“The situation was extremely tense,” recalls Alfred Gunn. “Most of the foreign missionaries were quickly evacuated. The last to leave were Billie and Sandra Cowan, Jimmie and Joyce Holland, and Catherine and me.

“We prayed with the local Bethelites who volunteered to stay behind, and then we hurried to the evacuation point. Along the way we were stopped by about 20 wild-looking, drunken rebel soldiers. When we gave them magazines and money, they let us pass. Along with more than 1,000 other evacuees, we converged on a fortified checkpoint manned by heavily armed U.S. marines. There we boarded a military helicopter and were whisked offshore to a U.S. naval ship. A ship officer later told us that our civilian evacuation had been the largest conducted by the U.S. Navy since the Vietnam War. The following day, we flew by helicopter to Conakry, Guinea. There we set up a temporary branch office.”