General Conference Bulletin, vol. 7

Bible Study Hour - EXPERIENCES IN SOUTH AFRICA

M. C. STURDEVANT AND F. B. ARMITAGE

May 22, 8:30 A. M.

I bring you greetings this morning from the new Tsungwesi Mission, South Africa. As we left the mission station to come to this meeting, our native teachers and helpers there desired us to greet you for them. I understand I am not to give a missionary report, but to tell of some of the providential leadings of God in opening up the work. MAP- AFRICA GCB May 23, 1913, page 115.1

In February, 1902, the Lord found me in Atlanta, Ga., working for the colored people. The call came that I should go to South Africa, to the old Matabeleland station, Solusi, to fill, as nearly as I could, the place left by Elder F. L. Mead. We responded. The Boer War was on in South Africa, and the British Government was trying to prevent foreigners’ going into the African interior. Brother A. Bacon, our London transportation agent, said, “Let us go to the American ambassador, and see if he cannot do something for us.” The ambassador said, “Do you belong to the Seventh-day Adventists?” I said, “Yes.” “Very well,” he replied, “I have a very dear friend there who is an Adventist, and I will fix it up for you so that you can go.” He had the passport prepared, and we hastened on to Africa. GCB May 23, 1913, page 115.2

Upon reaching South Africa, we found that we could not go on into Rhodesia, as the government would not allow emigrants to go up into that country. But I wanted to go on immediately to Rhodesia. We had to stay there about ten days, but by that time the way was opened so we could go on. As we left the Cape, we were escorted into the interior by one army train ahead and one behind. About sixty police were with us. Heavy fighting was expected at almost any moment. We traveled only in the daytime, and at night lay close together, the three trains in sight of one another. It took us one week to reach Bulawayo. Brother Anderson, with others from the mission, met us. The next morning we started, with ox teams for the Matabeleland station. We found a pleasant home there, and met with many new experiences. Sister Mead was in temporary charge. Two months later Brother Anderson became our director. GCB May 23, 1913, page 115.3

As I had had experience in farming in the States, I was given the work of clearing up some of the land, preparatory to putting in a crop. At first I spent a portion of my time in the store, where I met the natives and learned considerable of the language. Soon I was placed in charge of the night school. For some hours each day I took the boys with me and went out grubbing and clearing up the place. The year that we arrived, there were only about five acres of land under cultivation. We had, at that time, one plow, one harrow, two wagons, and a few old cultivators that had been eaten down by the white ants. We began to try to make the mission self-supporting, but the drought hindered, and we could not do very much. GCB May 23, 1913, page 115.4

When Brother Anderson moved away, Brother Hyatt said to me: “Brother Sturdevant, we do not see how we can continue supporting this mission. If you remain, you will have to make the most of the natural resources of the mission property.” I responded, “All right.” We continued to clear more land and to give much attention to farming, and at the end of nine years, when I turned the management of the mission station over to Brother W. C. Walston, the work was in a prosperous condition financially. The only help we had received was the salaries of the missionaries from abroad. When we left, there were three hundred acres under cultivation. God has blessed in a remarkable manner the work at this our oldest station in South Africa, which is now fully self-supporting. GCB May 23, 1913, page 116.1

PHOTO-AT THE SOLUSI STATION, RHODESIA

Elder Porter here called upon F. B. Armitage to relate some of his experiences. GCB May 23, 1913, page 116.2

F. B. Armitage: I am very thankful to be present with you here, after having been absent for sixteen years, and to be able to bring to you some of the good tidings of what the Lord has done for us in Africa. I also bring greetings from the Zulu people. Just before I left there, one of the young men said: “We want to send our greetings to the brethren in America that love us so. You tell them that we thank them very much for what they have done for the black people. Tell them to be of good courage, and to continue to help us by sending teachers who love the Lord Jesus and who will show us the way of life eternal.” GCB May 23, 1913, page 116.3

I will go back to the time I left the Solusi Mission station to work in the Somabula, or “big forest,” station, about one hundred forty miles northward. In those days sufficient funds were appropriated to us to pay the wages of the missionaries, and we had to meet the expense of starting new schools and feeding pupils. Many problems were met. Many of the people had never seen a white woman, and but few had seen a white man. They were in the depths of heathenism. Fortunately, we had taken with us some little orphan herdboys, and they became quite a center of attraction. Soon afterward all the little herdboys in the country came driving their sheep and goats to the mission in order to become acquainted with our boys. This gave us opportunity to become acquainted with the parents, and to open a school, with forty or fifty boys in attendance. Others came, and our school grew. GCB May 23, 1913, page 116.4

Our earlier work at the Somabula Mission was marked by many providences. One night a young native married man about twenty-three years of age, living some miles away from our station, had a dream. He found himself traveling along a road, when he came to a river, and saw something thrown across it. He knew nothing of bridges, had never seen one. In his dream he saw the tracks of people who had gone over the bridge, and, though fearful, ventured to cross. When he came to the middle of the stream, there was no more platform on which to cross, but just a plank. He was afraid to go farther, but all at once he made up his mind he would get down onto his hands and knees, and cross that way. Before he had advanced very far, he saw a little building. When he reached the building, he heard some one reading in his own language. He discovered that it was a boy who was reading. He asked the boy what he was reading, and was told that it was Word of God. He did not know anything about the Word of God, but felt a longing in his heart to learn about it. GCB May 23, 1913, page 116.5

When the young man awoke in the morning, he told his father about the dream, and said he was going to visit the missionary living on the other side of the river, and learn whether he could attend school. His father gave him permission to go, and later sent three other members of his family to learn the truth. As a result, we soon had four pupils with which to begin school work. These were our first pupils. Today the young man who had that dream is a faithful worker in the Somabula Mission, and stands as a monument to God’s mercy. GCB May 23, 1913, page 116.6

PHOTO-SHANGANI MISSION, RHODESIA

Another incident: About three or four months after my wife and little babe and I reached Somabula, Mrs. Armitage was taken down with the Egyptian sore eye, a painful affliction, necessitating her remaining in a dark room. Under these circumstances the natural food for the infant ceased. I knew not what to do. We had no milch cows, and were 140 miles from the next mission station, and 110 miles from the railroad. We took the matter to the Lord in prayer. I searched the country for a cow, but could find none. One morning, however, one of our boys came to tell me a wagon was coming. This was an unusual occurrence in those isolated parts. Soon our visitor reached us, and said, “I have come to learn whether I can make a trade with you for some of your oxen.” I told him I had only a span of ten, and most of these were calves, and unfit for transport work. “But,” he urged, “I am in trouble. I have a cow in my team that must have rest. I want to trade her for one of your oxen.” I asked the man how he happened to come our way. He said he had been traveling another road for about a hundred miles, when in some unaccountable way he had lost his trail, and the road he took had led him to our mission station. Thus the providence of God intervened in our behalf in a time of special need. GCB May 23, 1913, page 116.7

Again: On one occasion we were destitute of provisions. Our attendance had increased till we had about twenty boarding at the school. The natives needed something else besides corn. So we began to seek the Lord. One morning we saw a string of oxen, thirty-two in number, coming toward the mission farm. They were traveling as fast as they could. I called to my boys to go and turn them in; and as soon as they came up to where I was, they began to lie down around me. I told the boys they had been chased by lions, and now they had found shelter, they were ready to rest. GCB May 23, 1913, page 116.8

The next day the owner of the cattle came along, and told me his story. The lions had chased his cattle about fifteen or eighteen miles from his place down below the mission, and there the wind changed; and of course oxen will not go with the wind with lions anywhere in proximity. The lions always go against the wind, because the lion always goes ahead of his prey, and then springs upon it as it comes along; but he will never chase it down. So these cattle had changed their course, and this had brought them to the mission. GCB May 23, 1913, page 116.9

When the man found that I had taken care of his cattle, he wanted to know if there was not something he could do for me. I told him he was welcome to what we had done; but before he left I asked him if he knew of any one who could sell us some cows. He said, “No, I do not know who will sell you any; but if you will permit me, I will send you some, to run here as long as you would like to keep them.” And so he sent us seventeen or eighteen cows, and in a little while we had an abundance of milk at the mission. This we regarded as another marked providence. GCB May 23, 1913, page 116.10

Another helpful providence was this: God in his wonderful way brought to us people from all over the country. Some came hundreds of miles, seeking a place to go to school. Four young men that started out from the Shangani division, over a hundred miles away, came saying, “We have wanted to find a mission station where the missionaries do not use tobacco.” GCB May 23, 1913, page 117.1

Kafirland GCB May 23, 1913, page 117.2

After spending six years at the Somabula station, it became necessary, because of the susceptibility of our little girl to the black-water fever, to leave the station, and go down to some point nearer the coast to labor. We were invited to go to what is now known as the Maranatha Mission, or the “Coming of the Lord Mission,” as its name indicates, To take up work for the Kafir people. GCB May 23, 1913, page 117.3

After putting up our buildings, we began making missionary tours among the people. Our equipment was a small wagon, a magic lantern, our formentation cloths, a few simple medicines, etc. Our little wagon attracted much attention. The use of a magic lantern was an innovation in mission work, and proved helpful. We went to one native village where the chief was not willing to have us work among his people, because he belonged to another denomination; but there were many in that town who we thought should hear the truth. So we fitted up our lantern at the front of the wagon, our screen at the rear, and began showing the pictures as we drove through the streets of the town. In a little while we had a number of children running after us. We told them to go and tell their parents that we were to have a meeting on the street, and to invite them to come. That night the whole town was out. The streets were blocked almost as far as we could see. Thus we found it possible to draw a crowd, and tell them of the love of Jesus, and of the provision he has made for their salvation from sin through his blood. GCB May 23, 1913, page 117.4

In these missionary tours we had abundant opportunity to minister to the sick. I could tell you some things that our sanitarium nurses generally could not tell, of the wonderful way in which God marvelously blesses the use of fomentation cloths. GCB May 23, 1913, page 117.5

When extracting teeth, as we are often called to do, we usually bind up all the sores we find. In every other way possible we try to help the poor people. Chief Kama said that he hoped the day would come when this people would be able to hire a Seventh-day Adventist trained nurse to give his whole time to working among the sick people of his tribe, and at the same time teach them the truth of God as we understand it. GCB May 23, 1913, page 117.6

I am grateful to God for his blessing, and to our brethren and sisters in the home land who have so freely and so liberally contributed of their means to carry forward the work in this dark continent. The work in which we are engaged is God’s; is is your as much as mine; and I pray that your interest in the people of dark Africa may ever continue, and that the blessing of the Lord may be with you alway. GCB May 23, 1913, page 117.7

R. C. Porter: There was an old chief in Kafirland, who was before his death, more respected than any other man in that land, who told them he had had a vision, in which he saw a white man coming with a roll to teach them important truth. He advised his people that when such a teacher came, they should accept that white man’s teaching; for the Lord had shown him that his teacher would be a representative of the people that would have the truth. The chief died. Afterward, one of his relatives was present when our people were out on a mission tour with the wagon, and hung up the chart with the law of God on it. This relative said, “This is the people that the prophet before he died said would come and bring to us the truth.” He said, “Here is the roll.” He exhorted all the Kafir people to accept the doctrine we were advocating. This has opened the way so that we have most urgent invitations in all that section of the country to come out and do evangelistic work. I believe we can do much more in rapidly disseminating the truth through evangelistic tours than in any other way. Two native evangelists are now proclaiming the message in that land, both of them having recently accepted the truth. We have many invitations. In many ways God is calling upon us to go out and do evangelistic work, which in Kafirland seems to be a much more rapid method of reaching the people than is mission-school work. GCB May 23, 1913, page 117.8

Brother and Sister Sturdevant sang “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” in one of the native languages of Mashonaland. GCB May 23, 1913, page 117.9

R. C. Porter: I wish you could hear the natives sing their gospel hymns. In their social meetings many are on their feet at once. I have seen them when not less than six would be on their feet at once, until ninety or a hundred had spoken. I have seen them with tears in their eyes as they pleaded that this same truth which had changed their hearts and given them light and peace, might be carried to their people. If you could sit before congregations and see these weeping eyes and hear these pleas, I know you would be glad that you have helped to make possible the evangelization of these poor, dark heathen. We shall see them by and by in the kingdom of God. They are talking about going home. They are talking about the great gathering. They are talking about the time when Jesus will come, and we shall wear crowns of immortal glory. They believe that time is not far distant. The language of their hearts is: “O, what shall we do for our poor people? What can be done to reach our friends?” I see the answer to these pleas in the rising and continually increasing interest in missions on the part of our brethren in this land. Funds are coming in freely. The members of our churches in the home land are giving liberally. I pray God the time may soon come when it will be possible for us to send out a hundred evangelists where we now have one, and thus rapidly carry the truth to all those peoples throughout the continent. GCB May 23, 1913, page 117.10