returning to Akani Obio an evening service was held, "and," wrote one of them, "the night closed down on as happy a group of missionaries as one could imagine," "It was grand," said another; "the best apologetic for Christianity I ever saw."
One event at Akani Obio was to her a "foretaste of heaven" the baptism of the chief and his slave-wife and baby, a score of her people, and sixteen young boys and girls, including one of the lads who had assisted to paddle the canoe on the day when the Creek was first entered.
Akani Obio became a prohibition town, and on Sundays a white flag was flown to indicate that no trading was allowed on God's day. One of the most baffling of West African problems is the problem of the women.
During the meeting Mary was called on to tell about her work. "God has done great things in cannibal land. We have congregations at Itu, Arochuku, Oko, Akani Obio, Odot, Amasu, and Asang. In all of these places churches have been built. In many of them we have built schoolhouses too. Many of the cannibals are being won for Christ. But we need more workers.
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