The Parable of the Spider Plant
God’s faithfulness and the RPC mission
to Ethiopia 1963-1975+
This is a story about an Australian school teacher, a Co Down farmer, a long boat journey to Ethiopia, language study, three children, schools, clinics, chickens, chess sets, two famines, a revolution, a civil war and a spider plant. Sort of in that order.
In 1958 Phemie McConaghy left her teaching job in Melbourne and set off on a ship to Northern Ireland, her father’s birthplace, the origin of the RPC in Australia and of Rev W.R. McEwan her pastor in McKinnon whom she respected very much. She planned to work there a while as a teacher and maybe make her way home by a different route. This is where the plans took a strange twist. She married the Irish Covenanters’ most eligible bachelor (her words) – Sam Cromie from Rathfriland and joined him in his mission work in Dublin.
The second strange twist was God’s call for the young couple to lead a foreign mission to Tigray province in Ethiopia. Their first son, John, celebrated his 2nd birthday on a ship in the Red Sea on route to Ethiopia in 1963. Sam and Phemie spent the next year and a half in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, learning the national language - Amharic. As well as deciding where exactly to locate the mission and adding two more children to their family – my sister, Helen, and myself (Sam Jnr). They set up their HQ in Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, 3000m above sea level in the Ethiopian highlands. The local governor was very keen to benefit from the mission’s expertise in agriculture, education and health. A second station was set up in Sheket, a small village 60km east and 1000m lower where the mountains drop sharply to the Danakil desert below sea level. By that stage, other missionaries were joining the team: Henrietta Gardener (previously a missionary in Lebanon), Norma Gill from Scotland, Phyllis Gilmore, Ronnie Loughridge from Belfast. Others arrived later: Tony & Norma McKeeman, Ray & Heather Morton from Canada, Jean McMahon (nee Pollock), Helene Parks (nee Gregg), Bob Hemphill from Philadelphia.
The majority religion in Ethiopia is Ethiopian Orthodox but there were two small evangelical groups in Mekelle. The strategy of the mission was not primarily or initially to set up an RPC in Ethiopia but to support the growing local church while also addressing material and development needs – education, employment & healthcare. The mission supported the local churches with a men’s Bible study, women’s Bible study, Sunday evening meeting with translation, religious education in the school and a Christian bookshop in the centre of Mekelle.
The mission ran a clinic in Sheket and a school in both locations. Mum ran the school in Mekelle, training up local teachers. Dad somehow managed to negotiate a consignment of dozens of ‘day-old’ chicks flown in from Israel to enhance the local poultry stock. These formed the basis of a poultry farm, introducing new breeds and rearing practices to the country. A wood-workshop provided employment for people with disabilities; it sold souvenirs and Ethiopian-themed chess sets locally and abroad, even in Hamley’s of London. The bookshop provided employment for a young man called Kifle, whose ability as a shopkeeper and Christian character outshone his physical disabilities from childhood polio.
Dad instilled a servant attitude in the mission – the objective was to serve and empower the local church and community, not to dominate or impose foreign norms. He had a heart for those left behind or outcast – the ill, the disabled, the destitute, respected them as God’s image-bearers and sought to empower them. This even extended to the chickens – the deaf, blind or slow of which were brought home for us to nurture as pets. They joined the dogs, tortoises, guinea pigs and beleaguered lovebirds in our eclectic menagerie.
In 1971-73 the annual rains were poor, triggering a major famine in Tigray and its neighbouring provinces. Communications were not as they were now and word was slow getting out to the rest of the world. The Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie was preparing to celebrate his eightieth birthday, his administration reportedly spending $35m on it while keeping news of the famine away from foreign journalists so as not to distract from the celebrations. Horrific scenes unfolded in Mekelle as thousands of starving descended from the surrounding countryside seeking food from overwhelmed feeding stations. The mission was one of the early voices trying to alert the UK media about the famine and was active in famine relief programme
The famine, and the role of Haile Selassie’s administration in it, was the straw that broke the camel’s back for many Ethiopians weary of the slow pace of change in the feudal system. Communism was an enticing alternative, promising an equitable distribution of resources. The coup of 1974 brought the communist Derg regime to power, triggering a bloody civil war. The mission could no longer operate either safely or effectively. In 1975, with much reluctance, the mission took the decision to withdraw from Ethiopia
The mission gave the bookshop over to Kifle so he could continue to support himself. Mebrat, one of the teachers in the school, continued to use the training the mission had funded to set up a nursery school. During the 18 long dark years of the Derg regime, Kifle kept the shop going. He could not run it as a Christian bookshop as the Derg were violently anti-Christian, but it was nevertheless a hub for the Christian community. Indeed Kifle became the key point of liaison between the RP mission and the believers in Mekelle. Dad kept up extensive correspondence with him, channelling Bible study materials, Bibles, and money from the foreign mission and relief fund to those who needed it through Kifle. Kifle, in turn, kept the mission informed of the work of the gospel as well as the challenges of life under the oppressive Derg regime. Of the young believers involved with the mission, some were imprisoned on trumped-up charges, some fled abroad as refugees and others were shot in the ongoing civil war. These were dark years in Ethiopia, but they were about to get a lot worse.
The horrors of the famine of the early seventies returned with a vengeance in 1984. A decade later, the ingredients were the same – failed harvests and a regime focussed on celebrating their 10 years in power. But it was worse – the regime was not merely indifferent but actively exploited the famine by only feeding people in rebel areas if they agreed to be re-located in the south of the country, diffusing the threat. Meanwhile rebel forces, not trusted by aid agencies and governments, held much of Tigray; little aid was directed there. Dad, with his contacts in the area, was able to find a channel to route aid from the church’s relief fund into this part of the country via REST - the Relief Society of Tigray, the only relief organisation working there. Many years later, an insider account[1] of the Tigrayan stuggle against both the Derg regime and famine, gratefully documents the few organisations that contributed to the work of REST, including “the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland and Ireland”. The Derg regime was eventually overthrown in 1991.
During the years since they returned in 1974, Dad & Mum often pondered what the mission had achieved. They were able to keep in touch with individuals, but the overall impact of the mission was often uncertain, something they had to leave in God’s hands. They never got to visit Ethiopia again. Dad died in 2014.
Eventually, in 2015, I was able to visit Ethiopia with my family. We visited a large church in Mekelle – which had once been one of the small churches that my parents worked with. Several members of Dad’s Bible study group for young men are now leaders. I also found Kifle & his family still at the hub of the local Christian community.
The most moving part of our visit was a stop off in the town of Adua near the Eritrean border. There we met another of Dad’s Bible study group - Meresa Paulos. Meresa is the leader of the evangelical church in Adua. It has been meeting in an outhouse on his property for years, but he took us on a tour of the new church they are building. He was overcome with emotion when he met us and declared, “this is Mr Cromie’s church” such was his gratitude for the teaching he had received from Dad. No doubt if Dad were there, he would not have taken the credit but passed it on to God.
We met Mebrat, who had taken over the school from Mum. She was running a fleet of kindergartens in Mekelle. She proudly showed me a spider plant – still thriving well – that Mum had given her on her departure. That spider plant is a strong symbol of God’s kingdom. Despite war and civil war and persecution and famine, God has been building his kingdom in Tigray. The RP Mission, in His wisdom, played a part in this.
In November 2020, civil war has again broken out in Tigray after 19 years of internal peace. As I write, Mekelle is under attack by Ethiopian federal forces fighting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. On a human level this is very distressing for those of us who know and love Tigray and its people, we are also deeply concerned for Kifle, Mebrat, Meresa and others who we know living there. But, it is a comfort to know that the same God is still with them, and is still building his kingdom.
Please pray for the people of Tigray – for peace and the advance of God’s Kingdom.
[1] Tigrai : The Agony and the Ecstasy, Inquai, Solomon; Published by Berhanena Selam Printing, n.p. [Ethiopia], 2007
