An escape from Ivory Coast: Family of missionaries evacuated from battle zone

Gunfire and shelling rattled windows and made the leaves flutter. Water from the faucet slowed to a trickle. The refrigerator shelves were going bare. Dead bodies littered the yards of friends across town.

That's what a family now staying in Bellevue confronted last week as civil war broke out in Ivory Coast, a small West African nation of about 16.4 million people.

What began as missionary work for a couple who met in Kirkland turned into a life-threatening ordeal they won't forget.

In November 2000, Phil and Robin Malcolm arrived there with their children, Jacob and Grace, now 8 and 5 years old, as missionaries of the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal Christian sect. They spent a year learning French and preparing to work with children in what was once one of the more stable countries in post-colonial Africa.

Phil Malcolm had prepared for the missionary life since he was a child growing up in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where his parents were missionaries. Robin Malcolm had readied herself since meeting her future husband at Kirkland's Northwest College in 1989, where Phil's father, Larry Malcolm, is a professor.

"The people who go into the most difficult places are my heroes," Robin Malcolm said at Larry Malcolm's home, which mixes Christian and African artifacts, wooden elephant sculptures and wall hangings of scriptural passages.

When the couple and their children arrived in the south-central Ivory Coast city of Bouake, unrest surrounded elections. A failed military coup in January 2001 added to the chaos. The country is divided between Christians in the south, who control the government, and Muslims in the more populous north.

The unrest died down shortly after the Malcolms arrived, and they began their work.

Because half of the population is younger than 15, the couple said their children's ministry had plenty to do. Though Ivory Coast has one of the highest literacy rates in Africa, classrooms lacked chalkboards, desks and other basic necessities. The missionaries taught their hosts how to make Sunday-school interesting and educational.

A major achievement was a religious carnival in August that mixed game booths with basic public-health information. The missionaries provided information and services related to dentistry, immunization, sanitation and AIDS, which afflicts 10 percent of the country.

Their day-to-day lives required a lot of adjusting. "The plastic bag is the flower of West Africa," Robin Malcolm said, referring to the bags that litter the landscape. All water must be filtered. Meat is so scarce that "they'll eat anything that moves," she added.

Life expectancy is 45. Phil Malcolm was struck by the juxtaposition of poverty and technology — cellphones and stereos sweep a countryside where mud-thatched huts are still common.

The Malcolms had been planning a trip home to deal with an unknown medical condition Phil Malcolm had contracted, thought to be related to malaria, when the fighting erupted Sept. 19.

The family's walled compound was about 100 yards from a police checkpoint on the outskirts of Bouake where the firefight started. Over the next several days, the gunfire intensified, and the water was shut off. The family sent out a groundskeeper, who doubled as a security guard and housekeeper, to find fresh food. Prices had doubled and supplies were thinning, he reported back.

On the other side of town, the gunbattle was more intense, littering other missionaries' yards with corpses.

The Malcolms learned they needed to pack one bag for evacuation and wait. They thought the call would come Sept. 25, but it never did. Meanwhile, they packed all their belongings, knowing they were definitely returning to the United States.

Finally, on Thursday a French convoy arrived, rescuing boarding students from the school where Jacob Malcolm was a day student and leading the missionaries by car out of the city south to Yamoussoukro. As the family left Bouake, Jacob told his father, "Dad, I'm ducking behind the window in case they start shooting."

Once in Yamoussoukro, the missionaries met U.S. Special Forces. "They not only did their jobs, they treated us like royalty," Robin Malcolm said.

After a night in an embassy home and much-needed showers, the family was airlifted by a C-130 transport plane to Ghana, where they caught a flight to Amsterdam, and from there home.

After regrouping in Bellevue and then in the Salem, Ore., area, where their ministry is based, the family hopes to return to Ivory Coast, whose people they've fallen in love with.

"There's much work to be done," Phil Malcolm said. The country's civic violence and AIDS epidemic haven't challenged Phil Malcolm's faith.

"I don't think it's much different than the rest of the world. It's a product of a fallen, sinful world," he said. "In America we are extremely blessed, and we need to share that blessing."

J. Patrick Coolican: 206-464-3315 or jcoolican@seattletimes.com.