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Updated: June 2, 2025
Little by little Mary got better. The year 1891 came to an end. The bells rang in the New Year. "Soon we can go back to dear Calabar," said Mary. "Oh, how I want to get back and tell more people there about the Lord Jesus." In February, 1892, Mary and Janie sailed for Calabar. What new adventures awaited them in Africa? "Welcome home, Ma, welcome," shouted the people of Okoyong. "God bless you.
To leave a field like Okoyong without a worker and go to one of ten or a dozen where the people have an open Bible and plenty of privilege! It is absurd. If God does not send him up here then he must do his work and I must do mine where we have been placed. If he does not come I must ask the Committee to give me some one, for it is impossible for me to work the station alone."
They came often to visit her and brought her gifts. They also brought their quarrels to her to settle. They called her their queen. Finally, Mary was allowed to go back to Akpap. Three years went by. It was now fifteen years since Mary had first come to Okoyong. On the anniversary of the day that she came a celebration was held. Seven young men whom Mary had won for Christ were baptized. The Rev.
Alas! the natives know nothing about a load-line, and as the tide rose the canoe sank. It was not an unmixed pleasure setting out with men who were ignorant of the management of canoes, but another day was fixed and another canoe was found. The whole of Okoyong seemed to be at the beach, and every man, woman, and child was uttering counsel and heartening the intrepid voyagers.
In May the government appointed Mary to take charge of the courts in the Ibibio district as she had done in Okoyong. It paid her for this work so now she had money to carry on her mission work whether the Board paid her or not. Court was held at Ikotobong. Three chiefs and a jury helped Mary in trying the cases, but Mary's word was law.
Doors and windows were still awanting, but she asked for the services of a carpenter from Calabar to do this bit of work; and meanwhile the humble building, the first ever erected for the worship of God in Okoyong, was formally opened. It was a day of days for the people.
Yet they never ceased to draw out the sympathy and hope of the White Mother of Okoyong; there was no people, she believed, who could not be recreated. She knew a great deal about the Aros and their slave system, more, probably, than any other white person in the country. Indeed few had any knowledge of them. "What is sad about the Aro Expedition," wrote Mr.
Weir once spent a week-end at Okoyong, and accompanied her to a village two or three miles away where she was in the habit of going to conduct a service. When they arrived they found that the head of a house had died, and was being buried, according to custom, inside the house.
The gradual pacification of Okoyong brought about by her influence and authority increased rather than diminished her work. As the people settled down to orderly occupations and trade the land became valuable, and disputes were constantly cropping up regarding ownerships and boundaries. There was much underground palavering, of which no one knew but herself, which kept her always on the strain.
Washing the mud off her hands and face she ran to the scene, and all next day, Sunday, she was sitting in the midst of a drinking mob trying to keep down their passions, and succeeded at last in finding a pacific solution. Twins Again the cry, "Run, Ma! run!" this time from two boys. It was a case of twins born of a Calabar mother, who had come to Okoyong after trade began.
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