At “Old Solusi” by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 18, 1915

At “Old Solusi”

By W. A. S.

We rode into the mission compound just at evening, after a twenty-two-mile drive by mule team from Figtree station. It is a homelike settlement—two cottages, a school, a church, a number of small huts for schoolboys, a kitchen, a dining room, and a girls’ dormitory, all of brick; a store, sheds, and also racks filled high with the ears of husked corn. The ox wagon was just coming in from the mealie fields, with yet another load of corn.

Here it was that our first African mission—in fact, our first mission to the heathen—was planted, near Chief Solusi’s kraal, in 1894. It was in the wilds then, thirty-five miles west of Bulawayo. In the days of the Matabele rebellion, our missionaries fled from the farm to the Bulawayo stockade, while the old chief worked like a brother in their absence to save the mission cattle and protect mission interests.

There is still on the farm the remains of the fort thrown up by the soldiers camped here at that time, and in the boughs of the tree standing in the center of the earth ramparts, may still be seen a few bolts and pieces of timber where a machine gun was mounted to sweep the country round.

All that is now ancient pioneer history. Through the years since, Solusi has carried on its active, life-saving work, the fever being the only real peril to the missionaries. The little cemetery beyond the church tells how real a battle the fight against the malaria has been. Now, with lands cleared and proper precautions taken, Elder W. C. Walston, the superintendent, feels that health conditions are very favorable.

Seventy-five boys and girls were in the school, taught by Brother and Sister R. P. Robinson. Sister Walston does some teaching, but has her hands full with guiding the girls and boys through the

domestic side of the mission boarding school enterprise. It is a happy, busy family at Old Solusi, as the missionaries call this parent station.

This has been the training ground for many workers. A number of the missionary leaders at other stations got their first experience here, and all about the Rhodesian missions, and north and south of the Zambesi, and even down in Zululand, I found boys and girls from Solusi working as teachers and right-hand helpers. And there are yet more coming along, studying hard, and growing into an experience in the truth. Eleven out-schools are operated from this mission, the farthest about eighty miles away.

“Where do these boys come from?” I asked Brother Robinson.

We sat on the school platform, built of earth, and looked down on row after row of bright-faced boys and girls sitting on the benches, which were also built up of plastered mud, hard-dried.

“They are from this part mostly,” he replied; “but we have a dozen or more from tribes beyond the Zambesi.”

These have been years of earnest mission effort at Solusi, since the pioneer party, led by Brethren A. Druillard, P. J. D. Wessels, and F. Sparrow, rode in from Bulawayo across the Guai River, and pitched camp here among thick bush. Meantime the believers in our home churches have been giving and praying for African missions. As today we see the work spreading, and the leavening process going on among the tribes far and near, we know that the labor of love has not been in vain. It is worth while. The day of God will so declare it; for souls have been won to Christ. If those among our pioneers in Africa who are sleeping—in the cemetery here, and down at Kimberley, and at Cape Town—could speak, we know they, too, would say it is worth while.

Still the calls come from tribes beyond. Our missionaries plead for more men and more means, by which to keep the work following on after the ever-advancing providence of God.

W. A. S.