ANNA MARIA – Roser Memorial Community Church Communications Director Bev Hunsberger spent most of her first 21 years living in South Africa.
Hunsberger’s parents, Lewis and Virginia Wood, served as missionaries for 25 years.
On Jan. 17, Hunsberger shared memories, photos and the story of her parents’ missionary work while addressing the JOY (Just Older Youths) group of senior citizens that meets in the Fellowship Hall the first and third Wednesday of each month at 11:30 a.m.
Sponsored by the South Baptist Church in Lansing, Michigan, Virginia and Lewis boarded a freighter in 1943 and headed for Durban, Africa. In 1955, their daughter, Bev, was born in Port Shepstone, South Africa.
During their time in South Africa, the Woods planted crops and taught at a large Bible college. While living in Johannesburg, they published and distributed a Christian magazine. Lewis was field director for the Africa Evangelical Fellowship’s south region – a position that required travel, which Lewis often did aboard a small airplane he piloted himself.
Hunsberger read excerpts from her mother’s unpublished memoir, “From Fire to Oblivion.” One excerpt detailed the family’s time living in a mud and brick hut while supervising a small clinic. Another details daily life among the Zulu people.
Hunsberger talked about her parents learning to communicate in the Bantu language that entails clicking one’s tongue, a language her father soon mastered.
“The Zulu people thought my dad was amazing because he spoke like a Zulu,” she said.
The family also befriended a 13-year-old orphan named Gladys, for whom they provided housing, food, uniforms and a few shillings in exchange for assistance around the family’s home.
At one point during her presentation, Hunsberger affectionately held an all-purpose, cane-like, native wooden stick her father carried for many years.
FOND MEMORIES
When asked what she remembers about life in South Africa, Bev said, “That was my home. I just loved it. I went to school and my best friend carried monkeys around with her.
“As missionaries, we came back to America every five years. When I was five, 10 and 15, we came back to America for a year. Every five years you had to report back. They call it deputation. You go around to the churches that support you and report what you’re doing.”
Bev was asked if she experienced culture shock during her return trips to America.
“Yes, definitely. In South African schools, the boys and girls were separated. In America, it was so different. We looked at it as a year off. In South Africa, the schools were under a British system and we were way ahead academically.”
Hunsberger left South Africa when she was 21. She still holds dual citizenship but has only returned once since leaving.
“I’d be terrified to go back there now because it’s so dangerous,” she said.
Her parents returned to Lansing in 1979 to help care for Virginia’s aging parents. Lewis continued working full-time at the South Baptist Church until 1996 and then worked part-time for another four years. In 2004, they moved to a retirement community in Grand Rapids. Lewis passed away on Jan. 22, 2022. Virginia passed away soon after, on March 6, the couple’s 72nd wedding anniversary.
MORE MEMORIES
Hunsberger’s presentation stirred many memories and a few days later she shared more memories of her South African travels.
“Even though we were dirt poor, dad would always pack up a tent and we’d go camping in the wild, hiking in the mountains with monkeys screeching at us from the trees, seeing zebra and springbok along the way. We camped in Kruger National Park, where we would hear the lions roaring around us, with guards and a fire to keep them from coming closer. We would drive around the park and see cheetahs, rhinos, hippos, crocodiles, giraffes, hyenas, monkeys, baboons and snakes. The scariest thing to me was the elephants that would cross the road in a herd, with the babies all around our car.
“We traveled through Zimbabwe to my favorite wonder of the world: Victoria Falls, with its thunderous roar of water and the magnificent rainforest. We saw the Zimbabwe ruins, the Baobab trees and huge ant hills. We went to the goldmine and the diamond mines. We went through Southwest Africa and saw the desert full of rose quartz that we could just pick up. We went to the whaling station in Walvis Bay where they would harvest whales and bring them in to make countless products from their blubber, including ice cream. It was a very exciting childhood. I always felt that we were rich and I always felt very blessed,” she said.
