W F P Burton and Some Congo Missionaries
It was some time in 1946 that I had a phonecall from W F Mullan telling me that the pioneer missionary, Mr W F P Burton was in Durban. Fred Mullan asked me to visit Brother Burton to offer him what help I was able to and to invite him to speak in the assembly I was ministering in. Willie Burton, as everyone called him, had been discharged from Johannesburg General Hospital at his own request, having been diagnosed with cancer of the colon. The medical authorities regarded his case as incurable but Brother Burton had decided to trust God for healing, and was spending time in Durban to recuperate. In fact, he proved to be healed in spite of the medical prognosis and he lived to serve the Lord for another twenty or more years until he was in his eighties, a grand old doyen and Bible teacher.
W
F P BurtonMy First General Conference of the Assemblies of God
The Congress on Mission and Evangelism held in Durban
W F P Burton and some Congo Missionaries
Nicholas
Bekinkosi Hepworth Bhengu
– His Youthful Dreams
– His Preaching
- Bhengu
and Education
- Bhengu and Money
- Miraculous Experiences
- Spiritual Happenings
- The Sanctifying Spirit
of God
– His Departure
Bhengu’s “Isinthunzi”
- Government and Politics
– Some Faults, Virtues and the Burden
of His Heart
President Lucas Mangope of Bophuthatswana
William
Frederick Mullan
The Fairview Assembly
Fred Mullan and the Gifts of the Spirit
A Miracle and a Vision
The Revival in Norwood
James E Mullan
Paul O Lange
William Branham in Durban
Oral Roberts in South Africa
Billy
Graham in Salisbury and Durban
The American Missionaries from Springfield, Missouri
C. Austin Chawner and the Portuguese Work
August Kast and the Mount Tabor Mission Station
Colin
La Foy and the Coloured Leadership
The Work in Zimbabwe
Mauritius and Reunion Island
Special
Answers to Prayer – 1
Special
Answers to Prayer – 2
A Beautiful Square with Good Vibes
Prayer and the Hippie Revival
The Young Turks
Tensions within the Group
The Split
of 1981 – Part One
The Split
of 1981 – Part Two
The Beginnings of the Faith Movement in South Africa
The Statement of September 1989
The Charismatic Renewal
The Start of the Pentecostal Revival World Wide and The Swedish Pentecostal Assemblies
Epilogue
APPENDIX 1 : How to be Filled with the Holy Spirit
APPENDIX 2 : The National Church by Nicholas Bhengu
APPENDIX 3 : Article from the Argus 5/02/1981
APPENDIX 4 : Pointers to the future of the Assemblies of God in the New South Africa (10/06/94)
As soon as I approached
him he agreed to minister for us in our little assembly of about thirty
members in the Oddfellows Hall in Albany Grove in Durban. He did not
stand upon ceremony. He simply attended all the meetings and took over
the ministry as though it were his due. He preached in every service
we had for the next two months. I was thrilled. The name, William F P
Burton was familiar to me from articles he wrote in the Redemption Tidings,
the British Assemblies of God magazine. In the ensuing months I learnt
from him how he had set off from Cape Town with three companions, one
being James Salter, a nuggety little Lancashireman, to found the Congo
Evangelistic Mission with its headquarters at a place called Mwanza in
the Belgian Congo (now Zaire).
Burton, an engineer by profession, was an amateur artist and a writer.
One can come across his gouache paintings of Congo scenes decorating the
walls of Christian homes almost wherever you go in South Africa. His books
appear to be out of print now, but if one can get them, read them. They
are inspiring!
He could also be scientific. The Belgian government made him a Chevalier
first class (the Belgian equivalent of a knighthood) for his civilising
influence as a missionary of the Gospel. Harold Womersly, his co-worker,
was likewise honoured by the Belgian Government being made a Chevalier.
A few years ago, Wits University put on a display of W.F.P. Burton’s
works and paintings. I donated to the exhibition a book of his he had given
me on Congolese ethnic customs.
I count it one of the privileges of my life to have known men of his calibre,
men like him, and Harold Womersley (one of the finest souls that I have
ever met), Nicholas Bhengu, James E Mullan and F F Bosworth, author of
the book ‘Christ the Healer’, to name but a few. And I should
not omit James Salter, Burton’s co-worker. Salter was a crusty, stubborn
little character, exceedingly argumentative but with a rich flow of ministry,
a man spiritually tough, of impeccable integrity. When he and Burton were
together on the mission field in the Congo, they clashed so much that the
committee of the Congo Evangelistic Mission, the mission they founded,
arranged for James Salter to be home director and live in England, leaving
Willie Burton to exercise his gifts on the foreign field as the field director.
To have James Salter in our home on several occasions was an event for
my wife Enid and me. On the first occasion, he simply took over after breakfast,
producing from his pocket a miniature edition of the book of Psalms, about
two inches long. Without announcement he began to read the minute print.
What an experience to hear him expound the passage as he read! This was
in Salisbury (now Harare). As he was ministering to us there, a lady from
the assembly, a certain Mrs Guest chanced to call to leave something with
us. Thereafter, each morning at breakfast time Mrs Guest presented herself
at our breakfast table to hear the reading. It flowed like smooth cream.
I recall with amusement another incident with James Salter. I had to drive
him to the Salisbury Airport to catch his flight to England. Whenever I
advanced some opinion no matter how obliquely, he would pin me back with
the single word, “Why?” Ultimately the debate (or argument,
for that is what it always became) turned to the subject of divorce and
remarriage. Before we could bring it to finality he had to hurry to catch
his plane. Six months later he was again in Salisbury, this time being
fetched from the airport. Divorce and remarriage was the last thing in
my mind at the time. However no sooner was Brother Salter ensconced in
the passenger seat with me driving, than he raised his eyes slightly heavenwards,
leaned back comfortably and said in his broad Lancashire accent, “Well,
in my opinion .... etcetera.” It took me quite a little time to realise
he was continuing our discussion where we had left off six months previously.
I can’t remember what the final outcome was. I think it turned out
that he actually agreed with my viewpoint.
In my boyhood, having been converted at the age of 15,
I had idolised missionaries. It was a disillusionment for me, as I grew
older to meet
numbers of them
and to see very obvious quirks and even character weaknesses in them. I
had to learn that God in His grace uses weak human beings to accomplish
His mighty purposes. In a way it is true that God accomplishes things through
us not because of us, but sometimes in spite of us. Or more truly perhaps,
as I heard James Salter himself say in a sermon, “When God looks
at us He sees us not as we see each other, but He sees us with the eyes
of love and sees us at our best. In heaven we will appear at our best.” I
have had to learn (for I have been prone to worship heroes) that every
hero has feet of clay and that no matter who he is, mere man will disappoint
and fail you. Only Jesus never fails.
In my later years of association with Willie Burton I came to think of
him as so contentious and condemnatory that I resolved to have nothing
more to do with him because of his intemperate judgments. Then I heard
him preach again. There shone through him as he preached what I can only
describe as the nobility of Jesus Christ, a wonderful fruit of the Spirit.
I repented of my attitude. I decided to honour the treasure within and
to make allowances for the sometimes cracked earthen vessel that contained
it.
The debacle of independence in the Belgian Congo happened when I was minister
of the Assembly of God in Salisbury. How well I rememberthat morning when
a phonecall came from the military airport in Salisbury. “Seventy
of your missionaries from the Congo are waiting here for somebody to fetch
them.”
Strictly speaking they were not our missionaries at all. But they were
ours in the larger sense. I arranged accommodation for all seventy of them
in the assembly. No less than ten crowded into my own home, sleeping in
the lounge and wherever there was a corner to erect a stretcher in. We
had them with us for two months.
Imagine my surprise one day when the American vice-Consul knocked at my
door, offering whatever help the American government could give should
any of our missionaries need it. Almost all the missionaries were British
subjects. I could not help comparing the attitude of the British officials
with the generosity of the Americans. The man I had dealt with at the British
Embassy was a Mr Macendoe. After a while I took to speaking of him as “Mr
NO-CAN-DO”. I began to wonder if his invariably negative attitude
reflected the British phlegm or a niggardly British indifference and arrogance
in the face of the suffering of their own subjects.
Again let me say, I was grateful for the opportunity (with
the members of the Salisbury Assembly) to serve my brothers and sisters
in their time
of need. Especially so when I had two of them preach in the assembly, Elton
Knauf ( a stocky New Zealander) and Teddy Hodgson. The latter was the nearest
thing to Santa Claus one could ever expect to see outside of a children’s
toy shop with his plump florid appearance and nimbus of fluffy white hair.
He was a notable hunter of rogue elephants and man-eating lions. Both these
men went back into the Congo after they preached for us in Harare and were
butchered by the young revolutionaries who dubbed themselves “Simbas” (lions).
Hodgson dropped at the first blow of a panga. The stocky Knauf swayed on
his feet for some minutes praying for his assailants as he died. I believe
parts of the missionaries were eaten because they were esteemed to be strong
men whose flesh would impart heroic virtue in a cannibalistic ritual. Later,
faithful Congolese elders traced their burial site and exhumed their bones
from the shallow grave. At great risk to themselves they gave the bones
of the martyrs a hasty but reverent Christian burial.
I later heard that after a few years a young Norwegian evangelist had a
tremendous revival at the very place where Knauf and Hodgson were killed.
Hundreds of converts were made.
While they were with us the Congo missionaries, then refugees, lamented
that in the political upheaval of the Congo, their life’s’ work
had been ruthlessly destroyed. But they were wrong! In the absence of the
missionaries, faithful African elders held the Christians together. They
crept through the forests at night with bread and wine to hold communion
services for little groups gathered together here and there. When at last
the missionaries could go back, they found that far from being destroyed,
their mission had actually doubled in size to a thousand churches. Unknown
to themselves they had built gold, silver and precious stones and the fire
had not destroyed it. (1 Cor. 3)
Brother Burton used to tell how when his sea captain father
was voyaging away from home, Burton’s gracious mother would gather
the family of children about her to tell them Bible stories. She came
to the account
of how Moses was asked “what is that in your hand?” It was
a rod. Moses was told to cast it down, then to take it up again. Thereafter
it was no longer called the rod of Moses, but the rod of the Lord. Mrs
Burton then said, “Willie, what is that in your hand?” It was
a pencil. He cast it down then took it up again. Thenceforth, Willie Burton’s
talent for writing and drawing was no longer his but it was dedicated to
the Lord. As a young engineering student he was challenged to cast his
whole life down in dedication to the Lord. That dedication marked and ruled
him. He appeared to have no other interest but the work of God. He concerned
himself with it wherever he was found. I count him among the great ones
I have met. An apostle indeed, deserving the title William Burton of the
Congo.
He influenced the Assemblies of God by the effect he had through preaching
in our assemblies and the impact he made on numbers of our ministers. James
and Mary Mullan, pioneers of so much of our work, served under him for
ten years as missionaries in the Congo Evangelistic Mission.
When my son, Geoffrey, was an infant, we visited the Burtons in the home
of a brother and sister Coates in Cape Town. Quietly and unasked, Willie
Burton took Geoffrey up in his arms and prayed a blessing over his life.
Enid and I accepted that as Geoffrey’s formal dedication. We never
repeated the act by bringing him to the assembly gathering for a prayer
of dedication. Willie Burton’s prayer was enough.
The Burtons had no living children. A tiny grave somewhere in the Congo
(now Zaire) holds the remains of their only child, a little boy who died
in infancy.