“I think it’s God’s will that I learn to ride this bicycle.  Think of an old lady like me on a bicycle!” said Mary.  “The new road makes it easy to ride, and I’m running up and down and taking a new work in a village two miles off.  It has done me all the good in the world, and I will soon be able to do even more work.”

The treatment of the women in Ibibio was very bad.  They were treated worse than slaves.  The men could do whatever they wanted to do with them.  They were often beaten.  They were bought and sold like cattle.  Mary wanted to help the poor women.

“I want to build a home for girls, orphans, twins and their mothers, and those who have run away from harems,” said Mary.  “I also want to start a school where trades and skills can be taught.  All the women know how to farm.  They know how to weave baskets and make simple sandals.  But I want them to know many more things so that they can take care of themselves.  I am going to look for a place with good land and pure water near the roads and the markets.  Then I will write to my friends and to the Mission Board for help.”

Mary’s furlough had first been for six months and then was made six months longer.  In April, 1906, it came to an end.  She was supposed to go back to Akpap, because the Mission Council expected her to settle down in one place and work there.  They appointed her to work at Akpap and that is where they expected her to work.

“I do not want to settle in one place,” said Mary.  “God gives me different gifts; I think my gift is to explore and start new congregations.  Others are better fitted to take care of them after they are started than I am.  God is pushing me onward.  I don’t dare look backward.  Even if my dear church turns against me and will not have me as its missionary, I must go forward.  I can find food for myself and the children.  That is all I need.  God will help me.”

Mary thought and prayed much over this matter.  She thought of starting a store or taking a government job so she could earn money to take care of the missionary work.  She wrote a long letter to the Mission Board.  She told how God had blessed the work at Itu and the villages on Enyong creek.  Then she wrote: 

In all this how plainly God has been leading me.  I did not think of doing these things in my lifetime, but God has led me on.  First Itu, and then the Creek, then back from Aro, where I had set my heart, to a lonely, spooky, wilderness.  There no one ever went, but now miles of roads are being built.

The Board says I am to go back to Akpap in April.  I love no other place on earth so well.  But I dare not think of leaving the crowds of untamed, unwashed, unlovely savages, and take away the little sunlight that has begun to flicker out over its darkness.

I know that I am pretty old for this kind of work.  But God will help.  Whether the church permits or not, I feel that I must stay here.  I must even go farther as the roads are made.  I cannot walk now and I must be careful of my health.  But I can get four wheels made and set a box on them and the children can pull me.  I dare not go back.  If the Board insists, I will risk finding some other way to support myself and my family.