Feature

To Live Is Christ

Rev. Moise Mamy was devoted to His Savior

By Melinda Smith Lane

It was a program that harbored inherent risks, but Rev. Moise Mamy had long ago accepted the reality that danger often accompanies calling.

The Eau de Vie Ebola education project that Moise had undertaken involved visiting remote villages in Guinea and teaching people how to use bleach and frequent hand washing to help prevent the spread of the deadly virus, which has, of this printing, claimed the lives of around 2,800 in West Africa.

According to Jon Erickson, Moise’s friend and colleague at Hope Clinic, most villages received the team well. Even in Womey, where the Eau de Vie team had traveled with a government delegation on September 16, the group of doctors, educators, journalists and pastors were able to present the information without interruption.

Yves, a resident of Womey, told the U.K. Guardian that the trouble didn’t start until after the presentation. “The meeting started off well; the traditional chiefs welcomed the delegation with 10 kola nuts as a traditional greeting,” he said. “It was afterwards that some youths came out and started stoning them . . .”

As a result, Moise and six or seven others were killed. “The Father gave my friend a great honor: to die helping people,” wrote Jon in an e-mail tribute the day the bodies were recovered.

While Moise was committed to helping others, often in extraordinary ways, his deepest passion was evangelism—telling those in his family, village and district about the love of Jesus and presenting clearly the plan of salvation. After he and his wife, Nowei, became Christians in the 1980s, Moise immediately chopped down the tree that his parents, siblings and extended family used in the spirit worship practiced by the Mano, Moise’s people group. “There had been other believers among the Mano before him, but never anyone so brave and bold as to go against family traditions and tribal culture,” Jon wrote.

When Moise became sick after refusing to participate in his sisters’ adult initiation ritual, his father was convinced that if his son would just repent to the spirits of departed relatives, he would recover. “Let me die,” Moise responded. “I will go to my God, but I will never ask forgiveness from the ancestors.”

Though his father and mother eventually followed Jesus after seeing Moise and Nowei’s faith lived out in the village, others never ceased their persecution. Jon recounts that one day, while he, a fellow missionary and Moise were holding a children’s service, members of the devil society decided to kill them. For an hour, the group threw bricks, stones and sticks at the three. After every shot missed its target, “they realized that angels were protecting us and quit.” Moise preached at their attackers for the entire hour, telling them to repent and come to Jesus.

A devoted husband and father, he and Nowei raised five children in a loving Christian home. One of his sons, Amos, is now a student at West Africa Alliance Seminary in Côte d’Ivoire. Nowei and Moise’s youngest child, Marie, will be married in December. Jim and Dawn Anderson, serving in Guinea with Missionary Church Association, wrote that Moise zealously spoke to villagers about educating their children—most importantly, their daughters. “Many of you think that girls are only good for cooking and having babies, but that is not true,” Moise told the elders. “Please send them to school.” He and Jon established three Christian educational facilities.

Moise was also the cofounder of Hope Clinic, a CAMA-administrated medical center, in N’Zao, Guinea. Although he disliked the sight of blood, he learned the art of tooth extraction well enough to participate in dental outreaches in Guinea and neighboring Burkina Faso.

But evangelism was Moise’s calling. Over a span of nearly 25 years, he and Jon planted many Alliance churches among the Mano, and Moise became president of the Alliance Mano Church. He jumped at every chance to serve others in order to show the love of Jesus to people who often reacted out of fear. At least one of the churches was destroyed by an angry mob, and several pastors did not have the courage to stand firm when their faith was challenged.

Moise, however, never wavered in his fearless enthusiasm for Christ. Years ago, he wrote an article for Alliance Life about his faith journey (“It Will Cost Your Life,” January 2008). Because the then-small audience of the magazine comprised older Christians and retired official workers, the last paragraph was deemed “preaching to the choir” and was left out. However, it is an example of Moise’s desire to never pass up a chance to spread the gospel:

Dear readers, all you have just read did not happen with my own strength, but it is the power of God that brought these miracles in my life. For you also, if you listen to His voice, God will do great things in your life. You need to listen to HIS WORD and follow what HE says. He is the only one who can change a man’s life. Jesus is both our shepherd and our life (John 10:27–28). Answer to His call. May God bless you and help you to understand His ways and to receive Him as your Savior and Lord.