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Updated: May 2, 2025
An alternative was to remain herself at Akpap, and allow Miss Wright to go to Itu, where she would be in touch with the Mission, and could canoe down to Calabar if anything went wrong. The plan she liked best was to hand the station over to a minister, so that both she and Miss Wright could establish themselves at Itu and work the Creek between them.
"I am praying every day that the Mission Board will let me work in your country." Mary and her friends now went to Amasu to see the Gospel work that was being done there. Then they visited the villages around Arochuku where the Long Juju was. Then they started back to Akpap. They visited many very small villages on the way back. Everywhere the people said to them, "We want to learn book."
Whenever she saw an appeal in the Press for any good object she would write to him and request him to send a contribution. There were many matters to be attended to before she left Akpap, and she went down to Duke Town to hand over the business of the native Court, and buy material for the buildings in the Creek.
She was still fighting the juju worship, the sinful practice of eating people and the murdering of twins. Eight years had gone by since Mary had left Akpap. A new church was being finished and the missionaries who now worked there invited Mary to attend the dedication service. Mary wanted to see the dear friends she had loved for years. She decided to go and take her adopted children with her.
It was an inspiration to Mary to see her; as she looked upon such results she cried, "Oh! if only the Church knew. If only it would back us up." To her friends she wrote, "Prayer can do anything; let us try its power." Returning to Akpap with two of the girls and some small children, she was caught in a tornado and made her way over the six miles of bush- road through pelting rain.
"No, Ma, it long time gone." So Mary had to walk back six miles through the jungle to the mission house at Akpap. "Why, Mary," said Miss Wright, "what are you doing here? I thought that by this time you would be traveling on the government boat to Itu." "I am in God's hands," said Mary, "and He did not mean for me to travel today. I have been kept back for some good purpose."
The problem was how to follow up so promising a beginning. It occupied her thoughts day and night, but she came to the conclusion that she could not conscientiously leave Miss Wright alone at Akpap. The station was too isolated for her, and if she became ill it might be weeks before any one knew.
It is seldom, comparatively, that Government officials care for these things." As Mr. Ovens was at Akpap engaged on the new Mission House the Calabar Committee decided to send her home in 1898 whether they could supply the station or not.
After some consideration it was decided to sanction the change, and to build a good Mission House with a beach shed at Ikunetu. Long before the house was built, however, and even before it was begun, Mary installed herself at Akpap, in conditions similar to those of her first year at Ekenge.
But the burden of the Creek lay sore on her mind, and as Miss Wright's furlough was also due, she wished to be near Akpap in case of need. She informed the Council that if she could be relieved she would begin her tour at once. When Miss Wright left she gave more into the hands of Jean, who, she said, was as good as any white servant; her right hand and her left.
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