Tom Cosier has spent 35 years in the Gambia. He recalls that he nearly didn't make it in the Peace Corps. "They found out I was religious, and you're not supposed to propagate your religion in the Peace Corps," he said.
East Jordan missionaries will donate bikes to Gambian students
BY FRED GRAY NEWS-REVIEW STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, May 11, 2005 2:58 PM EDT
Missionaries Tom and Lore Cosier, with Tom's East Jordan high school classmate Bob Prebble, are collecting 600 used bicycles to ship to the tiny West African nation of Gambia, where the Cosiers have been spreading the Gospel for the better part of 35 years.
The Cosiers will ship the bikes from Chicago next fall in a 40-foot container, then meet the shipment in the Gambian port city of Banjul where they will distribute them to students in the fifth- through seventh-grades at schools 50 miles inland.
Tom, a graduate East Jordan High School, Michigan State College (now university), the U.S. Navy and the Peace Corps, found himself in Gambia in 1967, where he met Lore, a German nurse, and the two were engaged, "by proxy."
"I was here, and she was there," Tom recalls with a laugh. The two were eventually married and had five girls, all born in Gambia and all home-schooled.
Lydia, the youngest, is a student at North Central Michigan College, and plans to return to Gambia to help operate the Good Seed Mission, founded by her parents in 1985.
Another daughter is already in Gambia, where she runs a mission with her German-born husband, and Tom and Lore have daughters in Tennessee and Alabama, one of whom is engaged in evangelism.
"She's got a little church up in the mountains, and has a radio program of her own," Tom says.
At the head of their driveway the Cosiers have erected a big metal sign showing West Africa with the location of Gambia painted over it. The Gambia, as it is formally known for the river of the same name, is the smallest nation in Africa with a population of only 1.5 million and is almost entirely surrounded by Senegal.
"Gambia is so small you can hardly find it. It's so small, that if you know anybody, they know you," Tom says.
"But you've heard about 'Roots' by Alex Haley?" Tom asks proudly. "It came from there." Asked if he ever met Haley, Tom said no, but quickly adds that he and Lore have been to the village where the film was made.
"Gambia is one of the world's 10 poorest countries. The desert is up above us. It's hard going. We only get three months of rain a year," Tom said, adding that agriculture is the principal occupation but tourism is where the money comes from.
"The ocean is beautiful, and all the hotels are beautiful. The seaside resorts are growing fast," he says.
But the Cosiers are Christian evangelists, first and foremost, in a country that is 98 percent Muslim and where children walk up to 10 miles a day to obtain an education.
According to Tom, about 250 of the bicycles have already been spoken for and approved by the parents. The children who receive bikes must also attend Bible classes on Saturday. And after Bible class they will be taught how to maintain and service the bikes.
At the end of three years, if the students have met the educational requirements, they will be given ownership of the bikes.
The Cosiers have two mission stations, one 50 miles up The Gambia and the second 50 miles farther on.
"We built our first place with the Africans. The second place was a government installation which they gave us in 1985. There was nobody there and it was being torn down," he said.
Asked the size of their congregation, Tom said:
"It's a Muslim country so you don't get too many big flocks. But we've grown a lot. There are a lot of denominations and a lot of churches in the city. Our flock varies. We just got a big influx. We went to a village and the whole village gave their heart to the Lord," he said.
"We're the only white people there. We preach in Mandinka, the trade language. That's why I can't stay away. I've got all these years in. I learned one language and I can get out in the villages. My son and my daughter have taken over the school there and the directorship of the mission. So I'm going to 20 villages out there and starting all over again with the young people."
Lore doesn't preach. "We go by the Bible," Tom says. But Lore says she reads the Bible with the women and helps children to learn to read their Mandinka language with the aid of a primer.
"It's a very basic language," Lore says. "It's all in syllables. There are no tonal languages."
Tom recalls that he nearly didn't make it in the Peace Corps.
"They found out I was religious, and you're not supposed to propagate your religion in the Peace Corps," he said. "But I didn't know that when I joined, and they didn't tell me and I didn't read the fine print.
"They were going to put me up with the head shrinker at the middle of my program. They couldn't figure out what was wrong with me: I didn't go to the bars; I didn't go out with the boys. I just did my job, and they said, 'There's something wrong with this guy.'
"But then, when we had to rank each of our 35 colleagues and predict how they would do in the Peace Corps, I came out second from the top! And they couldn't figure it out!
"There was one ex-pastor in the group evaluating us who told me afterwards, 'You know, we had a big talk when it came to you. Every one of them said, 'There is something wrong with this guy,' meaning me.
"And my friend said he told them, 'Maybe there's something wrong with us.'"
Fred Gray can be contacted at 439-9374, or fgray@petoskeynews.com.
