The Story of Lutheran Missions

by Elsie Singmaster

In 1844 the Norwegian Missionary Society sent Hans Schreuder as a missionary to Zululand. Here at Umpumulo he and thirty companions started a mission. After twenty-five years’ constant and faithful work, the number of Christians was two hundred and forty-five. To-day there are five thousand seven hundred church members divided among thirteen stations. The training school carries its students carefully through a nine months’ course in the Gospels, the Catechism and Church history, besides providing exercise in preaching and instruction concerning the care of souls. The pupils go out two by two on Sundays to preach in heathen kraals. Their instructor says of them, “For diligence, attention and Christian walk, I can give them the highest praise. It has been a delight to work among them, for they seem to grasp more and more the central teaching of Christianity.”

In 1873 Hans Schreuder, the pioneer, left the service of the society to establish the Norwegian Church Mission, which now has four stations and two thousand Christians. Schreuder was the father of Norwegian missions. His appeal, “A Few Words to the Church of Norway,” in 1842, aroused the country to a sense of its missionary obligation.

|Co-operation.| The Swedish State Church established in 1876 a mission in South Africa among the Zulus, selecting this spot because of its nearness to the Norwegian mission from which the Swedes expected advice and co-operation. In this expectation they were not disappointed. In sympathy and collaboration with them are also the neighboring Berlin missionaries. A common hymn book, prayer book and catechism are used. The native pastors of the three missions are trained by the Swedes, the teachers by the Norwegian and the evangelists by the Germans.

Oscarberg is the oldest station. The Zulu war and the Boer war both caused great loss and suffering to the mission. The work was extended in 1902 to South Rhodesia. In all its stations the mission has about six thousand native Christians.

In Abyssinia and extending into British East Africa is the mission of the Swedish National Society. To this field the society was directed by Louis Harms in 1865. Its people, whom the missionary-explorer Krapf longed to reach, are Gallas, a vigorous and superior African race, one of the few who have not been influenced by Mohammedanism. Like Krapf, the Swedes hoped to have access to these people through the Abyssinian Church. To their hopes was put a cruel period by the murder of one of their missionaries. In 1881 a second effort was made to reach them. Prince Menelik of Shoa promised free passage and also Negus of Abyssinia, but both broke their word. Finally slaves who were carried from the Galla country were trained by the persistent missionaries and sent back. Among them, Onesimus Nesib, who was baptized in 1872, has translated the whole Bible into the Galla language and has written various Christian books and a large dictionary.

The Eritrea station of the Swedish National Society is in the Italian colony of that name on the Red Sea. Here the missionary press, printing in seven languages, is busily at work. To the natives of these parts the missionaries have given their first written language. Boarding schools, day schools and a hospital are among the mission enterprises.

A German missionary who visited Finland in 1867 roused among the Lutherans there an interest in Africa. As a result the Finnish Lutheran Missionary Society established a mission among the Ovambo people, near the great mission of the Rhenish Society. For thirteen years their missionaries labored without a single convert. Then the rulers ceased to oppose mission work and the mission began to succeed. In nine stations are two thousand eight hundred Christians.

After long instruction the King of Ovamboland was baptized in 1912 and dying shortly after gave testimony to his faith upon his death-bed. Subsequently his successor was publicly baptized together with fifty-six of his subjects.

Norwegians in Madagascar.

|Planting.| The French island of Madagascar lies to the southeast of the continent of Africa and has a Malay population of about four hundred thousand. Work was begun in 1818 by English missionaries with the approval of King Radama, who acknowledged the suzerainty of England. Interrupted for some months by the death of most of the pioneer party, the mission was recommenced in the year 1820, in the capital city, Antananarivo, in the interior highland, and was carried on with much success until the year 1835, when the persecuting queen, Ranavalona I, began severe measures against Christianity, and all the missionaries were compelled to leave the island. But during that period of fifteen years of steady labor, the native language was reduced to a written form, the whole Bible was translated into the Malagasy tongue, a school system was established in the central province of Imerina, many thousands of children were instructed, and two small churches were formed. About two hundred Malagasy were believed to have become sincere Christians, while several thousands of young people had received instruction in the elementary facts and truths of Christianity. That was the period of planting in Madagascar.