1960s
Missionary
Tucker martyred in the Congo
As in the 1940s
during World War II, the turbulent 1960s brought danger and death
to our missionaries and nationals trying to carry out the Great
Commission. One of these was missionary J.W. Tucker, who was in
his fifth term in the Congo (later Zaire, now Democratic Republic
of Congo) when he was killed. Tucker’s widow, Angeline,
returned to Springfield, Mo., with her three children. She told
their experiences in the book He Is in Heaven. She died in 1976. These excerpts are from a story
published in the December 20, 1964, issue of the Evangel.
Another courageous
soldier of the cross has fallen on a foreign battlefield. Joseph
W. Tucker, 49-year-old Assemblies of God missionary, was brutally
beaten to death by Congo rebels on Tuesday, November 24, in the
pitiless massacre that wiped out scores of white people and hundreds
of Congolese, stunning the free world.
“J.W.,”
as Brother Tucker was known to his friends, was among an estimated
60 Europeans and Americans who were herded into the Dominican
mission at Paulis to receive cruel beatings on the eve of the
Belgian paratroopers’ rescue operation. Survivors said the
rebels used “clubs and bottles against their victims who
had their hands tied behind them.” Their bodies reportedly
were thrown into the crocodile-infested river.
We are reminded of
Psalm 74:20, which says, “The dark places of the earth are
full of the habitations of cruelty.” All our missionaries
are well aware of this fact. They are not surprised when unsaved
men behave like savages. They realize these people do not know
Christ; that is why the missionaries went to Paulis — to
carry Light to the dark places; to turn men from hatred to kindness;
to teach the gospel of Him who, in the midst of torture, prayed
for His murderers, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do.”
Our missionaries, faced
so often with difficult situations, unfriendliness and danger
have demonstrated that Christian love suffers long and is kind;
that it beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
endureth all things. Many Congolese have responded to that love
in the past and we are persuaded that more will respond in the
future. The sacrifices of the missionaries shall not have been
in vain.
The other six members
of our missionary staff in Paulis were evacuated safely to Leopoldville
by air. They are: Mrs. Tucker and the three Tucker children, Johnny,
18, Carol Lynne, 13, and Melvin Paul, 11; and two lady missionaries,
Miss Gail Winters of Gooding, Idaho, and Miss Lillian Hogan of
Fort William, Ontario, Canada.
Sister Winters and
Sister Hogan returned to Paulis, one of the larger cities in the
Congo, in 1962 when the strife and the struggle for power that
followed Congo’s independence had calmed sufficiently. They
were joined late in August 1964 by the Tucker family who were
beginning their fifth term of missionary service in that country.
Less than a week later, rebel Congolese troops suddenly seized
Paulis and the missionaries were completely cut off from the outside
world.
Our Fellowship has
lost one of its finest missionaries. J.W. Tucker was saved in
Russellville, Ark., at the age of 13. After finishing high school
he attended Southwestern Bible School at Enid, Okla. (which later
moved to Waxahachie, Texas), graduating in 1937. He engaged in
rescue mission work and evangelistic ministry in the U.S. until
1939 when he went to the Congo.
