Page 68 - Protestant Missionary Activity in the Arabian Gulf

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CHAPTER IV:
THE FINAL YEARS:
SECULARIZATION & DISSOLUTION OF THE MISSION
1958-1973

!
The Arabian Mission approached the year 1958 as it had

the previous seventy years of its existence with an awareness
of certain problems and weaknesses but a determination to over­

come these and continue its work in Arabia. The bloody over­

throw of King Faisal II by General Abdul Karim Kassem in April

1958 and the social upheaval that accompanied it, however, we re
$
; to have a swift and final effect on the Mission’s efforts in

Iraq. In the wake of the revolution, which was adamantly op­

posed to all foreign involvement in Iraq, the Mission hospital

in Amarah was closed. On March 16th, 1959, the Mission pro-

pertjr in Amarah was taken over by the Iraqi government and

123
the Mission personnel forced to leave. That same month

m Rev. G. Jacob Holler was forced to leave Basrah and the School
124
of High Hope on forty-eight hours notice, The school-was

permitted to remain open, partly staffed by missionaries but

much circumscribed in its freedom, until 1967 when it was com­

All missionaries were
plete^ shut down by the government,

then expelled from Iraq.

Faced with
The Kuwait mission was also in difficulty,

increasing competition from state and oil company medical

services and an unwillingness from New York to support it

financiall3r, the medical mission closed its doors on March

31st, 1967.125 Since 1949 the Kuwait-government had built

nine hospitals equiped with 3,000 beds and staffed with 340