Line upon Line

This is part 3 in a four-part series. To see the previous articles, click here.

We’ve all experienced it. Everything goes wrong. Our plans are thoroughly dashed. And suddenly, we realize that we are exactly where we need to be, that a bigger plan has enfolded us all along.

So it was for me and for my Congolese friends.

Back in 2007, I assumed that when my husband and I were called to serve in the MTC, we would be in a Spanish branch. I am fluent in Spanish, and my husband does all right. No, we were put in a French-speaking branch. Looking back, I believe that angels watched as Bruce and I took our place at the beginning of an unfolding story which would take both of us to the Congo. (Bruce has not yet gone, but we are planning on serving multiple missions there.)

Bruce and Margaret.

At the same time, on the African continent, Aime Mbuyi tried not to show his disappointment when he was called to the DR-Congo Kinshasa mission. He had hoped for Ghana or South Africa. He would be serving around people who had known him for years. But as we both look back on that calling, we see that somewhere in God’s design, he and I would meet as part of a team doing remarkable things in Africa. Bruce and I were working with young men who would become Aime’s missionary companions.

In August 2014, my film team and I planned on accompanying newlyweds Aime and Steffy Mbuyi to the Johannesburg Temple for their sealing. Our schedule had us booked to fly to Johannesburg for this sealing and other meetings, and then to Ghana to shoot b-roll at a slave castle. Despite multiple efforts, however, we could not get a visa to Johannesburg. South Africa was not allowing any Congolese to cross its borders.

As my plans were disrupted, however, I saw a possible miracle ahead. The beginning of this miracle had sprouted in February, 2014, when students at BYU had produced my play about black pioneer Jane Manning James, called I Am Jane.

The cast of “I Am Jane” with President Dieter F. Uchtdorf.

A woman came after the matinee performance and told me she was supposed to meet me. It was a spiritual impression, she said. As this woman, Karen Henderson, and I talked, she revealed that she had served a mission in the Congo. She had no way of knowing that I was already connected to that country. We instantly became friends and she started telling me about a man named Huisman Kambango, who was from the DR-C. He had had many visions and dreams and was engaged in great things in the Ivory Coast.

I told Karen that I wanted to meet Huisman, and hoped I could do that when I was in the Congo. She told me that it wouldn’t happen, since the Ivory Coast was far from the DR-Congo. As I was preparing for my trip, Karen informed me that Huisman was in Rwanda gathering names for temple work. I said again that I hoped I would meet him. Again, she told me that Rwanda was far from the Congo, and I would not meet Huisman yet. The next news was that Huisman was going to be in Ghana for a week doing the names he had gathered in Rwanda. I asked when he would be in Ghana. Our trip was planned, and we would be in Ghana from Aug. 28-Sept. 1. Karen told me he would be there around the 26th of August. I said, “I will meet him.”

And so it was. As my plans to see Aime and Steffy sealed in Johannesburg were thwarted, I realized that there might be purpose to them meeting Huisman, too. They easily secured visas and flights to Ghana.

A dear friend, Ghanain Richard Gardiner, arranged for someone to meet Aime and Steffy at the Accra, Ghana airport and take them to patron housing by the Ghana temple. What we didn’t know was that Huisman had not come alone to Ghana. He had brought the entire Ivory Coast stake. In three buses, they had traveled for several days to spend a week at the temple. In patron housing, rooms were divided according to gender. Men slept in particular rooms, and women in others.

My film team and I had our meetings in South Africa and then traveled to Ghana. After settling into our hotel rooms, we went to patron housing at the temple, and I saw Aime and Steffy. I asked how things were going. Aime said, “Everything is good. It’s good. We like the people we’re meeting from the Ivory Coast. They eat a lot of chicken. But we are separated. Men and women don’t sleep together in patron housing now because so many are here.”

My response was instant: “What?” I pulled out my hotel key. “I will be in patron housing. You two are married. You need to be together.”

Oh what a wonderful choice that was—to give my room to the newlyweds and join the members of the Ivory Coast stake in patron housing. I was welcomed into their huge family. They cooked together in the downstairs kitchen, ate together, attended the temple together, had firesides together.

Of course, I met Huisman, and we spoke for a long time about the great work unfolding in Africa. He took me to the youth fireside next to the temple, where a regional authority’s wife asked the young people how many had come to be sealed to their parents. Only a few hands went up. She said, “This is wonderful. It means that you have already been sealed. We have a new generation, born in the covenant.”

The next day was the sealing of Aime and Steffy. Huisman was one of the witnesses. I represented the mother—both mothers, I suppose, for Aime and for Steffy. And that was a sweet privilege. Aime’s mother had pulled me close after the various ceremonies and had told me in French, “I always knew my son had great things to do in his life. But I am poor. I did not know how to help him. I prayed for him. God sent you. You are like an angel, answering my prayers.” I understood how important it was for me to keep my heart open to whatever the Lord had in store. And I knew what an honor it was to share Aime with his biological mother, each of us with different callings.

Things had not worked out according to my plan, but according to a higher design.

I wrote this to my son, Michael:

I have met people who have visions. My faith has grown enormously. I have re-thought many things which I had doubted before and realize that I need to doubt my doubts. I often can’t imagine what God can do, and so assume it’s impossible. But nothing is impossible with God.

We are in the midst of a great work. It is centered for now in Africa. It’s all over the world, of course, but the biggest miracles are happening in Africa. People are walking for hundreds of miles simply to be baptized, and that can’t always happen because there must be a “center of strength” within twenty-five miles of where they live. In other words, people who understand true doctrine and how the Church is set up have to supervise the organization of a ward or branch. When Dad and I start serving missions in a couple of years, we will comprise the “center of strength.” Some of my friends went to the Congo on missions and worked to baptize everyone who wanted baptism. They worked ceaselessly, because the requests kept coming. In Gabon, a neighboring country to the Congo, they would baptize thirty people and then wash the baptismal clothes to prepare for the next group. Entire congregations were formed. Many of those seeking baptism had had visions.

Yet one more adventure awaited us—a visit to an awful episode in the past. We would go, with Aime, Steffy and Richard, to the Elmina Slave castle.

(To be continued in the final part in this series.)