South and South Central Africa / A record of fifteen years' missionary labors among primitive peoples

by Hannah Frances Davidson

We had been looking forward and hoping that some one might come in this capacity. In the meantime we were carrying on the work as well as we were able during the nineteen months since the death of Elder Engle. The brother and sister took hold of the work courageously from the first. It is not an easy task to begin mission work in heathen lands, among a strange people, strange tongue, strange surroundings and ways of living. It is no less easy to step into a work already begun amidst such different surroundings and new ways of doing things, and find the work pressing in on all sides. Such were the conditions that met Elder Steigerwald from the first, but it soon became evident that he was equal to the task.

Constant changes in the mission field are trying, both to the people and to the missionaries themselves. Here two had been called away by death, four had returned home (including Brother and Sister Van Blunk), and the two Lehmans and their wives had gone to Cape Town. The people could not help feeling these changes and scarcely knew what to expect. The changes seem to have been unavoidable, yet it makes the people suspicious of those who remain. The natives, like all those in heathen countries, love to think that their missionaries have come to stay and be one with them. The true missionary bears much the same relation to his people as the parent does to the child; for they are his spiritual children. Then too the language is not mastered in one, two, three years, or even in a longer period of time. In fact, many do not master it in a lifetime, so that all these changes could not fail to have their effect on the work and the natives, and render the position of Brother Steigerwald a difficult one.

His first important work was to unite in marriage, on Christmas Day, Brother Doner and Sister Long. There were many more natives present on this occasion than at the previous marriage to witness the ceremony and to congratulate their missionaries.

Money had been forthcoming for permanent buildings which were greatly needed. The huts were not only showing signs of decay, but some were damp and unhealthful during the rainy season, and even became mouldy at times. It was evident that, however convenient and useful they had been in their time, their day was fast passing away, and for the comfort and health of the missionaries something more permanent must be erected. The rains had started before Elder Steigerwald's arrival, so no more bricks could be made until the rains were over. Brother Doner was busy with the farming, and this left Brother Steigerwald free to make preparations for building.

There is an abundance of fine granite stones and slabs in the vicinity; and as the new year of 1902 opened, he had these hauled together for a foundation. During the rainy season, whenever the rains stopped for a time, he built at the foundation of the house. Although he had natives to assist, yet he found the work to be very heavy and taxing to his strength, but by the end of the rainy season he had a most excellent foundation for a house laid. Then he and Brother Doner, with the help of the schoolboys and some other natives, made and burnt a large kiln of bricks and were ready to begin the house.

Matopo Mission House. Front View.

The brethren in Africa can tell you that building on a mission station in the wilds of Africa is quite a different affair from what it is in civilized countries, or even in the cities of Africa. In these latter places, a man, desiring to build, buys his timber, his ready-made brick, and other material. Then the stone masons come and lay the foundation. The bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers, plasterers, and painters all follow in their order, together with their helpers, and the work is completed in an incredibly short space of time. On the mission field all this usually falls to the lot of one man, from the blasting out of the stone for the foundation and the brickmaking until the building is completed. He is mason, bricklayer, carpenter, plumber, plasterer, all in one. That one often is not a trained mechanic, or even a practical one, but many times he comes direct from the farm, schoolroom, or pulpit. With the many duties of a missionary pressing in upon him, sufficient to occupy all his attention, he must in addition undertake the laborious task of building a house, and even make most of the furniture with which it is fitted up.

Some one may inquire, is it not possible to secure skilled workmen to do the building? Yes, in some instances this can be done; but the high cost of living in Africa raises the wages of skilled mechanics to such an extreme height as to make it practically impossible for the missionary to employ them. Again, he has around him raw natives, who need to be taught to work, and his ambition is to do mission work in connection with his building.

Elder Steigerwald was equal to the emergency, and together with the help of Brother Doner and the natives, he completed the house in a little over a year from the time he began to haul the stone. The house is large, having nine good-sized rooms, with a fireplace in each one. There is a broad veranda nearly all around it and an iron roof over the whole, and it is a building that would be a credit to any one. The building is high and dry and has good board floors in four of the rooms, which add much to the healthfulness of it. Brother Steigerwald could no doubt tell you, if he would, of many days of arduous toil, which threatened to undermine his health; of many difficult and perplexing questions which confronted him in the process of construction; of lying awake at night, planning how everything was to be accomplished; especially how he was to build three fireplaces opening into one chimney and all have a good draft—a feat which he most successfully accomplished.