Local pastor Rev. Earl Murdoch has accepted a call as a missionary to Djibouti, Africa.

Rev. Murdoch has been the pastor at West Pembroke Pentecostal Church for the past six years, and he will be joined by his wife Rita who works in the recovery room at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

The Murdochs came to Bermuda after receiving a call from the Pentecostal Assembly in Canada which is affiliated with the West Pembroke Pentecostal in Bermuda.

Previously, they had been living in Fredericton in New Brunswick in Canada.

They have pastored primarily in the maritime provinces, as well as short term missionary work in the West Indies and Indonesia.

Rev. Murdoch is from Newfoundland, and Mrs. Murdoch is from Prince Edward Island, and they have been on the missionary path since 1974.

Rev. Murdoch said that one of the highlights of pastoring in Bermuda has been the people.

"We have enjoyed pastoring the people. They have been the high point in our ministry here. Hopefully we have added something to their lives, but they have certainly added something to ours,'' he said.

West Pembroke Pentecostal has been at its current location for at least 25 years and another highlight of Rev. Murdoch's ministry was when the Church building was expanded three years ago, allowing 225 congregation members to worship whereas before only 120 people could cram in.

Another highlight of the Murdoch's stay was the Island itself, and they said: "We have enjoyed seeing Bermuda and experiencing Bermuda firsthand.'' Rev. Murdoch also had praise for previous pastors and said: "Usually as a pastor you just come and pastor the people, and help them to grow, you always build on the pastor before you, and West has had excellent pastors and we came along and built on the work they had done.'' When asked what they would miss most about Bermuda, they said: "The people.

The people of West are a lovely congregation and they have a high regard for the pastoral office, and they welcomed us with open arms into an environment in which we had to make adjustments.'' Mrs. Murdoch said she enjoyed her job at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital and hoped that she would be able to find a similar outlet in Africa. She expected that it would be on more of a volunteer basis, and she said they have a real need for health care workers and highlighted the problems of AIDS and TB on the African continent.

When asked what Bermudians could improve on, Mrs. Murdoch said: "People perhaps need to be more thankful'', although she said that she thought Bermudians were already thankful but it was just such an affluent Island, and residents perhaps needed to embrace a more worldly, global village view.

Rev. Murdoch added: "It's not that we want to stay in Bermuda, or Canada, or the United States, because this part of the world has so much, we shouldn't feel guilty about that, it is just to be thankful for what we do have.'' The Murdoch's will spend two years in the Republic of Djibouti, which is located to the east of Ethiopia, to the south of Eritrea, and to the north of Somalia.

It is a small country with a population of 450,000, of which 320,000 live in the capital, Djibouti City. The country was a French republic, and as such French and Arabic are the two official languages.

The injuries of civil war have only recently begun to heal, and none of the continuing strife beyond its borders makes that process any easier.

The population has been swelled by tens of thousands of refugees from Somalia and Ethiopia, and the threat of war is never far away.

The country is 94 percent Muslim and six percent Christian, and the population is made up of Afars, Issas, Somalis, Yemenis and French.

The Murdoch's visited Africa for two weeks in October with one of their local church members, and they explored both Ethiopia and Djibouti.

They said it was an enlightening trip and Rev. Murdoch said they returned with a new appreciation for what they had.

"I don't think I am going back,'' joked Mrs. Murdoch.

She also said that they had been seconded there from their Churches Overseas Missionary Department (OMD) to serve with the Abysinnia Missionary Programme (AMP) and she joked: "If we live through that we will reassess,'' and she said: "You should have seen the waiver we had to sign! It said you will not sue us if anything should happen en route, during and so on.'' They explained what duties they will be charged with upon arrival and said: "We are going to be the Administrative Co-ordinator's and will be ministering primarily to non-ministerial missionaries, that is to say to doctors, teachers, the ex-pats, refugee workers, health care workers, and so on.'' Rev. Murdoch said the people who go there and are from several denominations but they have no pastoral oversight.

Rev. Murdoch will also be teaching in a mission school in Addis Abbaba.

More than 90 missionaries have already graduated from the school in 10 years and the Murdoch's will be responsible for the programme's continuation.

When asked what hopes they had for their time in Africa, Rev. Murdoch said: "We want to go and fulfil a call that God placed in our lives. Part of that call is that we have always sensed a call to overseas missions work.'' Rev. Murdoch said that since graduating in 1974, everything has perhaps been preparatory for his latest mission into Africa.

And in reference to their ministry, the Murdoch's said that Djibouti is an Islamic country and in terms of the gospel, their primary concern would be to minister to the ex-pats in the country.

Mrs. Murdoch said: "We are not allowed to preach, we have to obey the laws, yet the people there are from the US, Canada, England, Switzerland, all over, and it is inter-denominational.

When asked where the couple would like to do missionary work, Rev. Murdoch said: "As ministers we always sense that we committed ourselves to Christ and the call of the ministry, not so much as where we choose, as to where he would have us.'' Mrs. Murdoch said: "we are not unhappy to be going where we are going.'' "Just deeply challenged'' added Rev. Murdoch.

And they admitted that they would have loved to stay in Bermuda, "it is just that type of place,'' they said.

Talking about their call to Africa, Rev. Murdoch said: "`The interesting part is this, the Church just went through a three year programme, a theme that we have had, centred on the harvest. The first year it was the "reaping of the harvest,'' the second year was the "refining of the harvest'', and the third year was the "releasing of the harvest'' and I don't think that we realised that we would be the ones that were released.'' He continued: "They are releasing us as harvesters to go and be effective in that part of the world, and we go with their blessing and their prayers and we are thankful for that.'' Into Africa: Rev. Earl and Rita Murdoch will soon be leaving for Djibouti in Africa where they will spend two years. They have spent the last six years at West Pembroke Pentecostal Church.