When application was made for visas that would enable Gilead-trained missionaries to serve in the Ivory Coast (now called Côte d’Ivoire), French officials withheld approval. So, in 1950, Alfred Shooter, from the Gold Coast (now Ghana), was sent to the capital of the Ivory Coast as a pioneer. Once he was established, his wife joined him; and a few months later, a missionary couple, Gabriel and Florence Paterson, came. Problems arose. One day, their literature was seized because it had not been approved by the government, and the brothers were fined. But they later found their books on sale in the marketplace, so they bought them back and made good use of them.

Meanwhile, these brothers visited numerous government offices in an endeavor to obtain permanent visas. Mr. Houphouët-Boigny, who later became president of the Ivory Coast, offered to help. “The truth,” he remarked, “has no barrier whatsoever. It is like a mighty river; dam it and it will overflow the dam.” When a Catholic priest and a Methodist minister tried to interfere, Ouezzin Coulibaly, a government deputy, said: “I represent the people of this country. We are the people, and we like Jehovah’s Witnesses and so we want them to stay here in this country.”

[Picture on page 478]

When threatened with deportation, Gabriel Paterson (shown here) was reassured by a prominent official: ‘The truth is like a mighty river; dam it and it will overflow the dam’