Out Of Africa - And Back Spokane Missionaries And Their Three Children Are Returning To The Scene Of Last Year’s Bloodbath

Carl Wilkens has seen the best and the worst along the dirt road that passes in front of his family’s home in Kigali, Rwanda.

A year ago, whenever the Spokane native pulled onto the road, he’d spot his red-haired son Shaun among a flock of dark-complexioned children, kicking a homemade soccer ball or sitting under a papaya tree.

Although they didn’t look alike and didn’t speak the same language, there always was harmony among the children.

More recently, Wilkens saw people prowling the road with guns, part of a vicious civil war that has left more than half a million dead.

On those days there was no harmony, only death.

The Wilkens family - Carl, Teresa and their three children - will return to that house on the dirt road later this month.

Although most Americans think of the African country as a hell-hole of chaos and killing, the Wilkens think of it as home.

“I knew my way around Kigali better than Spokane,” said Carl Wilkens.

Life as a missionary family in Rwanda is not as scary as it sounds, the Wilkenses said.

Their home has electricity and running water most of time. The furniture is modern. Their neighborhood is a mixture of mud huts and luxurious Western-style houses.

Despite the war, which has subsided, not much has changed. At least one of their neighbors, a wealthy Tutsi, is dead, a victim of the most recent uprising.

But during a trip last month, Carl Wilkens found his family’s home intact and most of their friends still around.

The family pets also are waiting - a cat, a couple of dogs, a parrot and a monkey named Poacher.

Shaun’s best friend, Mulindzi, asked repeatedly when the red-haired boy was coming back.

“Soon,” Wilkens replied.

Mulindzi and his friends began chanting, “We’re lucky! We’re lucky!” in their native language.

Carl and Teresa Wilkens have been missionaries for the Seventhday Adventist Church since they graduated from Walla Walla College in 1981. Their two oldest children, Mindy, 11, and Lisa, 8, were born in Africa.

Shaun, 6, was born in the United States, during a hiatus between missions.

Living in Third World countries, the Wilkenses have honed their survival skills. Driving through a city, they don’t stop when they see a mob forming. They look for a turn-off.

Even their children have learned to be resourceful. They know how to amuse themselves for hours by candlelight when the electricity goes out.

Native children taught Shaun how to make a soccer ball with plastic bags and string.

“The hardest thing to adapt to is the political conditions,” Teresa Wilkens said. “Something I’ve come to learn is, the safest place to be is the place God wants us to be. But I can’t say my faith was enough to carry me every instance.”

After the president of Rwanda died in a plane crash last April, the war escalated to mass chaos. The United Nations pulled out. Then the French military abandoned the country.

“It was very much a feeling that all of the traditional forms of law and order and security were gone,” Carl Wilkens said. “It was complete lawlessness and anarchy. Then you realize your only security comes from God.

“Which you should have realized from the start.”

Eventually, everyone with a passport was evacuated from the country.

The Wilkens family had planned for such an event. As a relief worker, Carl Wilkens had two roles: to build schools and health clinics and provide disaster and refugee assistance.

While building was out of the question, the need for disaster relief never was greater.

Carl Wilkens said that as a Christian, he couldn’t in good conscience leave.

He was the only American to stay behind. By doing so he saved lives and fed hundreds of children orphaned by the killing.

The U.S. State Department commended him for his work last fall when he returned to Spokane.

Although Carl stayed, the couple didn’t want to endanger or frighten their children. They decided Teresa and the children would leave with the rest of the foreigners.

During a harrowing escape through the city of Kigali, Mindy, Lisa and Shaun sat on the floor of their pickup coloring. They never saw the piles of corpses that were everywhere that day, Carl Wilkens said.

“God gently led them out of that situation,” he said.

Now they can’t wait to get back.

While some might criticize the couple for taking their children back to Rwanda, Carl Wilkens said his children are learning valuable lessons.

“They have this global awareness, they talk about going to Africa like it was Idaho,” he said. “And they have this flexibility to situations that will always get them through life.”

This latest escalation in the war and the evacuation has taught them the lesson of sacrifice.

When he was talking to his daughter Mindy on a shortwave radio after the evacuation, Carl Wilkens suggested that his children needed him.

“But not as much as those orphans need you, Dad,” she answered.