“An Instrument in the Hands of God,” Global Histories: Réunion (2020)
“An Instrument in the Hands of God,” Global Histories: Réunion
An Instrument in the Hands of God
In the 1960s 15-year-old Antoine Allamelou was on a quest to find the true church of God on his native island of Réunion, a small island east of Madagascar. Throughout the years as his prayers became more fervent, he felt that the church he sought was somewhere else on the earth. Because of limited economic opportunities, however, Antoine felt that he would not be able to go out to look for it. He prayed instead that God would raise another man, a brother from his own country with better economic opportunities, to act as an instrument in the hands of God and bring the gospel to Réunion.
At the same time, Alain and Danièle Chion-Hock, also from Réunion, were pursuing their studies in France. In 1969, while walking in downtown Montpellier, Alain noticed some missionaries standing beside a poster that said Your family can be eternal. “That phrase touched me profoundly, and I was drawn with an inexplicable force toward the missionaries,” recalled Alain. A few weeks later, the Chion-Hocks were baptized.
They soon returned to Réunion. For the next five years, they were the only Latter-day Saints on the island. Despite their isolation, they felt armed with their testimonies and the scriptures. “One thing saved us,” they recalled: “prayer, reduced sometimes to the simplest expression, but never abandoned.” As more members moved to the island in the late 1970s, a group was organized with Alain as group leader. In October 1979 Joseph and Ruth Edmunds, the first missionaries in Réunion, arrived. Over the next eight years, over 100 people were baptized in the Chion-Hocks’s backyard pool.
Members and friends pose for a photograph after the baptism of Rose Thia-Soui-Tchong in the Chion-Hocks’s pool, 1979.
Antoine Allamelou was baptized in 1997—almost 40 years after he started looking for the true church. In February 2004 Antoine was called as president of the Sainte-Marie Branch. “Allamelou is a man of unshakable faith who has experienced many miracles in his life,” reflected Alain. “He has an admirable capacity to unify and fortify all the members and move forward the missionary [work].”
In March 2010 Alain Chion-Hock was called as the first patriarch of the Saint-Denis Réunion Mauritius District. “God’s help has preserved us spiritually and physically from day to day,” he said, “so that we might accomplish the various tasks required of us as we have endeavored to establish His work in our region of the world.”