• Ivory Coast
    1981 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses

    • In 1967 missionary Lillie Hines began studying with a 16-year-old Baule girl named Pauline. Her father was in government service, and she was expected to follow a certain course outlined by him. She would have the best of everything, including education in private boarding schools.

      In time her father put pressure on her to stop studying the Bible. She was taken before a tribal council, but that did not deter her. Next, witchcraft was employed​—a beautiful gold ring that, unknown to her, had been blessed by a witch doctor was given her. She began to have severe headaches, but remembering that they started after she began wearing the ring, she got rid of it and gradually the headaches stopped. Even beatings and threats did not succeed in making her give up her studies.

      Guards were hired to stop her from attending meetings. But she would fool them. Once she disguised herself as an old woman, walked past the guards and proceeded on to an assembly. There she took off her disguise and enjoyed the sessions. Afterward she dressed up again as an old woman and went home, right past the guards.

      On another occasion she slipped away over the back fence, caught the train going to Bouaké, was baptized at the assembly there, caught another train returning to Abidjan and arrived back at school before anyone knew she was gone. Her father found out later that she had been to Bouaké and he asked her with whom she had gone. “With the sisters,” came the reply. Thinking, of course, she meant the nuns from her school, he said, “It was OK.”

      When her father did find out she was baptized by Jehovah’s Witnesses, he was furious. He packed up her belongings, put her in the care of a prominent politician, and sent her off to finish her schooling in Paris, France. There he hoped that the dazzle and glitter of worldly attractions would preoccupy her so she would forget her new religion.

      Although Pauline did find life in Paris dazzling, this did not dampen her zeal for Jehovah. She located the address of the branch headquarters from an Awake! magazine, and began to attend meetings there regularly. Later she started going to a congregation nearer to where she lived in the suburbs. At school she started Bible studies with a number of her classmates, at least seven of whom are now baptized!

      Pauline has since returned to Ivory Coast and serves with her husband in one of the Abidjan congregations. She does not regret having given up material wealth for the sake of the Kingdom. Nor does she regret having lost her father’s favor, although she does hope that one day he may have a change of heart. Her main desire is to serve Jehovah completely and to assist her husband in training their children in the way of Jehovah.