Autobiography of Betty Warhanik

Date: 10 Aug 1914 to May 2007
Location: [unknown]
Surname/tag: Warhanik

BETTY WARHANIK’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

1. Birth and Family Background.

I was born August 10, 1914, in Seattle, Washington, USA, and named Elizabeth Virginia Warhanik, but I was called Betty. My father was a Christian doctor. My mother was a former missionary to Japan, where she taught in a large girl’s school in Tokyo for five years. She had two brothers and a sister who were missionaries in Korea for many years. They were all influences in my early life. There were three of us children; one older brother and one younger sister who was very close to me all of her life.

2. My Education.

After eight years in primary school, and four years in secondary school I spent five years at the University of Washington in Seattle and even took some classes to prepare me for missionary life. I majored, however, in Painting and Design because that was my special talent. Later I made sketches of Ethiopia and Nigeria for my Christmas cards that I sent home every year. I also illustrated a book on Ethiopia, called “The Doors Were Opened,” published by SIM.

3. My Spiritual Beginnings.

Although, I was brought up in a Christian home, I did not realize my need to definitely take Jesus into my heart, until age 16 when I attended a large Bible Conference. A year later I dedicated my life to the missionary call. Then I taught for four years in a regular government school, but I was looking forward to the day when I could get more Bible training. Finally, I was able to go to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and graduated two years later. Then I applied to Sudan Interior Mission to go wherever they sent me.

4. My Call and Travel to Ethiopia.

Ethiopia had just been set free from Mussolini’s dream of an African empire. Before the Italians left, however, they killed as many of the educated class as possible before they were driven out. Therefore, the Ethiopian government asked SIM to send doctors, nurses, and teachers to fill needy jobs. So I was asked by my mission to teach in Addis Ababa lent to the government for a certain time. There were three of us assigned to Ethiopia, a nurse, Golda Mae Beggs, and two teachers, Esther Fancher, and myself. We met for the first time in our SIM New York home, and we did our last minute packing together as we expected to be away for five years before a furlough.

On April 24, 1944, we boarded our neutral ship for Portugal, and stowed our few belongings in our cabin. Most of our goods had been shipped ahead of us in barrels, so I had only three pieces, one suitcase, one duffle bag, and a big accordion.

The Laurenço Marques Ship had some sixty missionaries on board, as in wartime, we were all trying to reach various parts of Europe, Africa, and even Asia. The ship had the name PORTUGAL painted in huge letters on its side, and at night, spelled out in lights strung above the deck, as German submarines roamed the Atlantic Ocean.

Later we heard that our ship, on its return voyage to America, was stopped by a German submarine and all ordered into lifeboats in a stormy sea. Then after a few passengers were taken off, the rest were allowed to proceed on their way!

We all suffered for a few days from seasickness, as a storm forced them to fasten the dining room chairs to the floor and put rims around the tables, but we all eventually enjoyed sunny weather and made it to Portugal.

However, our journey to Ethiopia took us five months because the war prevented us from going directly through the Mediterranean Sea, so we traveled down the Africa coast and up the Congo River and overland to Ethiopia by every method of travel possible. The police confiscated my camera so I bought a set of water colors and sketch pad to record my memories. We began our journey up the Congo River for two weeks on a stern wheeler steam boat. Then we rented a van with a driver who took us through Belgium Congo forest to Juba, on the banks of the White Nile River. From here we flew by plane to Khartoum in Sudan in the midst of a hot sandy desert, where the White Nile and Blue Nile converged into one big river. After a short time there, we left on the next part of our journey going by narrow gauge railway to Eritrea. From there we climbed onto the loaded Italian truck, and made our way for six days over mountains and valley toward our final destination Addis Ababa where we arrived on the biggest holiday of the year, Meskel Day! People were dancing in the streets, and it seemed they were happy we arrived at last!

Memories included watching for crocodiles and hippopotamus on the sand bars in the Congo River. Having our riverboat scrape bottom every so often and seeing how they got it off by tying a rope from a winch on the front of the boat to a tree on land; losing a purse with my passport and ticket off the back of my bicycle carrier in Leopoldville and miraculously finding it again; and painting water color scenes of our trip up the Congo as we stopped nightly to take on piles of wood for our steam boat.

5. My First SIM School and Clinic.

Now after two years teaching in four secondary schools in Addis Ababa I was released to the SIM mission. However, after school hours I had the privilege of offering an Amharic New Testament to any student who memorized a certain list of Bible verses and many students received a prized New Testament. (Many years later I met a government official in Northern Ethiopia who told me he had received a New Testament from me.) I was then asked to go south to our mission station far away and I left with a couple, Homer and Miriam Wilson first by truck and then by 24 mules with our loads on their backs. I was told to start a primary school in Dubancho Village where the first believers lived. After living in fear of demons all their lives, two of them had been converted by the earliest missionaries, but now when we came back we found forty small churches of eager Christians that were very untaught.

In Dubancho Village the Christians had built a huge circular building with a coned thatched roof like their houses, and this is where I held my first classes from 6:00 to 8:00 every morning. I shall never forget, on the inside walls of the church, was painted a crude picture of Jesus holding out His arms, and the words underneath in Amharic, “Jesus cleanses us from all sin,” printed in colored clay. My students were children of all ages up to even grandparents, for everyone wanted to learn to read the Bible which was printed only in Amharic the official language. Most of these tribal people knew only their own simple language, so I employed a town boy to teach me Amharic, Defar Tafesse, who became my very first convert, and later became a fine Christian leader.

Besides learning Amharic I spent my afternoons as the only nurse on the station, and I did what I could, mostly with aspirin pills and sulfa powder. Sometimes Homer Wilson accompanied me on our cases which were far away and all of our traveling was done on horseback. Later a real nurse came to help me, Fiona MacLuckie.

6. My First Real School.

After two years I was assigned to a regular schoolhouse in nearby Bobicho with three rooms and desks and a tin roof building, and began with grades three to six. The church elders sent me about 70 boys who had passed their first reading skills in small outlying church schools. (The girls were taught separately with their own teacher.) Now I was in charge of about 5-6 Ethiopian teachers with programmed classes and regular books. My boys lived in two large cone-shaped dormitories and most of them went home every weekend to get their supplies which consisted mostly of grain.

7. Other Schools over the years.

All together I taught 33 years in Ethiopia being moved to several different areas. In every school where I taught I offered an Amharic Bible in connection with learning Bible verses and many students earned a prized Bible. One of my last schools was Dangilla in the far north of Ethiopia and my star pupil was Yenagu Dessie who was so intelligent she earned a place, first in the government secondary school, and then finally a place in the Addis Ababa University.

Once while working in Dangilla, I was privileged to talk with the Emperor Haile Silassie as his line of cars visited northern Ethiopia, and he stopped to question me for a few minutes from his car window, even taking notes.

In 1974 the Emperor was overthrown and the country of Ethiopia was taken over by the communists. At that time in 1977 most of the missionaries had to leave the country and for 17 years the communists ruled. I had been in Ethiopia now for 30 years and sadly left with a heavy heart.

8. Teaching in Nigeria.

In the meantime, after a short furlough at home in the USA, I applied for a job under SIM to teach in Nigeria and was sent to Kwoi, lent to the government where I taught in a large all girl’s secondary school of about 1,000. My assignment was called “CRK” Christian Religious Knowledge. What a privilege to be able to freely teach the Word of God.

9. In Retrospect.

In Ethiopia and Nigeria today there are hundreds of large and small churches some of them with missionaries they are sending out literally to the ends of the earth. Truly as the Psalmist says in Psalm 68:31 “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God!”

10. My Retirement.

After teaching four years in Nigeria, I retired to my country and home in Seattle, Washington, where Yenagu visited me twice and we have kept in contact through the years. God has graciously led me into many other activities where I could use my teaching skills and also be a missionary. First, I taught English as a Second Language (ESL) for about three years at a community college where I met many foreign students and could privately speak of my Savior. I also joined a pottery class where I could use my artistic ability and enjoy fellowship with many like-minded friends. But my greatest enjoyment has been teaching the Bible in a Ladies Bible Class at my church for many years until I had to give it up to a very competent teacher.

And I have contact with many Ethiopians these days. Sometimes on special occasions I attend one of the two churches here in Seattle and enjoy their spicy food. Also, many Ethiopians work in retirement homes here, and when I say “Hello” to them in their language their faces light up and they start taking to me in Amharic. Then I give them a Bible message in their language and they gladly receive it.

Now at age 92, I am having wonderful memories of God’s goodness to me as I look forward to a life forever in the presence of my Lord Jesus Christ. I thank God for leading me every step-by- step of the way and give Him the glory.

Betty Warhanik,

May, 2007