Foy Short,
A Life in Southern Africa
By Gardner Hall
Smashwords Edition
Copyright by Gardner Hall, 2012, All rights reserved.
Mount Bethel Publishing
P.O. Box 123
Port Murray, NJ 07865
This book will soon be available in print with endnotes and index.
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GardnerHall3@gmail.com
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Acknowledgements
Ellen Baize, Foy Short’s daughter, helped me more than anyone else with this project. She sent me reports and personal letters, gave hours of telephone interviews, made suggestions and corrections and has always been handy for advice. Foy and Margaret’s move from their home in White House, Tennessee to an apartment in their daughter Kay’s house, provided us with a goldmine of information. In cleaning out their house, Ellen came across large files of old letters and reports from the 1940’s and 1950’s that were extremely helpful with the project. She mailed them to me at her own expense. The old letters are fascinating, especially the exchanges between Foy and his best friend, Bennie Lee Fudge. They were often humorous, sometimes sharp in their disagreements and always full of little anecdotes, just what you would expect from best friends. Ellen is working on her own project, a biography of her grandfather, W.N. Short.
Foy and Margaret Short have also granted me complete telephone access and hours of interviews. Margaret has written several unpublished essays about their experiences, which have been helpful. She also went over the manuscript making needed corrections and very helpful suggestions. I am sure you can tell from this project how much I admire and appreciate the Shorts.
Sybil Dewhirst is Foy’s sister who I have known and loved since my childhood in Athens, Alabama. When I was a child, she always had a smile for me and possessed a dignified yet very open and friendly personality that made her greatly admired. She has a sharper memory than Foy does of their childhood days and spent several hours with me on the telephone answering questions, especially about the childhood and teenage years she spent together with Foy. She’s writing some personal memoirs for her family and has shared large portions of them with me.
Jim Short, Foy and Margaret’s son, spent almost an hour on the phone with me, giving me stories from his childhood that his sister and parents didn’t remember to tell me, for example, about the Short family trip to Barotseland. Then when I reminded Ellen, Margaret and Foy of this trip that Jim mentioned, they were able to give me more details. In the latter stages of the book, he sent me a number of emails offering wise advice and insight.
I met Foy and Margaret’s youngest daughter, Kathryn (Kay) Smith, as I was almost finished with the first draft of the book. She helped me with a number of fascinating anecdotes and perceptions about what makes her parents tick.
Paddy Kendall-Ball probably loves Foy as much as anyone else in the world. He spent several hours with me, both in person and on the phone, giving lively stories about his experiences with Foy. He is now back in Zimbabwe, the land of his birth, building up his brethren and working to teach the gospel.
Several other people gave me shorter but helpful telephone interviews: Ken Green, Allen Brittell (gave information about his grandfather, Orville), Harrison Bankston, Gene Tope and Ray Votaw. Votaw’s health wasn’t good when I talked to him, but he was still able to give me a few stories and insights. He passed away in January of 2012.
Cherry Trimble, Sewell Hall, Ellen Baize, Jim Short and Margaret Short all helped with proofreading, especially Margaret.
I was blessed to meet Jamey Hines when in South Florida. He mentioned to me in passing that he loved proof reading. When he saw a grin of anticipation on my face, he must have known he was in trouble. I immediately asked him if he could go over this manuscript. He agreed, not knowing what he was getting into! Then he offered not only to correct the manuscript but also set the type for the print version of the book. What a blessing!
Kirby Davis, a wonderful young disciple, has provided a beautiful design for the cover. James Rattazzi, John Maddocks and David Rodriguez helped prepare pictures for publication. Gary Fisher and Charlie Brackett have given good advice about publishing.
Thanks especially to my wife, Beverly, who is so patient with me as I chase multiple interests.
Dedicated to evangelists like Dennis Allan who follow in Foy Short’s footsteps by dedicating their lives to preaching overseas and establishing independent congregations of the Lord.
Table of Contents
The Restoration Movement in Zimbabwe
“Missions” In Zimbabwe and Zambia
Admiration and Concerns from a Personal Perspective
Establishing Independent Autonomous Congregations
Enemies of Autonomous, Independent Churches
Chapter One - Roots, Childhood
Family Leisure Time and Yearly Gatherings
Chapter 2 - Stateside 1940-1947
Namwianga Mission, Northern Rhodesia
Expeditions into the Zambesi River Valley
Grappling with Doctrinal Problems
Teaching Children in Queens Park
Beginning Work Among the amaNdebele
The Work at the Colenbrander Avenue Church
Beginning Worship Services in Queens Park
Emphasis on Singing, Training the Young
Growing Opportunities among the amaNdebele
The Parable of the Frogs and the Fish Eagle
An Object Lesson at Nhowe Mission
Final Years of the First Stay in Bulawayo
Holiday/Meetings in South Africa
Intensive training of young preachers
Instrumental Music, Institutionalism
Opportunities in English in Neighboring Cities
Periodical in the Shona and isiNdebele Languages
Progress Among African Churches
Social Life, Raising Teenagers
Bush War in the 1960’s and 1970’s
Summary of Work in Gwelo/Gweru
Changes after Independence – 1980
Crisis about buildings in 1991
Chapter 6 Return to the States, 1995
Dealing With Problems Associated with Age
Visits to Rhodesia by Other American Evangelists
Trips by David and Ellen Baize 156
Appendix 1 – A brief history of Zimbabwe
Appendix 2 – Brief Sketch of Early American Evangelists in Northern and Southern Rhodesia
Introduction
“The popular image of a missionary is that of a man camped out in the jungle, fighting off an occasional lion and preaching to the ‘natives’ in their own language. I know only one man whose experiences came even close to that – Foy Short.” Thus Sewell Hall introduced his friend, Foy Short.
Foy Short’s easygoing demeanor, wry smile and dry sense of humor make it difficult to imagine him facing off with a cape buffalo, calming a building full of frenzied worshippers going through various types of “spirit” induced convulsions or driving a group of eighteen oxen with a fifty-foot whip. Yet, these and hundreds of other singular experiences filled his seventy plus years of preaching and teaching the Bible in Southern Africa.
This will be a story about Foy Short’s life and the way God used him in Southern Africa from his childhood in the 1920’s to the political turmoil at the turn of the 21st Century.
The Restoration Movement in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe
Foy Short’s story in Africa begins with John Sherriff, a stonemason from New Zealand who arrived in South Africa in 1896. Though originally linked with congregations associated with the Disciples of Christ, he “was influenced to change his convictions” about instrumental music in worship and formed close ties with more conservative churches of Christ in the United States.
After a short stay in South Africa, Sherriff settled in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia,* where he practiced his trade as a stonemason. When he saw one of his African employees reading the Bible by a campfire he determined to teach him and others.
John Sherriff… soon found the opportunity to commence a night school for some African boys, meeting twice a week from 7-9 PM in his own small room. English was his subject the Bible was his textbook… By 1904 he had baptized two whites, six African women and 67 African men and youths.
Sherriff conducted church services in a small building in his stone yard. This structure became too small, so he moved to a larger hall. By 1906, when F. L. Hadfield and his family arrived from New Zealand, there were over 200 Christians. Sherriff turned the work over to Hadfield and moved with his wife, Emma, a short distance out of Bulawayo to start a school for mixed race Africans at Forest Vale Mission.
Foy and his sister, Sybil Dewhirst, have fond memories of John Sherriff. They called him “Grandpa Sherriff.” Foy described him as an English type gentleman with an English accent and a white beard and mustache.
Sherriff sent out his most advanced evangelists, whom he called “mustard seed,” into other parts of Southern Africa. One was George Kosa from Johannesburg, originally from Swaziland. In 1907 Kosa returned to South Africa to preach to the workers in the gold mines. One of those he baptized returned to his homeland in Bechuanaland (now Botswana) where he preached to his own people. In 1949 Foy Short visited Bechuanaland to help resolve some problems. He found about 1,500 Christians there who were attempting to follow New Testament principles.
Another of Sherriff’s “mustard seed,” Peter Masiya (also spelled Misaya and Mesiya), would be instrumental in helping Foy’s father, Will Short, begin his work at Sinde in Northern Rhodesia (later Zambia). In 2006 Foy Short described Masiya’s work in the early 1900’s in an oral report to the Bellaire, Texas church of Christ.
When Peter Masiya returned to his home village, he announced that he would be holding a meeting and preaching under a tree outside of the village that had a lot of good shade. He invited them to hear him teach the word of God. The first Sunday… nobody came, so he sang, read his Bible and prayed and returned to the village. During the following week he talked to the people and invited them again to come the next Sunday and nobody came. This went on for a year. Every Sunday he would go out there, nobody would come, he would read and pray and during the week he would invite them again. Nobody went for a year. Finally his mother went and she was baptized. After that others began to be baptized. By the time my folks went up there [in 1923] there were a half dozen churches that Peter Masiya had started. That was the beginning of the work there. I don’t think I would have had the tenacity to go out and preach every Sunday for a year. When the going gets tough, don’t quit!
Another “mustard seed” was Jack Mzira, the Shona evangelist responsible for establishing the congregations around Wuyu Wuyu east of Salisbury (now Harare). In 1903 he became dissatisfied with what he was hearing in a mission of the Church of England and began walking to seek something, though he wasn’t sure what. He walked first to Salisbury where he worked for a while and then he began walking again. He arrived in Bulawayo and found work in John Sherriff’s stone yard. He studied the Bible with Sherriff and obeyed the gospel. He returned to Mashonaland establishing churches. John Sherriff said of Mzira, “He was one of the best preachers and elders of his people that I know of.” Foy Short’s father, W.N. Short, worked closely with Peter Masiya and Jack Mzira.
Phases of “Mission Work”
Stanley E. Granberg divides the history of “mission”* work of known churches of Christ in Africa into three phases: (1) the mission station, (2) the institutional era and (3) the mission team era. Foy Short would live through all three eras, though he would emphasize a fourth approach that he felt to be the biblical pattern, developing autonomous congregations.
Foy Short spent his childhood in mission stations of the first era. Before World War II the government often gave missionaries large parcels of land (or leased or sold it to them at reduced prices) with the stipulation that they be developed and that natives in the area be taught basic literacy skills. Under this type of arrangement, John Sherriff, with the help of others from New Zealand and Australia, constructed the Forest Vale mission near Bulawayo.
Foy felt that the mission stations, which at first were little more than the evangelist’s farm with a few extra buildings for teaching, did a good work in their initial stages. The natives could not be taught the Bible unless first taught basic literacy. Though Will Short, Dow Merritt, George Scott and other pioneer evangelists lived on what could be called primitive mission stations, they spent much of their time traveling through the villages, establishing and then training local congregations.
Foy’s friend Eldred Echols, who was credited by Granberg with initiating the institutional era, told of a revealing conversation he had with an old chief. The village leader contrasted the techniques of Foy’s father, Will (W.N.), and other evangelists of the first era, who spent much time in the villages, with those of the second, who set up shop in their schools and institutions.
I once sat with an old village chief who had known George Scott, Will Short and others of the pioneer missionaries. He complained that American churches no longer sent out missionaries of the caliber of those early preachers. In particular, it was a source of grief to him that they so seldom saw us, whereas those men regularly visited all the village churches and spent much time teaching and encouraging them. I pointed out that we had to spend a great deal of our time in daily classes, educating and preparing young people to become leaders, and so we were not free to travel as they had done. I went on to suggest that we were doing a better job for the future of the church than the pioneers had done. The chief took immediate offense. “Young man,” he admonished me sternly, “before you criticize your betters, you need to understand that those men had to farm or raise cattle to support their families, and they lived under harsher conditions than you have to, and yet they still had time to do a great deal more evangelistic work than you do. They were great preachers.” And then he added peevishly, “I don’t really know what you people are. School teachers, perhaps. Certainly not preachers.”
It didn’t require a big step to transform the missions from simple farms with classroom buildings used by evangelists into regional centers that tended to control congregations in an area. Over a period of time, there also tended to be a greater emphasis on secular instruction that went beyond the basic literacy needed for reading the Bible. Foy remembers as a young man hearing concerns expressed by contemporaries of his parents about the direction the missions were headed, with more government regulations for the schools and an increasing emphasis on secular education. By 1947 when Foy returned to Southern Africa after several years in the States, this transformation of the primitive missions he knew as a child into denominational centers was well underway. His association with them gradually waned, especially after 1961 when his parents left the Namwianga Mission to move to Bulawayo.
“Missions” In Zimbabwe and Zambia
(1) Forest Vale – Near Bulawayo. Started by John Sherriff. It was gradually enveloped by the city of Bulawayo after Sherriff’s death in 1935.
(2) Dadaya – About 120 miles southeast of Bulawayo, it became a center for the Disciples of Christ denomination. Garfield Todd, a New Zealander who directed the mission in the early 1940’s, became Prime Minister of Rhodesia in 1946.
(3) Sinde – In Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) about twenty miles from Livingstone and Victoria Falls. Started by Foy’s father, W.N. (Will) Short, with the help of Peter Masiya in 1922. There is still a school there.
(4) Kabanga – Also in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), about seventy miles northeast of Sinde and east of Kalomo. Started by Dow Merritt and Ray Lawyer in 1927 before the latter’s untimely death that year. W.N Short then moved there and worked until his first trip back to the States in late 1928.
(5) Namwianga - About four miles from Kalomo in Zambia. George Scott and W.L. Brown started building on land they bought here in 1932. It has become a center of mission work for mainstream churches of Christ. In 2008 it had “a farm, a rural health center, a vocational center, two home-based orphan care facilities, a Church Development Center, and schools. The schools on the Namwianga site include a Basic (elementary) school, a Secondary school, and George Benson Christian College. The college trains secondary teachers in the areas of religious education, math, and English.”
(6) Nhowe – W.L. Brown started a school here, about thirty miles east of Salisbury in 1941 and it has become an educational center for mainstream churches of Christ, “an outreach of the Oakland church of Christ in Southfield, Michigan.” There is also a hospital sponsored by the East Point church of Christ in Wichita, Kansas.
(7) Wuyu Wuyu - Mistakenly called Huyuyu by John Sherriff because he was hard of hearing and referred to as Huyuyu en most articles in the Word and Work magazine. Started by John Sherriff in the late 1920’s east of Salisbury (now Harare), fairly close (about fifteen miles) to what became Nhowe mission. W.N. Short worked there in the early 1930’s. There is a still a congregation on the site that Foy, his son-in-law and daughter, David and Ellen Baize, visit when in Zimbabwe.
Summary of Tribal Terms
amaNdebele – The name of the dominant tribe in Southwestern Zimbabwe. The British had difficulty pronouncing this word and referred to the tribe as the Matabele or occasionally as Natabele. Total population in Zimbabwe in 2001 was estimated to be 1,500,000. Perhaps three million more live in South Africa.
Ndebele – An individual from the amaNdebele tribe.
isiNdebele – Language of the amaNdebele (also referred to as Northern Ndebele and Sindebele)
Matabeleland – Area in Southwestern Zimbabwe settled by the amaNdebele tribe. Bulawayo is the principle city.
Shona – Largest tribe in Zimbabwe (about 75% of all Zimbabweans) also divided into five main clans. “Most Shonas identify first with their own clans and then with the entire Shona people.” Harare (originally known as “Salisbury”) is the principle city in Mashonaland.
Mashonaland – Areas in Northern and Eastern Zimbabwe inhabited by those of the Shona tribe.
Tonga – Tribe in Zambia and Northwestern Zimbabwe. The Tongas predominated in areas where W.N. Short and other pioneers established the first missions in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). Therefore Foy Short learned their language, usually called chiTonga as a child.
Admiration and Concerns from a Personal Perspective
Reading letters and articles about Foy’s father, W.N. Short, and other pioneer workers in Southern Africa fills spiritually minded readers with admiration for their sacrificial love and dedication to God. When considering whether or not to delve into this project, I started by reading through reports in old Word and Work magazines and quickly identified with young Ray and Zelma Lawyer, the first Americans to work closely with the Shorts in Southern Africa. They filled their reports with expressions of love for the Africans and optimism about future plans to teach them. Then when I clicked on the November 1927 edition I read Don Carlos Janes’ terse message, “A very sad word is cabled from Africa that Ray Lawyer died from an accident.” As I read those words in 2008, knowing nothing beforehand of what had happened, I felt the same type of shock that readers must have felt when first reading of the tragic accident more than eighty years ago. I’ll admit that I shed tears as if he had just died. As I wept I thought, “How silly for a grown man to cry when reading this old history.” Then when reading further accounts of Lawyer’s death in his wife Zelma’s book and in Dow Merritt’s book, I found myself wiping my eyes again even though I’m not usually a crybaby! I had come to completely identify with the Lawyers and the little band of Americans working in Southern Africa. I had come to love them although they are all now dead!
Though I came to admire the pioneer workers in Southern Africa, I groaned inwardly as I read of the gradual introduction of practices that historically have led independent Christians away from non-sectarian focus on the Master towards harmful affairs with denominational machinery. One of the behind-the-scenes heroes in the story of pioneer evangelism in Southern Africa was Don Carlos Janes, who wrote a column in the Word and Work magazine designed to promote their support. In his articles, he rejoiced and wept with the missionaries and begged and pleaded with brethren to support them. You can sense his keen anguish when godly men and women in Africa such as W.N. Short lost their support during the depression. Only the Creator knows how much credit he should receive for the thousands converted through the efforts of evangelists he encouraged.
And yet, Don Carlos Janes left himself open to the accusation that he was a “one man missionary society.” F. B. Srygley wrote, “No churches, so far as I know, have ever authorized Janes to take the position as missionary director for the churches… No one appointed him to his present position but he assumed it by degrees.” Foy E. Wallace attacked Janes with characteristic gusto for being a “one man missionary society” and printed a copy of his last will and testament in the Bible Banner to support his accusations. The fact that Janes was premillennial in his views, probably added fuel to the fire as far as Wallace was concerned.
How should primitivist Christians view obviously godly men such as Don Carlos Janes and Foy Short’s predecessors who were courageous in their sacrifices, but whose projects were sometimes precursors of a unhealthy trust in denominational structures? I think admiration is still in order for their great sacrifices along with thanksgiving for God’s mercy, even as we learn from their errors and strive to avoid them.
Establishing Independent Autonomous Congregations
As will be seen in the main story, events on an ocean voyage to the States in late 1940 convinced Foy of the importance of distinguishing between the simplicity seen in first century churches that were taught by the apostles of Jesus Christ and the complications introduced by men in human religions. He always emphasized God’s grace and mercy as taught to him by his parents. However, his Bible study and association with careful evangelists in North Alabama in the middle 1940’s, especially Bennie Lee Fudge, also infused him with a desire to establish congregations in the mold of faithful first century churches. This implied making a distinction between that model and the human ones that tend to infiltrate God’s people.
Jesus and Paul emphasized evangelism simply through personal teaching. Dedicated first century evangelists established independent congregations and worked closely with them. Local congregations were the only church organizations seen among first century disciples. Efforts to introduce other ecclesiastical organizations into the mix began in the centuries after Christ with the regional bishops and dioceses. Foy Short’s efforts to evangelize Africans emphasized this back-to-basics (primitivist) model. He trained promising native evangelists so that they would in turn train others and establish independent congregations. He trusted that Africans could learn self-sufficiency, and worked to establish independence rather than dependence among them.
Enemies of Autonomous, Independent Churches
Certainly worldliness, pride, lack of love and spiritual self-sufficiency are the greatest dangers to God’s plan for his people. However, Foy Short was careful to avoid more subtle enemies to humble discipleship in Southern Africa.
(1) Institutionalism - The word “institutionalism” is often loaded, but will be used here to describe the tendency to see the church of Christ as a network of congregations that has its institutions, schools and projects. Some try to give estimates of the number of members in “churches of Christ” ranging from 1,265,844 in the United States to three million worldwide. However, the effort to give numbers often reveals a sectarian concept of what the church of Christ is. Biblically, the church is simply all the saved people in the world and only God knows their number for only he knows to whom he will extend his mercy.
Disciples who are truly nonsectarian don’t consider God’s work to be done only by those they know. They are confident of the fact that wherever God is sought and his mercy extended, there are his people, often known only to him. Indeed, many known to be associated with various groups such as “mainstream churches of Christ” and others simply want to serve God and are relatively uncontaminated with the promotionalism and sectarianism that can be so distasteful to noninstitutional disciples. To consider the church of Christ to be composed solely of those influenced by “our preachers” and “our traditions” is blatantly sectarian.
Institutionalism, just like all forms of sectarianism, is a danger to primitivist service of Jesus Christ because over a period of time it tends to redirect the disciples’ focus from a person, Jesus Christ, to the traditions and institutions of the network. The question in the minds of many becomes “What has the ‘Church of Christ’ always taught on this issue?” rather than, “What has Christ taught?” It fosters a dependence on the institutions supported by the network and erodes the nonsectarian principles that are found in the New Testament.
(2) Dependence on American salaries – A second and even more subtle enemy of the establishment of autonomous congregations in third world countries is the unwise use of the American dollar in setting up support systems to provide salaries for native evangelists. It is subtle because there is Biblical precedent for congregations supporting evangelists as they work in other areas. However, some have pointed out that strictly speaking, the Biblical model, (for example, Philippi’s support of Paul) is for churches to support evangelists they personally know and trust and with whom they can communicate, not those they can’t know well personally and whose language they can’t understand.
Several problems often arise when a system is set in place involving large amounts of support from American congregations to third world preachers they can never know well, usually on the basis of a the recommendation of a traveling evangelist from America:
(a) An over dependence on outside help with a resulting lack of growth.
(b) Misunderstandings between preachers and supporting churches when there are cultural and language barriers.
(c) Over support.
(d) Fraud, greed and "public relations" manipulation. Besides the exploitation of obvious scoundrels who take advantage of American churches, even sincere men in underdeveloped countries can be tempted to get into the game of sending exaggerated reports, carefully posed photos of baptisms, bombardment with Email and other public relations tactics to keep the money flowing.
(e) The appearance of an unofficial hierarchy. At the top of the apparent system would be the American recommender. A preacher who has a number of men who depend upon his word for their daily bread and welfare can be quite powerful. Below the American recommender sometimes there is a native recommender. Under the American recommender and sometimes the native recommender would be those preachers who receive American dollars. Below those who receive American dollars would be other workers.
Instead of exposing sincere, humble evangelists in Zimbabwe to the sometimes overpowering temptation of American salaries, Foy Short encouraged them to earn a living “making tents” while encouraging the African brethren that knew them to help with their expenses and support as much as they could.
Veteran African evangelists who did not see the dangers of institutionalism clearly saw the danger of American salary systems for third world evangelists. Georgia Hobby wrote, “As far as I know, there are no Zambian preachers who are supported by churches in the U.S.A. or other foreign countries. It would be easy to have a large number of preachers hired by U.S.A. churches. But much of their effectiveness would be lost because their own people would not trust their motives.”
Avoiding dependence on American dollars for salaries and sending benevolence to needy Christians are two different issues. The first tends to be permanent and foster dependency. The second is usually temporary on the basis of need. Foy and Margaret Short worked diligently during the crisis of the 1980’s and later years to send benevolence to saints during the time of famine and political unrest.
The results of Foy Short’s efforts to encourage the establishment of independent, autonomous congregations in the area around Matabeleland speak for themselves. From a handful of weak congregations in the late 1940’s whose leaders did not know how to combat religious error, there are now over one hundred known independent congregations in the area. Some of the congregations are very small and meet under trees but they are generally self-sufficient in the sense of not relying on foreign support or mission centers for their evangelism and edification. Though Foy Short was by no means God’s only tool for the growth of these independent congregations, he was a key figure, and his efforts should serve as an example for others who are willing to do similar works. A book that summarizes Foy Short’s approach to evangelism is Roland Allen’s classic, Missionary Methods, St. Paul’s or Ours. A more modern article from the evangelical point of view that deals with the problem of establishing dependency with American money is “Stop Sending Money, Breaking the Cycle of Missions Dependency,” published in the March, 1999 edition of Christianity Today.
Chapter 1 – Roots and Childhood
“Brother W.N. Short and wife of Harper, Kan., have decided to go to the mission field.” This brief notice in the Word and Work magazine may have seemed less than earth shattering to readers in 1920 and yet that decision by a newlywed couple would affect thousands of lives. It changed the course of their unborn children’s lives. There would be no roaring twenties in America for them, no Babe Ruth, no secure small town lives, no secure neighborhood schools and friendly policemen. Instead they would learn to struggle to survive, battling malaria and other tropical diseases with their parents on remote outposts.
Though the decision of Will (William Newton or W.N.) Short and his wife, Delia (Nancy A’Delia) would mean hardship and occasionally even desperate times for their children, there is no indication that they ever regretted it. They and their children like Foy lived full lives of happy meaningful service to God. But more important than the effect that their decision would make on their children, was its effect on thousands of Africans, who through their teaching and that of those who followed in their footsteps would learn the hope of a loving God.
Family Background
Foy’s father was born in 1894 in Rome, Kansas. His grandfather, Jasper Newton Short came from Switzerland County, Indiana. There, members of his family, of German extraction, left the Baptist church in the mid 1800’s motivated by the preaching of John Beverly Vawter.
Young Will was evidently an unwilling witness to much of the wrangling about instrumental music in the early 1900’s and he later explained to Foy and other members of his family that this accounted for the fact that he was often reluctant to engage in any spirited exchange of different points of view with his brethren.
Foy’s mother, Delia O’Neal, born in Johnstown, Missouri, was of Irish extraction. Her family was distantly related to the Dudley Ross Spears family who was also from Johnstown. Spears was a respected preacher among noninstitutional disciples in the last half of the twentieth century and first part of the twenty-first.
Delia liked conversation and even occasional verbal jousting. When thinking of the combination of her reserved grandfather and more outgoing grandmother, Foy’s daughter, Ellen Baize laughed and said, “You can imagine! Here is this Irish woman living with this taciturn man living in the middle of nowhere. The only person she has to talk to is him and he doesn’t want any arguments. It speaks volumes for her! …There was a period of nine months when she wouldn’t have seen another person [she could talk to]!”
The O’Neal family moved to Cordell, Oklahoma in the early 1900’s so that their children could have a “Christian education.” J.N. Armstrong became president of Cordell Christian College in 1908 and exerted a great amount of influence on Delia and her husband-to-be, Will. Foy’s sister, Sybil Dewhirst, said that Armstrong had “a wonderful influence on his students. He taught them to trust in the working of the Spirit and God’s grace. Mother and Daddy imbibed that spirit.” Cordell Christian College would grow to be the largest school that was acceptable to known members of churches of Christ before it closed in 1918 because of the pacifist beliefs of many in its faculty and the resulting unpopularity in the surrounding community. Cordell Christian College was a predecessor of Harding University.
Will’s family moved to Cordell, Oklahoma when he was about fourteen years of age for the same reason that Delia’s family moved there, so their children could be educated by Christians. There, Will and Delia met, fell in love and because of Armstrong’s influence, began to think of dedicating their lives to preaching overseas. However, their romance was interrupted when Will was drafted into the army.
Will Short’s conscription into the army was a great challenge in his life. He did not feel that a Christian should kill. However, unlike some of his contemporaries at Cordell Christian College, he felt that if his government called, he should answer. So he entered the army while constantly begging his superiors for a non-combatant role. However, he made the mistake of displaying his excellent shooting skills and therefore his superiors were disinclined to remove him from combat duty. For a while he was in a type of limbo as far as his combat status was concerned and even required to wear a yellow armband so that he could be derided as a coward. However, his superiors stubbornly refused to transfer him. He overheard one telling another that when the bullets started flying, “Short will shoot the enemy.” Meanwhile, he prayed for the strength to do otherwise. He was shipped to France and the very night he was to be rotated into the combat line, the armistice was declared and the war ended. Will Short felt that his prayers had been answered.
While Will was in the army and after Cordell Christian College closed, Delia and her brother George, earned their degrees from Thorp Springs Christian College. Then when Will returned from the army, he married Delia and the new couple settled in Harper, Kansas. Harold Foy Short was born January 17, 1921 in Harper, Kansas, near the Oklahoma border.
Africa’s Call
Will and Delia Short originally planned to go to India to preach. However, news about conflicts among Indian preachers made them change their minds. As they were thinking of where to go, they came in contact with F.B. Shepherd who had been corresponding with John Sherriff in Southern Rhodesia. Shepherd told them about the need in Southern Africa and they began to make their plans to go, traveling among churches to seek support. Their primary supporters would be the brethren in Harper, Kansas.
Will, Delia and little Foy left for Africa in late 1921 before receiving all the money they needed. Such sacrifices were almost universal among early evangelists in Southern Africa. For example, Will’s friend and fellow pioneer, A. B (Alva) Reese, never received more than twenty five dollars a month during the first years of their stay in Africa, but Reese, who was a capable woodworker, supplemented the family income by raising their food and making furniture and wagons.
Over thirty years after arriving in Africa, Will lamented what he perceived to be a lack of that sacrificial spirit among young men contemplating overseas work at that time.
There was a time when a man who wanted to become a “missionary” was either a fool or one who sincerely felt that the Lord had called him to some land… He worked, talked, wrote articles, visited and worked again, until he had some means of going, and he did not rest until he got there for he felt that was what the Lord wanted him to do. And his wife went with him, even if she had to do without innerspring mattresses, and had no electric stove to cook on.
But today it seems different. When I was in my homeland I found a number of young people who were interested in going to some field provided the brethren send them but there was no desire to put out any effort… The idea seemed to be… if they want me over there they can send me and my family [sic] with a good salary… and the time must not be over two or three years; we must not be thrust into the bush somewhere away from electric lights… But the main thing is that we must have the money… for it would not do to come back home a broken old man after a life spent in that land, and have no place to go and no one to care for me. No sir, the brethren know I am here and they can supply a plenty if they want me to go.
John Sherriff is pictured above holding baby Foy. Standing next to him (to his left) is his adopted daughter, Molly. Seated left to right: unknown elderly woman, Delia Short holding Sybil, Emma Sherriff, Theodora Sheriff and an unknown girl. Sherriff encouraged Will to take his small family to Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, to help one of his original African converts, Peter Masiya. Sherriff and Short made “one or two” exploratory trips to the region. Finally, government papers were approved for a mission at Sinde, about twenty miles from Livingstone and the Victoria Falls in Northern Rhodesia.
Starting Sinde Mission
Will Short went alone to Sinde to prepare the way for his family, arriving on March 20, 1923. He wrote briefly in his diary, “I hated to leave and Delia did not want to see me go, but it was necessary.” All evangelists who must leave their families can identify with those words. Upon his arrival, he found that Peter Masiya and African disciples converted by him had already cut poles for the construction of a house and prepared “a lovely vegetable garden all ready for use.” Will wrote, “I wish Delia and the babies were up here now!”
After trying to make the place at least barely habitable he sent word back to Bulawayo for his family to come to Sinde. They along with Molly Sherriff and two “colored” (mixed race) girls raised by the Sherriffs named Ella and Rhoda Bent, arrived at Senkobo Siding on July 4, 1923. Sybil recalled her parent’s story about their arrival.
I was a few months old when Mother took Foy and me by train from Bulawayo to join Daddy at Sinde Mission. Daddy met us at Senkobo Siding with a borrowed sledge equipped with a basket for hauling grain, pulled by yoked oxen and. He had lined the basket with quilts and pillows where Foy and I rode in comfort with the luggage while he and Mother walked alongside the sledge.
We traveled slowly on higher ground beside the old washed out roadbed that had eroded into deep ruts where sand was deep enough in places to bury the runners of a sledge. The lead-boy suddenly realized the sledge was too close to the rut and frantically tried to pull the oxen away from the edge while the driver and Daddy struggled in vain to hold the sledge upright. Mother watched in horror as the sledge tipped slowly on its side, spilling Foy, me and the luggage onto the sand. No one was hurt and the sledge was righted and reloaded and we reached the mission before dark.
Sinde Mission wasn’t an ideal place for Europeans to live. Eldred Echols described conditions in the late 1940’s
The area was unhealthy, especially for whites. It was low-lying and hot, and malaria was rife. The medical officer of the district, Dr. McGregor, wanted the mission closed because of the prevalence of disease, but it stayed open and the mission personal continued to be taken into the government hospital in Livingstone for treatment.
Will Short described some of his difficulties in his first report to Word and Work magazine.
We are nearly twenty miles from the post office and trading point, and eight miles from a siding on the railroad. No way yet for us to get bout [sic] anywhere, other than walking, (except that I have a bicycle). When we want anything from the town, it is either sent out on the train to the siding, and then carried out by natives, or the natives go the twenty miles to town and carry it from there. I hope to have it different, however, before long, if I can manage financially.
I did not have the house finished when wife and babies came out, but by degrees am getting it completed. Am trying to keep the expenses down as much as possible, by doing the work myself, (with native help), yet there is quite a bit of expense one way and another in getting up a house, school-house, etc. But these things must go up.
Sybil said of the temporary pole house her father built, “We lived in that while Daddy burned brick to make a brick house that took many months.” Though weighed down with the need for backbreaking work just to provide food and shelter, Will was elated with the prospects for spreading the gospel around Sinde.
Two young men [named Mubela and Nlonda according to his diary] were baptized in the name of Christ, Sunday Sept. 2nd. May they prove faithful unto the Master who bought them. Others are interested, and are being taught more. Over one hundred out to meetings on Sundays. This is very encouraging to us, compared to the few who were at meetings in Bulawayo. This makes nine baptisms since I came the first of April.
Will soon made friends with his African neighbors. When a troublesome lion began to kill livestock in the village, he set up an ambush to kill it. He wrote in his diary on October 1, 1923, “Staid [sic] up in the tree last night, but no lion came around. I got some sleep up on the platform, but was awake some, though I was depending on Peter D. to call me if he saw the lion.”
Childhood
Foy’s childhood memories of Sinde Mission and Kabanga Mission are dim, but his sister, Sybil, has several from stories their parents told from those early years. One thing that stands out in her mind is her mother’s efforts to protect her children from mosquito borne malaria. “Every evening when the sun went down, she gave us our baths and then she bandaged our arms, legs and feet to prevent mosquito bites during supper and family devotions. Once in bed under mosquito nets, bandages were removed and rolled up ready for the next evening. People in the States sent old sheets to tear up for bandages.” Foy is pictured as a toddler below on the left with Alex Claassen
In spite of Delia Short’s efforts, malaria affected every member of her family, especially her husband. They all took a daily dose of quinine, the only known medication known to control the effects of the disease at that time. Sybil tells how their parents gave it and other medicines to their own babies and other small children.
They mashed the pill in a spoon, put a little sugar and water with it and while one of them held the baby’s head and arms firmly, the other held its nose and poured the liquid into its mouth. The baby swallowed it because it had to swallow in order to breath. Giving them medicine was often a matter of life or death. I saw them give babies medicine like that and Mother said that was how they gave us quinine as babies. As soon as we were old enough they taught us to put the pill on the back of our tongue and gulp a lot of water to get it down quickly.
Foy remembered an occasion where his father became gravely ill with malaria at Sinde and was helped by an African evangelist, Kambole Matapamatenga whom his father loved deeply. Peter Masiya had converted Kambole.
One time when my dad had malaria, we had no transport. He needed to get my dad twenty miles to Livingstone to a hospital. They couldn’t get enough carriers to carry the litter. Kambole took the turn of two men and carried one end of the litter all twenty-five miles to Livingstone. He wasn’t very big but he must have been very strong.
Foy gained a useful tool during his childhood years among the Tongas of Northern Rhodesia, their language. Sybil said, “Foy could speak chiTonga quite fluently and sometimes translated for mother.” Foy wrote in an undated radio transcript probably from the late 1950’s, “We children spent a part of our time playing with the little black children, and learned to speak their language. We learned to make little clay oxen and cows and men for toys, just like the native children were so expert in doing. We even tried to like some of their favorite foods.” He then described trying unsuccessfully to learn to enjoy eating flying ants and locusts. Though he left the language when he was almost nine years old, he still remembered enough when he moved back into the area in the late 1940’s to be able to communicate with the tribesmen.
A few details about the Short’s early days in Sinde Mission come from Ella Clark Quinch, the young mixed race girl who along with her sister, Rhoda Bent, accompanied the Shorts from Forrest Vale Mission to Sinde. Ella, who along with her sister was raised by John Sherriff and his wife, spent about two years as an early teen with the Shorts at Sinde and came to have a deep love for them. Many years later, her daughter, Adele Margerison became very close to Foy and his wife, Margaret. Adele told Margaret several stories her mother told her about the Shorts. For example,
One Sunday at service Granny Short was not in a good mood and took no notice of what Sybil was up to and didn't stop her playing around or making a noise. She said Grandaddy Short stopped in the middle of his sermon, walked down and took Sybil out and spanked her, then brought her back and sat her next to Gran Short and then went back to his preaching.
Challenges for Foy’s Parents
Part of Will’s work at Sinde mission involved hiring and supervising African teachers. He had to farm so that his family could eat while he worked constantly on construction projects to improve the primitive facilities. When he found the time, usually during the dry season, he made forays into surrounding villages to preach. He wrote F.B. Shepherd in late 1924,
I am in bed again for a few days. I have been feeling very well for awhile, and by not trying to do any work to amount to much, I am able to keep going. Saturday, I suppose I lifted too much. Then Sunday, took a six-mile hike preaching at a village about three miles from here. Well, that finished me and I have been in bed since...”
The house is coming along very fine, only for lack of funds I am loosing up on it a bit until we get some money to buy more material. I am letting a number of boys go. We are in about as bad circumstances this year financially as we were last year. Have a little garden, a few chickens and are getting a little milk, very little, but some for the babies.
Ray Lawyer arrived to help the Shorts on March 6, 1925. Will wrote in his diary, “I was exceedingly glad to see him!” Delia, who loved conversation, was probably even happier to have someone else to talk to. Lawyer’s wife, Zelma, arrived shortly afterwards. The Lawyers were friends of the Shorts at Cordell Christian College and their arrival must have been a tremendous boost.
Lawyer wrote about a trip he and Will Short took into villages in the area.
We have just returned from a hundred and fifty mile journey among the natives. The weather had been extremely hot and dry... We visited a number of villages where we were told a white missionary had never been. We enjoyed the work except that at times our feet got pretty sore. Our riding mule slipped away and ran home so we had to walk for about seventy-five miles. Bro. Short limped along for the last few days but didn’t say much about it... There were only a few confessions but we had a good hearing at most of the villages. We are well pleased with the way we were received. Seed was sown for future harvest.
Will Short wrote of another 200 mile trip a few months later.
Just last week Brother Lawyer and myself returned from a two-weeks trip among the villages. We had a profitable trip, and one that we hope will bring honor and glory to God, and save many souls. Three stepped forward to show their faith in the Lord Jesus. We made over 200 miles, with the boys carrying our luggage. It is a great life to be out among people who have never heard of the Gospel plan of salvation, and who are eager to learn – learn anything. Out in the open, with our families at the Mission by themselves! We were out of communication with them for over a week. But we had a Comforter, the Lord himself, who cares for us all.
We saw the tracks of all kinds of deer, hyena, zebra, and lion—and crocodile! All these kept something exciting for us to talk about, as we tramped along one day after another. We had one mule for riding while the other carried a load. But the one mule gave us much rest, except where we had to leave it behind on account of the tsetse fly.
The Dow Merritt family arrived in August of 1926 to help the Shorts and Lawyers. The George Scott family arrived in 1927. Since there were now four families, they made plans to start a new mission to be called Kabanga about 70 miles northeast of Sinde. The original plans were for the Shorts to work with the George Scott family at Sinde, while the Merritts and Lawyers worked to establish the Kabanga Mission. The latter two families were building their homes while living in grass lean-tos on the new mission in late 1927, when Ray Lawyer was tragically killed in a freak accident. He stumbled and fell on a spear that he was carrying on a hunt. Relays of Africans carried him on a stretcher as quickly as possible to the rail line where he was transferred to Livingstone. However, in spite of the best efforts of Merritt, a medic during World War 1, Lawyer passed away a few days after his injury. He left a godly widow and a little band of shocked but still determined missionaries. Zelma Lawyer returned to the States in 1928 and taught many years at Abilene Christian College. She was especially close to Foy’s sisters, Sybil, Beth and Margaret, when they were at Abilene. She wrote a fictionalized account of her African experiences in 1943. Sybil maintained contact with Jean, the Lawyer’s daughter who lived in Portland, Oregon in 2009.
Though nothing in any published work hints of any friction among the families, Will Short’s diaries reveal that there were strains. He wrote in December of 1927,
Bro. Merritt came down for a talk. He said we could not work together but we do not see it that way. We are willing to overlook their mistakes and keep our hearts right. We pray God to help us and give us wisdom. Merritts had sorely misjudged us and already prejudged. We feel they see things in a different light now.
Such tension could be expected among families who had to work closely together in extremely remote areas. This one evidently resolved itself after a conversation between the affected parties.
Kabanga Mission 1928
Ray Lawyer’s death made Will Short decide to postpone a trip to the United States to move his family to Kabanga to help Dow Merritt. He didn’t want Merritt to be left holding the bag regarding Lawyer’s obligations to finish the house there and pay the workers. Kabanga was an even more remote mission than Sinde, “two and half days” on an oxcart from the nearest train stop. The Shorts worked there until their trip back to the United States in late 1928. Don Carlos Janes reported in January of 1928, “The Shorts are occupying the house Bro. Lawyer started at Kabanga, but without floors, doors or windows, and with unfinished roof. They keep the light burning at night and have the gun handy for intruding wild animals.” Short later wrote Janes that he was “snowed under here trying to get all this work done.”
Occasional boxes of goods sent from brethren in the United States brightened the lives of the families. Will Short wrote in his diary in January of 1928,
Boxes came from home. Children just jumped and squealed with delight. Foy’s blackboard was run over with the wagon, but did not render the board unfit for use. Foy can write a little in it now. And his tractor is quite a joy to him. Sybil was so happy she didn’t know what to do. Her sleeping doll is so nice. She is afraid she will break it as she broke the other small one. She said, “Momma put my dollie up. I do not want to break it.” …Beth also received a sleeping doll and both girls a little trunk of doll clothes each. Delia received some pans, dresses, etc. I received a [illegible], a flashlight and a few small articles. All very useful and we are thankful for all. God is very merciful to us and gives us blessings far beyond what we are worthy of, what we ask and even what we think.
At Kabanga as well as all rural missions, the Shorts had to keep an eye out for dangerous animals. Sybil recalled,
I was nearly six when Mother was busy sewing and said I could make a cake. I was standing at the kitchen door beating the eggs with a fork when a movement on the top step caught my eye at the same time I heard the yard worker crying, “Tijana!” (run) I saw a large snake crawling onto the verandah and dropped the bowl with a crash and ran screaming to Mother. I managed to say “SNAKE!” and she hurried to the door and saw that the African had killed the snake with his hoe.
Short reported in 1928 that he had made a 280-mile trip to preach in villages. He walked 180 of those miles and was able to surprise his good friend, George Scott, at Sinde mission where he posted some letters. He added, “I am getting anxious to get back home, but I have a long way to go yet. There are over a hundred miles (just guessing) to be traveled before I get back and by going about among the native villages it will take a good deal of time.”
Though always optimistic in his official reports about such expeditions, Will’s diary revealed a little more of his inner feelings when he set out on them.