28 March, 2024

Only One Life

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by | 23 November, 2008 | 1 comment

By Charliece Fierbaugh

See the Sidebar: “What Was the Congo Massacre?”


 

“Only one life “˜twill soon be past,

Only what”s done for Christ will last.”

 

These words, engraved on a plaque that hung on the bedroom wall of Phyllis Rine”s Ohio home, guided her life until her death on November 24, 1964. Shot by insurgent rebels during the Congo Crisis, Rine is remembered as the first female martyr from the Restoration Movement heritage.

 

A COMMITTED LIFE

Born August 15, 1939, Phyllis Rine grew up near Martinsburg, Ohio. In 1957 she dedicated her life to full-time mission work when she heard Howard Crowl of the African Christian Mission speak at Wakatomika Church Camp in Butler, Ohio. She soon enrolled in Cincinnati Bible Seminary, where she met missionary Clifford Schaub and his wife, Helen, who were home on furlough from the Congo.

Schaub passed along to Rine the name of Zola Brown, another single young woman already on the mission field. Rine and Brown became dear friends, and later Brown beautifully preserved Rine”s story in the book Only One Life to Live.

Rine traveled 7,000 miles to the Congo to do what she had always wanted to do: serve as a missionary. Life in Africa proved anything but dull. Strange food, strange people, and a strange land won her heart quickly as she worked hard to find ways to serve her Savior.

Rine and Brown shared a house at the mission compound at Bomili. It was far different from Ohio (for example, they had electricity only three hours each day), but Rine found it beautiful. She taught kindergarten for two hours a day at the mission school at Bomili, but wanted to do more. So she studied Swahili four hours each morning, did office work, and offered to teach missionary children language classes for another hour each day.

In her memoir of Rine, Brown asked the question, “If you had only one year to live, what would you do? Had Phyllis known, she could have hardly worked harder. And, not knowing, she did what she could.”

A CRUCIAL DECISION

Rine and the Schaubs soon answered the plea from the native Christians to come to the city of Stanleyville, now Kisangani, to reopen a work started there earlier. Rine, who never shied from what she felt she was being led to do, left several close friends behind. “Phyllis recognized that there was a job in Stanleyville to be done””one she could do””and she was ready to go forward. On to Stanleyville, on to service, on””to death. To Glory!!” wrote Brown.

Rine often wrote home about the unrest in Stanleyville but always assured her family not to worry. She remained at peace even though nervous. She had been in Africa just over two years when rumors of unrest manifested themselves as armed conflict. In 1964, insurgent Congolese rebels seized Stanleyville during the Congo Crisis and took more than 1,800 European and American hostages. While concerned, the missionaries still did not grow so fearful they were willing to leave their work behind.

In the summer of 1964, United Nations forces began withdrawing from the Congo, and fighting intensified. The Stanleyville missionaries were soon arrested, along with Dr. Paul Carlson, a medical missionary from the Evangelical Covenant Church. They were taken into town and spent a month in a hotel the rebels had commandeered.

Still, the missionaries had heard that peace negotiations were taking place, and they thought Belgian paratroopers were coming to free them. They thought the worst was behind them.

On November 24, after 111 days of negotiations, an ambitious military operation called Op-

eration Dragon Rouge that involved U.S. planes and Belgian paratroopers was launched. The paratroopers arrived a few minutes too late to protect Phyllis Rine and Paul Carlson.

Earlier that day, the rebels ordered about 250 people, many of them missionaries, to march down the street, two by two, facing a machine gun. Hearing shots, those who were marching scrambled for cover. Among those who died that day in Stanleyville were Carlson and Rine. (In fact, during 1963 and 1964, many missionaries””both Protestant and Catholic””were killed in the Congo.)

A CONTINUING LEGACY

On November 28, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson gave a news conference at his Texas ranch, announcing the tragedy of Africa and the death of Phyllis Rine. On November 30, 1964, Rine”s family buried her in Martinsburg, Ohio, close to her father, who had died when she was a child.

Daniel Gault, who led the church camp Rine had attended as a child, and who continues to serve in ministry in north-central Ohio, preached her funeral. More than 40 years after her death, his memory is still clear: “Phyllis gave her life doing what she wanted to do. That was her whole life.”

Rine”s younger brother, Tom, still lives in Ohio and believes that even after 40 years, her ministry still goes on today through those who are inspired and encouraged by her life. “Missions is not all fun and games,” Tom Rine says. “She gave everything she had. Her flight bags had all her worldly possessions . . . she had three Bibles, a coin purse, and a little makeup bag. She had just enough support to get by. She didn”t have anything and she didn”t want anything. She was where she felt the Lord was leading her. She loved what she was doing””teaching was her life. She didn”t have much but she”s got her reward today!”

The face of Dr. Paul Carlson, whom the Simba rebels erroneously thought to be a spy, graced the cover of Time magazine on Dec. 4, 1964. Three days earlier, Phyllis Rine received a tribute in the Christian Standard. “For her and for those who participated in her labors there is apostolic assurance, “˜Your labor is not in vain in the Lord,”” wrote Editor Edwin Hayden.

Four decades later, we must remember Phyllis Rine and why she was martyred””an unwavering faith that was willing to go and serve wherever she was called, even in the face of grave danger. Her life is to be remembered as a testimony and example for others to step out in faith and take risks necessary to serve the Master.

“Only one life “˜twill soon be past, Only what”s done for Christ will last.”

 


 

Charliece Fierbaugh and her husband are “nontraditional seniors” at Johnson Bible College, Knoxville, Tennessee. She has served as a forwarding agent and camp worker. She and her husband have three grown children.

1 Comment

  1. Karen(Wharton) Sherman

    Hello, I knew Phyllis when we were about 9 or 10 years old at Martinsburg, Ohio, and went to her house to play. I remember she was taking piano lessons and I so wanted to also be able to learn to play the piano, which never happened. We went to school together at Martinsburg and then I moved to the Fredericktown, Ohio, area. After I married I went to church at Pulaskiville, Ohio, where Daniel Gault was the pastor. Daniel had a wonderful Bible school there that my children attended. So strange the paths God takes us and the memories that remain with me of Phyllis and where she lived and sitting on the piano bench with her trying to teach me “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” She did manage to teach me how to play that. For whatever reason she came into my thoughts tonight and I looked her name up online. I never knew there was a connection between Phyllis and Dan and Iva Belle Gault.

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