A number of years ago, the missionary Catherine Rew did an oral history with her daughter Kathryn Rew Van’t-Wout. This is part three of the transcript. Part one is here and part two here. See here for a biography of Catherine. I have added explanatory information in square brackets [like this].

Well, I finished teacher’s training and went to teach in Bishoptown, which is quite near Renfrew. I didn’t know where I would go as a missionary, but Isobel Rew told me her Uncle was coming from the Belgium Congo. He told of the need for teachers in the Belgium Congo, but I didn’t really want to go to the Belgium Congo because that was where Mr and Mrs Knox were missionaries. I didn’t want my mother to think I was just going out to be where they were.

I went to a WEC [Worldwide Evangelisation Crusade] missionary conference after I had been at a Scripture Union camp and there was a missionary speaking from the Belgium Congo. She spoke about the need there and I asked the LORD if that was where He wanted me to go. He said, “Yes.” So, that was definitely the Belgium Congo.

Isabel’s Uncle said I should go to Belgium to study French and to get a diploma for teaching in Belgium Congo. I prepared to do that but I didn’t know where in Belgium Congo I would be going. When the Echoes magazine [missionary publication of the Brethren Assemblies] came there was a letter in it from Gordon Jones from Katoka and he spoke about the need for a teacher for the school at Katoka. I asked the LORD if He wanted me to go there. I opened the Scripture Union reading for the day and in it David asked the LORD if He wanted Him to go to, I think it was, Hebron. The LORD said yes. So that was the word I had from the LORD that I should go to Katoka. I went to Belgium. I studied but I didn’t pass the law part of the exam so I had to go out to Belgium Congo without getting the degree and the certificate. 

So I went out with Margaret and Gordon Jones, Isabel Rew’s cousin and her husband and 2 children. When we got to Elizabethville, there were Mr and Mrs Rew and William, or your Dad. That was 1950 Mr and Mrs Rew had gone to Lubumbashi in 1946. Dad had gone to school there and then he left. He had been helping to build Restawhile so when I arrived with Margaret and Gordon, there was a nurse coming out to Katoka as well and another nurse going up to Masamba. And they slept in the visitors’ room at Restawhile. That was the first time it was used. The visitors’ room was ready and the toilet for the visitor’s room was ready and we slept there. The rest of the house wasn’t finished for living in though it was almost ready, there was no furniture in it yet. So at the end of the week, Gordon Jones and I went on the train to Katoka. Margaret and Gordon had 2 children and Margaret stayed on in Elizabethville for Lesley’s birth. Lesley was born at the end of October, just imagine travelling. She arrived in Elizabethville on the 8^th of October and he was born on I think it was the 30^th October. Just imagine travelling within a fortnight of the birth of a child.

I left home on the 13^th September 1950 and left London by boat on the 15^th September and arrived at Katoka on the 15^th October. It took a whole month to get from London to our mission station. That was going by boat to Capetown and by train up to Elizabethville and then by train to Kahundu. So it just shows you, now it takes an overnight from Zambia to London. So that took a month from London to our mission station.

Did your mum and dad come to the point where they were happy about you going out as a missionary?

Mum and dad weren’t happy about me going as a missionary because they thought I wasn’t strong enough, not for religious reasons. Oh, I forgot to tell you, when I was still at teachers’ training college, a friend of mine who was Church of England, she was ordained or whatever they do in the church of England. So I asked my Mum if I had been christened as a baby so she said no, they decided that they would wait till we knew what we wanted to do. So, of course, when I was about 18 and wanted to be baptized and go into Albert Hall Assembly [Brethren Church] they couldn’t say anything about it because they had said I could do what I wanted to do and I knew what to do, so I was baptized with 3 of my friends in April  when I was 18. I think I was 18. When we got to Kasaji, Kathleen Dalton was there with 3 of her children. She joined us for the last 60 miles of the journey to Katoka. So when I arrived at Kahundu Gare, Dudley Dalton was there to meet us and I was taken to the house which eventually became my home.

Were the Daltons missionaries at Katoka then?

Yes, the Daltons and Margaret and Gordon were all missionaries at Katoka but Dudley and Kathleen built the house at Dilolo Gare so they looked after the western side of the work. When William’s dad went to Elizabethville, the Daltons and the Joneses stayed to carry on the work at Katoka. When I came out Dudley’s brother had come out and they wanted to go to Tanganyika so when I had been out for 3 years in’53, Dudley and his brother went off to Tanganyika to find a place where they could start the work. Kathleen stayed at Katoka with us. Vera Peggler, the nurse who came out, travelled out with me. She had got the Belgian colonial course, the medical one for tropical diseases, so she was accepted for the dispensary- so the government built a dispensary at Katoka and she started up the official medical work. And then in 1952, the government had given money also for a maternity so Dad arrived there for Christmas ’51 and in ’52 he started making bricks and started preparing to build a maternity. So he worked there. Miss Carson was a teacher who worked there. Not a trained teacher but she taught the girls and then in ’52 she was bitten by a dog and died of rabies, so there was just the Joneses and Vera, your Dad doing the maternity and me.

The final part will posted next Wednesday.

Katie Barclay’s dad is in the picture above. She is a historian at Queen’s University, Belfast.