Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 25/02) - Somewhere in West Africa, a family is surrounded by French soldiers, fleeing from danger and horrible grief in a place they have called home for seven years.

By the time you read this, they could be airborne, flying to safer lands. Or they could still be in Abijan, the capital of Cote d'Ivoire, where they were escorted by French troops Wednesday.

Denise Golding and her children Joshua, 14, Mark, 13, and Nicole, 11, were evacuated from their home town of Bouake after a tense week at the International Christian Academy.

Denise and her husband Dave were the founding pastors of the Yellowknife Missionary Alliance Church in the late 1980s and early '90s. All of their children were born in Yellowknife.

Rebel forces stormed Bouake last Thursday and the Goldings had been holed up in the school compound until their rescue. The school went into lock-down mode several times in the past week, as staff and students huddled inside buildings to escape nearby gunfire.

The family hopes to return to North America by the weekend.

Denise is a dorm parent at the school, where her children have studied since the family moved to Africa seven years ago.

Making the situation immeasurably more unbearable, Dave, who at 44 years old was a weight lifter in peak physical form, died suddenly last Wednesday. He collapsed while jogging at the school.

Only one day later, insurgents took over Bouake and Dave's body is now in a morgue there, far from the rest of the family.

"I think that the hardest part is the political situation has made them have to put grief on hold," said Susan Murdoch, who is Denise's sister and lives in Yellowknife.

A close friend said Dave Golding was a popular personality, a practical joker who gave students rides on his motorcycle. Denise is a nurse.

'Loved his work'

The Goldings came to Africa in 1995 and began a ministry among the Senefou people in southern Burkina Faso. They supported a handful of local pastors working under the Canadian and Missionary Alliance foreign service, mentoring and teaching them while learning the local language, Bambara.

Last year, the Goldings started as dorm parents at the academy, where they oversaw 20 missionary children.

Myra Brown, CMA's regional director for Africa, said the Goldings came to Africa out of a strong religious beliefs. "It was not for personal gain."

The week before French troops arrived was fraught with raw emotion, said CMA spokesman Barrie Doyle.

"One minute for the kids it's a great adventure, they're in the centre of this very interesting situation. And the next minute there's fear and the guns are going off," said Doyle, who added that Denise hopes to return to the Ivory Coast to continue mission work there.

Murdoch says she worries. But, she said, "for me and my family really that's the faith that they will be OK. There's that underlying worry but I know God's taking care of them."

But the hardest part may be yet to come.

"I think it's when they actually arrive that the shock and everything will start to hit them," said Doyle. "The shock of losing a husband and father, a home, a school, all your possessions, everything. It's going to hit them hard. But they're safe and they're alive, and that's the main thing."