This is a complete and accurate transcript of the oral history interview of Joan Gordon Brain (CN 252, T4) in the Archives of the Billy Graham Center. No spoken words have been omitted, except for any non-English phrases which could not be understood by the transcribers. If the transcriber was not completely sure of having gotten what the speaker said, "[?]" was inserted after the word or phrase in question. If the speech was inaudible or indistinguishable, "[unclear]" was inserted. Grunts and verbal hesitations, such as "ah" or "um" were usually omitted. Readers should remember that this is a transcription of spoken English, which, of course, follows a different rhythm and rule than written English.
... Three dots indicate an interruption or break in the train of thought within the sentence on the part of the speaker.
.... Four dots indicate what the transcriber believes to be the end of an incomplete sentence.
() Words in parentheses are asides made by the speaker.
[] Words in brackets are comments by the transcriber.
This transcription was made by Christopher Easley and Paul Ericksen, and completed in August 1993.
Collection 252, T4. Interview of Joan Gordon Brain by Paul A. Ericksen on June 19, 1983.
ERICKSEN: This is an interview with Joan Gordon Brain by Paul Ericksen for the Missionary Sources Collection of Wheaton College. This interview took place at the Brains' home in Lanham, Maryland on June 19, 1983, at 5:45 p.m. Joan, in talking with Bob in the last interview, he...we were talking about music in the church and he sug-gested that I ask you about the [pauses] use of music in the church services in Angola. How was music incorporated in...in the church services?
BRAIN: In Angola we had organs, pump organs. And the older missionaries, they must have really felt that this was a...a priority because on all of the missions stations they would have a...a pump organ. And even at Catota we had maybe three of them, I think. There was one at the Bible school, and a smaller one also in a smaller room there. And then another one at the church and there were a couple in the...in people's homes as well. And the people there learned to...to sing with them more or less. Sometimes they couldn't exactly hear it because it...the organs didn't work all that well [laughs], and you have a big auditorium and there was no way of making the volume too much louder than what you could get with a good pump. But they...they would sing, usually fairly well to them. But sometimes it would tend to slow them down in their singing, unless you could work with the song director and make him work along with you and to sort of get the timing right for various hymns, and then have him follow through with this. And when we did this, we didn't have many problems. But you'd find if you go out into the villages where there isn't any organ, that the singing is much more lively, and much more spirited, and they generally sing on the whole a bit faster. Now in Zambia, they don't have anything like this. There are no organs. We do have a piano in our home and on three occasions we carried the piano to the church and we used it for congregational numbers, and also for some of the special numbers that the different choirs sang. But as a rule they don't...they don't sing along with...with music. The choirs there use a...a...a long...oh, it looks like a pea pod, but it's about a foot long or longer, and then it has the dried beans in it, and they use these as shakers. They have another type thing that's made up with reedy grasses, with at hollow part in the...in the middle where they have like some pieces of corn or dried beans, that is a softer muted shake. And they've used these different things in...for their music. But some people feel, "Well, this only can be used with the choir, but the congregational numbers that's...that's not allowed!" That would be against the laws of the Medes and the Persians [laughs] as it were. And they...and they wouldn't...they wouldn't allow these shakers to be used to keep up the time, like for example, for the...for the morning worship service or something like that. Nobody's ever tried it in our time so I don't know whether that's really true or not, but that's...that's what they say, that it's only the choir that's allowed to use these things.
ERICKSEN: Is that something you've tried to encourage, that....?
BRAIN: No, the only thing I think that we would try to encourage would be that...that they [pauses] think while they're singing, because they will drag a number to death simply because they're not paying any attention, I feel, to what they're singing. And if after you're all through, you would ask them what song they just sang, they'd have to look in the book to tell you. Because they...it's just mouthing words and just going... going along, and they...and it seems that...that they are not really reading the words and trying to sing with...with their hearts the words that they're...that they're singing. We've tried to work with this in the Bible school, that they would think of the words. And then we have special music periods where we would decide whether a hymn of this nature should be slow, should it be spirited, should it be...or how it should be. And it was very interesting. They...they would have to really read them and study them through to...to decide what...what they thought that it ought to be. But then to get them to turn around and do it, and...and not just get up there like everybody else does and just drag every-thing to death, and then not try to...to do anything about it, that's the next step in trying to...in trying to get them to...to see that when they realize that the...that the words have a certain meaning and it should be sung joyfully or it should be sung softly, or it should be sung slowly. Now like, for example, we...the...the hymn "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," I think it's a very slow moving hymn, beautiful for communion service or something like that. And yet because it has the [indigenous] word for "giving" in it, the choir, who used to sing or sometimes sings for...for the time when...when they're taking up the offering, would use this particular number. And they'd jazz it up. It makes me sick! I can't sing it. Simply because it has that one word in it and they figure, "Well, it must be a good song to sing for the offering because it has the word "offering" in it." So they sing it and they jazz it all up because it should be spirited at that time. And then another song that they almost invariably pick, no matter where you are, I don't know who started it, "I Surrender All." That's a good offering number, wouldn't you think? Because they're not surrendering anything. I mean, and...and it has completely lost its meaning for a...for a surrender to the Lord, because of the word that they had heard. And you can't even use that hymn for anything because they have just ruined it by singing it at...for...for an offering number. "I surrender all." And the...they'll.... But they're not paying an ounce of attention to the...to the words that they're singing. It's a problem. And I think that music can be so meaningful, and hopefully, they'll...you know, they'll begin to understand this and really...really work on it and try...try to...to change... change this.
ERICKSEN: Are the hymns that they use Western largely, or....?
BRAIN: Well, the ones in the hymn book mainly are, although there are some that have tunes that I'm not familiar with, and they may possibly be a...a tune from...from here. Now the choir many times, the songs that...that they sing, are songs that somebody else has...has written and they're not our Western songs at all.
ERICKSEN: They're African?
BRAIN: They're more or less on their...on their own African way. There are certain chords that...that they sing. If they...if they have a hymn that they make up they will use the four basic chords and that's all. Ad if you find a hymn that has those same four basic chords, they will learn it very, very quickly. But so many of our Western tunes are really...they're...they're most difficult for them to sing with naturals and flats and sharps, because they don't...they can't seem to register the half tones very easily.
ERICKSEN: Is there anyone who is working to write African hymns?
BRAIN: We have one man out there, a Zambian fellow, who is extremely talented, but he's got about four hats to wear now. He's the head of our Christian education depart-ment, he's also the...just under the executive secretary, the head of our...of the work out there in...in Zambia. He's the second in command. He also has choir seminars, and he...he has written a book on choirs and how to start one and...and...and what to do, and...and some of these things are...are mentioned in them. He's very, very talented, and I...I feel that he has written some...some hymns as well. There's another man, too, at one of our other stations that also writes...writes hymns and music. But they are the only two that I know. A lot of people will put things to music, and you hear a lot of numbers that they...that they sing that are...they don't have too much meaning to them but they're catchy. And so a lot of them will...will like to sing those. But I guess there are really quite a few people who...who are writing music. And then another... another thing. They like to take hymns from another language and sing them. Of course, most people don't understand what they're singing, and so if they do that they usually explain what the words are that they're...that they're singing, and they'll sing it in this other tribal language. So they'll pick other hymns from...from other...other tribes and...and use them. Of course, there's a danger in that, too, because half the time I don't think that they themselves are too sure what they might be singing either.
ERICKSEN: I think when we ended our last interview, we had covered your period of work in Angola, and we really didn't talk about Zambia. What have you been doing in Zambia?
BRAIN: Well, in the home, I've at first helped both Betty and Calvin with their studies. And then Calvin went off to Rift Valley Academy, so that just left me with Betty, as far as helping with...with their studies, academic studies. In the work, the first two years that we were there I helped out at the hospital in the laboratory. They didn't have a lab technician at the time, a European one that is. They did have one Zambian and then he had to leave because of some problems that had come up. So they were really stranded. So I helped out there for...for a while, about fifteen hours a week and just sort of kept up on emergencies. And then once the Bible school began, then I...by then they already had another young Zambian that was there and he was capable of handling the work so that I didn't have to be back in the hospital. Then when the Bible institute began in 1980, I took some of the courses: a Christian Ed. course, biblical geography, the music period, and methods of Bible study. I think those were the only ones that I've had much to do with. And then Bob...as he was writing up the different things, I would type up his stencils for him. So I did a lot of...a lot of his typing for his introduction courses in Old Testament and New Testament, and some of his other classes as well. Then with children's work, I had been asked at the very beginning to help out with the Sunday school, so we...when we began to work with that, it was in a very sad state. We were getting about forty children out from ages maybe four up to around eleven or twelve. We had some teachers that had been in the Sunday school for maybe twenty-five years, I suppose, older people that couldn't barely read and it was a real problem. But we've... we're finally able to work in new teachers. The church helped me get more teachers, select more to help. And when we tried to split the Sunday school up into smaller groups and eventually more children were coming, but there wasn't any class for adults. Another missionary started one for the young people that went on for maybe six or eight months. We did get an adult Sunday school going. So then every...well, we started off every month, every week, rather, meeting with the teachers and we would go over the... the Sunday school lesson. We used the same lesson two weeks in a row. They like this. You get through it the first week and then the second week would be a review or picking up points that you wanted to really stress the second time, and then have more time for Scripture memory. And this worked fine with children as well as adults. So that finally it was getting to be too much for them to come each week, and so since we were doing the same lesson for two weeks running, they would come every two weeks, and then we would go over the lesson material together, and this worked out quite well. Gradually, one of our other missionaries took over the Sunday school when she came, and I was free to leave to go out to an outlying village, and started a Sunday school and little church out there, and took about...oh I suppose, about a year or so going out and having...running a course for them on how to teach and...and different things that they needed to know, because they didn't have a Sunday school there at all. And then they chose the teachers and then we began working them in. And now they're just running on their own while we're here on furlough. Also, there was virtually nothing being done for children. They like to have plenty of them, but not do anything with them. And there was nothing special for them at...at church. The little ones would come in and sit down on their mat in front of the church and by the time it got to preaching time, you'd have maybe a fourth of the st...children that started out there were still in the church. The rest had gone elsewhere. So they were getting so little. We began a program for them on Saturday afternoon. It's built more or less on like an Awana type program [church-based club program for boys and girls in the U.S.] with the...with Scripture memory was our main emphasis. And they'd have a time for play and then we would have a...a general time together. We would have a theme song, theme verse, and we'd have a little study of a verse, usually, and just explaining it and then repeating it. And then they would break up into their little groups, and they would continue on until each one could say the verse. At the end of the year, they were...they would have probably around twenty-six verses, along with other things that they had had to learn. Like one year we...they learned the Apostle's Creed and different things like that. And then they would have to repeat all of these at a certain time and then they would get an award. We also had a craft time for the...for the girls mainly. And then the young ones could color a picture or do something like that. The boys, they like nothing better than to go out and play soccer, so that's what they would go out and do. But it was...they're...they're averaging about a hundred and fifty children every Saturday, ages, maybe about four up to fourteen. And then there's one group that one of the other missionaries has of the older girls, high school girls. So that's...that's mainly.... And then...oh, the junior church, too. We started a junior church there. Seeing the problem of the children coming to...to church. And it's not that they don't like to come. They do come. And they're all there. But when there's nothing geared for them, they're...it just loses meaning. They come, they like to listen to the music and all, and then when all of the goodies, as far as they're concerned, are over, then they just disappear. So we started a junior church. We only had one little room so we had to start with little ones first, the four to six year olds. And...and then once the other room of the Bible school was available, then we were able to have a group of the older ones from seven to twelve. And the group grew so...so much that we had to cut back on some of our older ones and not allow them to come. I felt kind of badly about this. I know that many Christian education workers, they feel, "Well, if a child is not really starting to come to church and being in the regular worship service with the adults by the time he's twelve...eleven, twelve, well, then they're going... they'll end up by leaving the church if they've still been in sort of a junior church idea." But [pauses] it's...it's difficult to...to see that there because you know that they will walk out, you've seen it, if there's nothing there that's sort of geared more for them. And with some of these older children, these boys especially, who would more than likely be about the first to...to leave and...and go off, and these young teens, they really enjoy coming to the junior church and they would help by...by being like junior deacons and helping with the children, and...and doing different things, taking up the offering. And...and they enjoyed this type of responsibility. And we felt that it was...it was kind of good for them. So we felt badly that these older ones, who were really enjoying themselves and...and finding it helpful and learning at the same time, have had to be, as it were, dropped. I trust that most of them are staying there in...in church, but you'd like to see something where they could...you know, where they would have something that would be more meaningful to...to them at their age group.
ERICKSEN: Was there anything new that you had to adjust to when you moved to Angola, or...moved to Zambia rather?
BRAIN: [pauses] I don't know. You mean in the work? As it were in the....
ERICKSEN: In the work, in the culture.
BRAIN: In a general way, I find that the...that the...the Zambians didn't seem to be as warm as the Angolans. But it's...it's sort of difficult to pinpoint something like that because when we came to Zambia, they had already been independent for [pauses] maybe, what? Fifteen, sixteen years. No not quite that long. Thirteen or fourteen years. And that makes a big difference. And of course, when we left Angola, it wasn't even independent yet, and there was a different type spirit. Now, it might be different there now. But amongst...amongst the Christians, I...I suppose there's really not...not very...very much...not much difference. You expect some changes and some cultural differences. But a lot of them that we work with are Angolan refugees, but not all of them, so that many cases it's more or less the same thing.
ERICKSEN: If it's possible, could you describe an ordinary day in Zambia?
BRAIN: An ordinary day [sighs].
ERICKSEN: Just the sort of general routine that you...that you'd go through.
BRAIN: Well, we're usually up by around seven. We eat breakfast at around seven-thirty, and then Bob goes off to class. So that I would get the work lined up for the day, whether we're going to do laundry or anything along that line, and help Betty with her schooling. And then I would have my own classes to prepare for. Also, writing up lessons. Sometimes when you're in a...in a home situation like that, you have to sort of fit all of these things in, maybe, sixteen times during the day rather than taking, you know, one hour period to be able to do it in. So that even though it's in a day, it might come in different parts of the day [laugh]. But there would be lesson preparation. And, of course, letter-writing is a...a daily...a daily do. Then, [pauses] of course, preparation of meals. I did most of that myself. I had a fellow that worked in the house there, but he would mainly just...like say, get...prepare the vegetables or...or things but anything other than that I would do. So that would be three meals a day. Then, we would have these meetings to attend on occasion, whether I was working with the junior church, and preparing for...for their program, and...and helping them with their lessons, or working with the Sunday school and preparing lessons for...for that. The women's meeting, once a week, I tried to attend that. Then, twice a week we had...the little children from the Bible institute would come over, and they'd be there for nearly an hour. We had...we were teaching them Scripture verses to song, some that came from the States and some that I wrote up myself. And then we had...started a little rhythm band with them too. And then preparing food for them for twice a week. Sometimes this would take, the day before, quite some time, and then the fol...that day of getting food ready for some forty children, would be a good big pot full of...of vegetables and...and meat and stuff. Plus making, oh, must have been maybe three gallons of milk...egg nog, for...to feed...feed these children. Evenings were more or less free. We did have...we did have one prayer meeting night and then our Sunday night out. And those are usually the only...only two nights that you know definitely that they would be...be out, so the evenings could be taken up with letter writing. I often used to take maybe about a half an hour or so and play games with Betty, or read to her. We'd read a book together. This was something we tried to do as much as possible. I think that's about it.
ERICKSEN: Did you find yourself ever just taking time to do something fairly frivolous?
BRAIN: Well, I don't know if you'd call it frivolous or not, but once they had the swimming pool there, Betty and I would make an exodus down there everyday for about an hour. We'd be frivolous, I suppose, in one way and yet with my back problems it was therapy too. So I called it my therapeutic exercise for the day [laughs]. We did... sometimes you'd...if I was going to do anything along that line, I would probably read to relax, or sew. Those...and...as both of those are, I suppose, healthy rather than frivolous, but they were [laughs]...they were a help in order to kind of break routine. And I entertained a lot. And this probably was the most frivolous of all, you know, because you'd...you try to do something different or...or special when you have...have company, so that you take up a little bit more time than you ordinarily would for a meal.
ERICKSEN: I'm wondering about retirement in [pauses]...particularly in your mission. When...does the mission have a mandatory retirement age?
BRAIN: Well, yes and no. I mean, retirement, I suppose, theoretically is supposed to be sixty-five. I think at that point, you are not allowed to hold an administrative office, but you can still carry on with your work, provided that the staff agrees that you're still able to...to function properly. And I think we've got...out in Zambia, they have what they call the general executive committee that sort of goes through things like this, and would, you know...and would check out anyone that's planning to...to stay for an extra period of time. I think you also have to have a yearly physical to make sure that you're able to...to stay on like that. Because we do have some that are in their eighties and still very clear in their mind and are...are doing translation work, and getting along very well, so that it...it depends on the...on the individual, I suppose, how much, how much they're able to take. But so long as they're healthy, and still able to contribute to the work, then the mission would allow them. It doesn't make you stop just because you've reached age sixty-five. But I think they do have something that you can't keep an administrative post, which would be understandable.
ERICKSEN: Are there any sort of facilities for retired missionaries in this country or in....?
BRAIN: There are, but not necessarily related to...to the mission. There are some down in Florida. A couple that we've...one we've just heard of just recently that...a brand new place called [pauses]...I think it's called Mission Village in Bradenton, Florida, that has, I believe, facilities for two hundred and thirty eight and they only have forty in there now. But in order to get there, you've got...you have to have been a missionary for over twenty years. They do make some exceptions, I understand. You know it depends. They look through each case very carefully. But they...they want those who have really given there lives to the mission field. And also, they can't have any like...like property or income, or things like this, because they don't pay anything except their electric bill and their phone bill. The rest is all given. Very lovely homes, I understand, with two bedrooms in each.
ERICKSEN: You've probably got one, two terms...
BRAIN: At least.
ERICKSEN: ...before you hit.
BRAIN: Before we hit, yeah. Yeah, because Bob's fifty-six, so that would be about two terms, I would say.
ERICKSEN: Have you thought at all about retirement?
BRAIN: No. Oh, we've thought but we don't intend to retire [laughs]. Not until we have to. You feel your...your work is there. Your whole life has been there. You come back here. What do you do? If you're still able to...to carry on, and in a type of ministry like...like we're in, gradually other people can move in and take over more and more, but there're still many opportunities of...of service in a...in a teaching ministry like that, that's not all that strenuous, and yet something that, you know...that you could slow down on and yet keep up fairly well for a while. So unless something drastic happens, I think we'll just stay there as long as possible.
ERICKSEN: Do you think if [pauses]...if all these contingencies worked out that you had to come home [pauses], how would you feel about that?
BRAIN: Well.
ERICKSEN: You mentioned you'd just be sort of sitting around.
BRAIN: Well, if...if the Lord allows it, there must be some reason for it and he would have something else. I don't think the Lord expects anybody to come and just sit and do nothing. Obviously, there must be something somewhere. So that if you came...if we had to...to come home, I'm sure that there would be some service that would be available. I think of Bob's dad. They retired, came home. They were sixty-five, I suppose, around in there when they retired. And he had [pauses]...he had about sixteen years of...of very fruitful ministry working in a church as their visitation pastor to nursing homes, and to hospitals, and he's probably had more funerals than an average pastor would ever have, I mean, you know, from these funeral ho...from these...well, called by the funeral homes or called by these nursing homes. And he was active right up until the last year before he passed away. And he had a real full life, and he had a real full life on the mission field, too. So I'm sure that, you know if that was necessary there would...there would be something that would...that would open up. I don't think we'd just sit here and die [laughs].
ERICKSEN: But you do prefer to be....
BRAIN: Well, prefer to be...be there where we...where you're into...into the work. I mean, if you're there for all those years, then it's kind of hard to just to...to pull away unless there was something that was urgent or that needed to be or could be attended to here.
ERICKSEN: One last question. When you become part of a team on the mission field, you don't really pick who you're going to get to work with. Has that ever caused problems?
BRAIN: Well, with my personality, I don't like to have problems with anybody. And I've always tried to make the best of any kind of situation. Not that I've always succeeded. But if...if there were problems between me and someone else, I would have to go and make sure that it was...it was cleared up. Otherwise I...I just couldn't function. I don't like things hanging over me like that. Most of the people that I've had to work with, I haven't had [pauses]...any trouble. And if there are some that you feel more comfortable with, you naturally gravitate to them. And I think that over the...the years in different places where we've...where we've worked, it's been...it's been that way. I mean, there are certain ones. You get along with them all, but there are always a certain few that you get along with better. And therefore, you usually pick them to go with on...on holidays and to do things with. So that you can overlook some of the difficulties and...and then what you can't overlook, well, you have to pray them out [laughs]. Feelings that you might...might have or...or try to talk. I've had opportunity both in Angola and in Zambia to...to be a listening post for many of the single girls. And I've enjoyed this. With having a...just basically listening. There's not very much counsel really needed, but just listening to them, and some of the problems they face. And I feel that, you know, any little thing that might have been in my life was nothing in...compared with some of the problems that they face. And I've been thankful for being able to...just to listen and to...to help them and to have prayer with them and...and see some of them settle down and...and straighten out some of the difficulties in...in their life. I mean, there are problems on the.... You just have to either learn to live with them or learn to live above them.
ERICKSEN: Do you have any problems specifically in mind?
BRAIN: [pauses] Hmm, I mean, not as...not as far as I'm concerned. I mean, there are some...some problems even there at Luampa now that are...they're [pauses] very difficult with personality problems between some of the...well, some of the workers. And it's hard when you...when you try to look objectively, you know, at these because you see good on both sides, and you just wish that...that the Lord could really get down to the...to the bottom of it the...in each of the...each of the people's lives. I think a lot of...a lot of our...the work there, it seems that, priorities get lost and so many times they...they get so busy in the work, as it were, and the spiritual part and their own spiritual lives, their own spiritual contributions, sometimes get left behind. Or they are not sensitive to other people's needs, and are only more concerned about...either about their own or about their particular phase of...of the work. And we need a...a more unified spirit, I mean, a real concern for one another. I think you probably find that...you find it right here in the States. I mean, we've seen it right in the churches where we've been. So it's not, you know, just for...for our...our mission...our mission field. I think you...you'll find that wherever you go. It's just that when you have a few people that you notice it a lot more, because you're...you're rubbing elbows with the same ones day after day. But you do see times when people really get burdened and realize that they've...that there have been wrongs, and they do try to make things right, and that's always a...a helpful cleansing time [laughs].
ERICKSEN: Have there been incidents where problems just go unsolved for...
BRAIN: Unfortunately, yes.
ERICKSEN: ...quite awhile?
BRAIN: And they end up with, you know, more serious problems, and even with some people leaving because the things have not been properly straightened out. And this is difficult to take.
ERICKSEN: Well, that's a rather low note to end on but [Brain laughs]....
BRAIN: Well, a low note but, I guess, a natural...a natural note because when you...when you stop to...to think when the enemy is very busy, it's because there's good active work going on that he's trying to...to discourage. And so when you look at it from...from that viewpoint, then you can rejoice, because you...you realize that...that the Lord really is at work and therefore the devil has to work twice as hard. And so that can be encouraging as well as discouraging.
ERICKSEN: Well, again thank's very much for participating in the interviews.
BRAIN: You're welcome. It's been fun [laughs].
END OF TAPE