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Carlson Bridges Recalls Life of Martyred Husband
By Craig Pinley
CHICAGO, IL (July 19, 2003) - There are days when Lois Carlson Bridges wonders
what the recent fuss is all about - after all, she says it seems like a
whole lifetime ago that her first husband died.
But Paul Carlson, wasn't an ordinary person - he was a Covenant
missionary doctor martyred November 24, 1964 by rebel soldiers while
serving as a doctor in what is now known as Congo. His story became
front-page news in "Time" and "Life" magazines and the doctor's death
gave the world a glimpse of the kinds of sacrifice many made in the
mission field.
The ECC wants to remember Carlson's life and death and plans are
underway to highlight the Paul Carlson Foundation at the 2004 Annual
Meeting of the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) next June in
Minneapolis, 40 years after Paul's tragic death. Although the renewed
interest was a surprise to Paul's widow, she's glad that the Covenant is
honoring him in such a special way.
"I was really surprised about the resurgence of interest in Paul
Carlson," said Carlson Bridges in an interview earlier this year. "I
went to the 2002 Pacific Southwest Conference annual meeting and was
walking through the display area and all of a sudden there's the "Life"
magazine with Paul's picture on the front. I didn't realize the interest
(ECC president) Glenn Palmberg had in it."
Lois Carlson Bridges now lives in the San Diego suburb in University
City, near her daughter Lynnette. She is active as a volunteer at
Clairemont Covenant Church in San Diego and also works for local
elections as a registrar.
In July 1963, the Carlsons traveled to the then - Republic of Congo,
where Paul was to be in charge of a mission station at Wasolo in the
Ubangi. At that time, political turmoil was rampant in Congo.
In mid-September of 1964, Paul was seized by rebel soldiers at the
hospital in Wasolo. The soldier claimed that he was working for the U.S.
military. He was eventually taken to Stanleyville (also known as
Kisangani) where many other white hostages were being held, according to
a December 1964 article about Carlson in "Life" magazine. After Paul was
captured, his wife and children went to Bangui to join the other
Covenant missionaries who had already been evacuated.
Eventually, he was sentenced to death as an American spy. Two executions
were postponed and, in what "Life" described as a "cruel irony," Paul
was shot, along with 37 others, an hour before Belgian and U.S.
paratroopers had swarmed the area. A total of 163 hostages were saved.
Paul's son Wayne said that a mispronounced word may have ultimately
doomed his father because, "the difference between 'missionary' and
'mercenary' is very slight in the French language. The rebels seized
upon his having been in the military."
Carlson's death was documented heavily by "Time" and "Life" magazines -
the latter publication had earlier compiled information for a
documentary of a medical doctor in Congo named Phil Littleford. The
photographer for the Littleford article, Priya Ramrakha had taken an
estimated 1,000 photos of Littleford, an assistant to Paul Carlson in
Wasolo. Ramrakha had many pictures of Carlson in his files and as
Carlson's name became synonymous with the hostage situation, his picture
became a household face as well.
Describing the months that her husband was being held hostage, Carlson
Bridges said, "The days in Bangui seemed endless. 'How could this go on
and on and on?' I asked myself. Waking during the night, I would pray
for God to watch over Paul. He alone knew where Paul was. During this
time we received a copy of the "Baltimore Sunday Sun," with the article
about Phil Littleford, and with references throughout to Paul and the
work at Wasolo. This story was picked up by the Los Angeles papers, with
the focus of Paul's work at the mission hospital..."
Lois Carlson told her children that their father had died about 10 hours
after she had gotten the news that morning from an American ambassador.
"Life" magazine stated that she comforted them before bedtime, saying
that they wouldn't try to answer why God had taken their father, adding,
"we shall only think of how happy he is in heaven and how much he loved
us and how much we loved him." But she knew that soon she would have to
answer many questions now that the American media wanted to know more
about her husband and his work. She decided to spend the Christmas
season with her friends and family in Africa before returning home in
January 1965.
"We could have come home right away, but I didn't think I could take all
of the media coming at me right away," said Lois. "I wanted to stay with
the missionary families because they knew what we had gone through. We
had a time of healing before we came back."
When she returned to theU.S., Lois says she was "pounced on" by media
outlets, churches, and others who wanted to her about her husband. "I
did talks for about two years straight," she says. She would eventually
tell the story in a book entitled "Monganga Paul" (translated "Doctor
Paul"), published by Harper and Row.
Carl Philip Anderson, who had written a tribute to Paul Carlson, called
"There Was a Man," a tribute to Paul Carlson, helped Lois Carlson decide
on a publisher for the book.
Carlson worked on "Monganga Paul" for about seven months by dictating it
into one of the tape recorders the family owned. Paul's parents had kept
his letters home, so Lois had those to work with as well.
"Paul was a big letter writer - and other friends had given me letters
he had written," said Lois. "You actually re-live the events by doing
the book and I would sit and cry while thinking about it. But looking
back, I would call it cathartic."
An editor spent several days with Lois before she wrote the book. She
sent tapes, which would be typed out and edited in New York, then send
back to. She later spent 10 days in New York to go over the book.
"She (her editor) would condense a whole page into one paragraph and the
rest of the page would be on the floor," Lois said. "We couldn't decide
how to start the book," she said. "During the night, I felt it was the
Lord speaking to me and I thought, 'Chapter 10 should be Chapter 1,' and
they (the editors) agreed with me."
After "Monganga Paul" was published, Lois and the family went back to
Torrance, California, in the fall of 1965. They attended Rolling Hills
Covenant Church, the church that had sent the Carlsons to the mission
field. Meanwhile, the ECC had started work on establishing a medical
foundation in Carlson's name.
"Dad had a dream of opening a hospital there [in Congo or in Wasolo?],"
said Wayne Carlson, now a doctor living in Algonquin, Illinois, and
working in nearby Elgin. "A hospital had been built by the Congo
government with help from the Catholic Church, but it had never been
opened. There had been donations in Paul's memory and there was interest
in setting something up in Paul's memory."
A group of U.S. representatives (including Paul's brother Dwight) went
to Kinshasa and met with President Mobutu and the president deeded over
the unused hospital to the Paul Carlson Medical Foundation, the Carlsons
said. The hospital was dedicated in March 1968, and functions today as
one of three of the Covenant Church of Congo (CEUM) hospitals.
Funds from the Paul Carlson Foundation (later known as the Paul Carlson
Medical Foundation) were also used to set up programs to improve
nutrition, to start a vaccination program, and to help people to set up
fishponds and to breed cattle and use them effectively in farming.
In its early years, the Paul Carlson Foundation was originally run at
North Park College by several former Covenant missionaries. The
Foundation was active in the 1970s and merged with Covenant World
Mission in the late 1980s.
In 1967, Lois eventually married Henry "Hank" Bridges, a man she met at
Rolling Hills Covenant. They raised Wayne and Lynnette and had another
child named David, during their 24 years of marriage. Hank, who also had
children from a previous marriage, died in September 1991.
When she looks back on what she calls her "first life." Lois hopes that
the witness of Paul Carlson can inspire people to bring aid to the Congo.
"That was one life of mine - I lived another life too," she said as she
recalled her first husband and the plans for the Paul Carlson
Foundation. "But I feel there must be some purpose for the Congo and it
gives me some satisfaction. I'm realizing that Paul's death wasn't in
vain. The sequence of event, nobody could've planned them, so God
must've planned them."
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