Out of Africa, one woman's story

Joan Dell Melrose was on a tough track in 1972. The Westby native drank and smoked and had a bad marriage that ended in divorce. Then, she said, she found the Lord and straightened her life out.

“My whole goal was to hear the Lord’s voice and do what he said,” she explained.

Melrose started a Christian health food and book store in Columbia Falls, operating it for seven years. That’s when the Lord called again, she said.

“God’s always worked with me in sevens,” Melrose said.

She sold her business, her land and her house, and at the age of 46 went to work as a missionary, providing health care in tough places like the garbage dumps of the Philippines, Saigon, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Then the Lord told her to go to Africa, so she did — alone — eventually starting an interdenominational bible school in Kenya and living on about $300 a month from supporters back home.

Melrose said she was the only white single woman in Bungoma, a city of 100,000. Yet she persevered. She started her school, and it grew slowly. At one time, she had a nine-acre farm and buildings, enough for a solid ministry.

But after a trip home to Montana, she returned to find out the person she had left in charge of the ministry had sold the land and the buildings. She needed to regularly come back to Montana to raise money and see family, usually for three months at a stretch, sometimes longer.

Undaunted from her passion, Melrose started another school in Bungoma, this time with people she trusted. Her school, the Interdenominational College, is now an accredited college offering degrees, including a doctorate in theology.

Melrose said she enjoyed her 25 years in Africa. She liked the warm weather, even though her home for many years featured large cockroaches, lizards and no hot water — and what water there was, was dirty.

“I took camp showers for 15 years,” she said.

The people there didn’t always treat her well, either. Government corruption goes all the way from the top to the bottom. The police, she noted, were very corrupt. She tried to sue to get the original farm back, but the court never even heard her case — 13 years after it was initially filed.

Melrose has written two books on her experiences, “The Truth About the Rapture” and “A Worm Becomes a Butterfly.”

Today she’s back in Columbia Falls living next door to her daughter Jena. She readily admits she misses Africa, despite all its problems. Is she a Montanan or African?

“African,” she said with barely a pause.

Melrose is 74 and has some health problems that caused her to return. In addition, there’s been political unrest in Kenya, including battles between Kenyans and Muslim terrorists. In 2008, she huddled in her compound for a week during a civil war.

She has turned now her beloved college over to the Africans and is starting another school here in the valley — Christian Life Teachings.

Like her African project, she said it’s starting slowly. Folks meet once a week to study the Bible.

Anyone who is interested can call Melrose directly at 892-0984.