Return to Africa

Return to Africa - a Journal

Return to Africa - a Journal by Esther Megill reads alternately like a journal, a travelogue, a geography lesson, a history lesson, a staff report, and personal letters written home. It is all of these. Even stronger is the feeling that on that journey, the author is "going back home" to countries, a continent, and peoples she grew to love years earlier, and continues to love.

As one reader of the manuscript commented, Return to Africa is an historical account of this period in time (1968-1980 and 1989-90) in several countries and churches in Africa. It is an account (rich with photographs) that might otherwise have been lost.

Part One covers staff work visits to Algeria and Tunisia in North Africa, including carefully documented background and current information on each area, and the Christian Mission in those countries. The following chapters provide the author's introduction to United Methodist work in Nigeria., and Liberia, and a return to Sierra Leone where she had previously served as a missionary.

Part Two focuses on Ghana . In addition to valuable information on the country, the author tells of her own experience of teaching Christian Education at Trinity Theological College in Legon from 1973-1980.

Part Three. In 1989, after retirement from work in the North Mississippi Conference of The United Methodist Church the author returned to Africa for a year of volunteer work - including a trip "home" to Sierra Leone for a few months of teaching, followed by working visits to Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia and Kenya. A stop in Egypt before she continued her trip around the world completed her "Return to Africa." Come aboard for the journey!

-Elaine Gasser