Mission's End

Bouncing over Africa's mountains in chartered DC-3s and over its hills in Jeeps, dead tired, 15 Ibs. lighter than when he started, and with recurring eye trouble, Billy Graham wound up his seven-week "Safari for Souls" last week, still going at a pace that often left his followers limp. His only major difficulty was insomnia, and he remarked that he spent most of his sleepless hours in prayer: "I figure God had some reason for keeping me awake."

Altogether, he and his team had drawn more than 600,000 black and white Africans to 25 unsegregated meetings and moved some 35,000 of them to "decide for Christ." But it was not just a question of packing them in, preaching the word and reaping the harvest; Billy was constantly called upon to meet situations that would have floored a less seasoned missionary.

You Never Know. In Tanganyika, at the foot of snow-crowned Mount Kilimanjaro late last month, he faced an audience of 25,000, their heads protected from the scorching sun by black umbrellas. The mountain and the snow on it, said Billy, were gifts of God, whose throne is much higher. At the crucial moment, when he asked the listeners to raise their hands to witness their "decisions," no one did. Undaunted, Billy gently asked again through his Swahili interpreter: "You have not understood what I said. Listen carefully: you have never repented of your sins. You are willing to pay the price even if it means death. Now lift your hands." Thousands of hands shot into the air.

On a visit to a mountain village, Billy encountered a crew of boozy women balancing beer cans on their heads, who boisterously told him that if he wanted to take pictures of them, he would have to pay. "Boy! We're having some party," an outsized tribesman yelled. Invited to join in an exuberant native dance, Billy took a tentative couple of steps, then thought better of it. Drawing himself up, he lectured the dancers: "When you have Christ in your hearts, you won't want to get drunk again." As he left the startled celebrators, he mused: "Somehow I don't think I made much impression on them, but you never know!"

What God Did. Moving west to Usumbura, in the Belgian-administered trust territory of Ruanda Urundi, Graham spoke to what he said was one of the toughest groups he had ever had to handle--a noisy, restless crowd of 5,000. Many had trudged miles over rough country, slept nights by mountain trails in the rain. Graham gave them one of the most eloquent talks of his African tour, contrasted the majesty of God with the smallness of man. "How could mighty God speak to us little people? God looked down from Heaven, and he wanted to talk to us. But could he? We so little, he so big. You know what he did? Now listen carefully. Mighty God became a man, and that's who Jesus Christ was."

Billy proved as adroit and magnetic off the platform as on it. In Kenya, when Kikuyu women in bright-colored print dresses presented him with a head basket for his wife, he jauntily put it on his own head. When he was challenged by a confident Mohammedan missionary to a "duel" of healing the sick, Graham smiled and said: "The Lord has not given me the power of healing. He has only given me the power of speaking."

Demons at the Wheel. A few days later, Billy moved north to Addis Ababa. The Ethiopians responded eagerly, though some fancied themselves more sophisticated than their neighbors to the south. Grumbled one patriarch: "Why is this man trying to bring Christ to our ancient land which adopted Christianity 1,600 years ago? Let him go into the bush and Christianize the heathen." But when Billy asked for those prepared to come to Christ, the hands went up. (When he asked for the hands of those who had ever stolen, and half jokingly added that police were present, not a single hand rose.)

Everywhere, Billy warmly praised Africa's Protestant missionaries, who spent months priming their Christian charges for his arrival, now must keep their faith from flagging when he leaves. But, he added: "These wonderful people drive like demons. They want you to see everything, and roar along pitted dirt roads at breakneck speed, all the while talking with their hands and looking at you instead of the cows, people and bicycles."

Preaching or Proselytizing. From Addis Ababa, he went to Cairo, where he paid his respects to Coptic Patriarch Kyrollos VI--the 116th leader of the church traditionally founded by St. Mark. Last of all, he visited the Holy Land. Split between Arabs and Jews, the country of the Prophets and Apostles presents formidable problems to a modern Christian evangelist, but Billy's warm enthusiasm carried the day. In four days on the Jordanian side last week, he visited King Hussein, the Dead Sea, and the town of Nablus, where he listened raptly to the sound of a cup of water dropped the 85 feet down Jacob's well, and took up an impromptu collection for 344 Samaritans there.

Meditating in Jerusalem's dark and crumbling Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the traditional site of the Crucifixion, he looked uncomfortable when a guide gave him a candle, obviously felt better when he was able to put the liturgical symbol to work lighting his way down a pitch-dark flight of stairs.

When a Jordanian radio reporter threw him a curve question about the Israeli-Arab conflict, Billy calmly answered that the Christian injunction is to turn the other cheek. Then, before crossing the Jordan-Israel border at the Mandelbaum Gate, he reminded his listeners that he had not come "to convert Jews but to preach to Christians." (The Christian population of Israel: 45,000.)

He found a storm blown up for him in the Israeli press last week over whether his sponsors, Israel's Protestant United Christian Council, should be allowed to hire the 2,700-capacity Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv. First the auditorium was refused (commented the chief rabbinate: "All missionary activity is objectionable. Dr. Graham's purpose is conversion and therefore falls in the category of such activity"). Premier Ben-Gurion on tour in the U.S. had cabled that he had no objections to Billy Graham's using the Mann Auditorium, provided that he refrained from mentioning Jesus Christ before a Jewish audience. The United Christian Council finally picked a church in Jaffa for him.

A Lot of Fires. Two hours after he checked into his suite at Jerusalem's King David Hotel, Billy Graham went into a closed session with Israeli officials and emerged to tell reporters that he had come to see friends, the holy places, and the new nation. And "I have also come to preach the Gospel--that is to give a few talks--to the Christian community here. And if people other than Christians come, I'll not keep them away."

An overflow crowd of 2,000--about 70% Jews--showed up for his first public meeting in Haifa. At the end, some 200 people (about 50 of them Jews) came down the aisle to make their decisions for Christ. Cracked one of them: "Graham has brought more Jews into the church than anyone since the time of Jesus."

This week, as Billy took a plane for Paris and home, a local missionary said: "That man kindled a lot of fires in Africa. It's up to us now to keep them burning."

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