Past Pioneer | Margaret Thompson

THE CALL: 2024-2025   |   1 MINUTE READ

S.S. Zam Zam
April 7, 1941

“Just two days ago we crossed the equator, and tomorrow we expect … to arrive at Pernambuco, Brazil,” wrote WGM Missionary Margaret Thompson.

A mere ten days later, the ship Thompson was aboard, the S.S. Zam Zam, was sunk by the Nazis en route to Africa. The WGM missionary, along with more than 170 other passengers, including many missionaries from other organizations, jumped into lifeboats and were presumed lost at sea by those hearing the news in the States.

Soon after the Nazis sunk the ship, they realized civilians were on the ship, not military personnel. Rescue efforts began, and all 170-plus missionaries were rescued and taken to German-occupied France.

Thompson soon began her trek home to the U.S.

An article reporting the whereabouts of Margaret and two other missionaries as they were ready to sail from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to South Africa.

Many in Thompson’s situation may have given up, assuming the call was wrong and that being shot down by the Nazis was God’s way of keeping them from going.

But two years later, in July 1943, Thompson boarded another boat, setting sail for South Africa, and making her way to her intended destination—present-day Burundi. 

She wrote, “As I have looked back on that trying experience and then forward to another ocean voyage, my heart has naturally been fearful. But God’s promises have dispelled my fears. One day this promise was given me from Isaiah 43:18 & 19:

‘Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.’”