Congo Missionary Due Home Today

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30641, 6 January 1965, Page 1

Congo Missionary Due Home Today

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, January 5

Miss Patricia Holdaway—the 38-year-old Auckland missionary, who was feared killed by rebels in the Congo—will return to New Zealand early tomorrow morning.

She will arrive at Auckland airport at 6.15 a.m. after a four-day flight from Leopoldville.

An External Affairs Department spokesman said in Wellington tonight Miss Holdaway was “fit and well.” News of Miss Holdaway’s release on New Year’s Eve from the rebels in the Wamba district meant three of the four New Zealand missionaries working in the Congo had survived the massacres of Europeans by the rebels.

The fourth New Zealand missionary, Mr C. Taylor, of Christchurch, was killed in the Congo at the beginning of the rebel massacres.

More than a month ago, it was believed Miss Holdaway —a missionary with the World-Wide Evangelisation Crusade—had been killed when rebels over-ran the Wamba district in which she was working.

It was only on New Year's Eve that hopes for her survival were boosted with the news that white mercenaries had released a number of white hostages from rebel hands—including possibly a New Zealander. New Zealand’s External Affairs Department officially confirmed Miss Holdaway’s release early on New Year’s Day. Miss Holdaway, who left Leopoldville on January 2. arrived in Sydney early today. She was met by Miss Barbara Angus, the first secretary at New Zealand’s consular office in Sydney. Her flight home—at Government expense—took her through Johannesburg. It is expected Miss Holdaway will be met by relations and representatives of the crusade. The other New Zealand missionaries who escaped were Mrs C. Taylor and her four children, of Christchurch, and Miss Marjorie Cheverton, of Auckland.