Among the Mashonas by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 4, 1915

Among the Mashonas

By W. A. S.

At the Glendale Mission, near Ft. Victoria, Mashonaland, I heard the Shona tongue for the first time. From the eight outschools, far and near (the nearest nine miles distant), the people had come in to the meeting at this newly established station, crowding the little meeting room to the utmost. About one hundred and seventy-five voices sang out the hymn in the Shona tongue:— “Saviour, Saviour, hear my humble cry; While on others thou art calling, Do not pass me by.”

In the Shona it reads like this:— “Yesu Tenzi, Ndo chemere ’Mwi, Mu ka Komborera wame, Musa siye ’ni.”

It is the cry of Mashona hearts that they may not be passed by as the last message of the “everlasting gospel” is hastening on with its call to salvation. How dreadful to be passed by, and left helpless and alone in the dark! I am glad, as I see these animated faces, that our work has begun among the Mashonas. And with that thought, what a

vision opens up of tribes and tongues yet unreached, waiting for us, in the wilds!

The plan in this new station is the same as in other missions. The Glendale farm has nineteen hundred acres, four hundred of which is tillable valley land. The central school is to be here, students working on the land; and as teachers and evangelists are developed, the regions round about will be entered.

In former days the Matabeles raided Mashonaland for slaves and plunder. Now our first teachers are drawn from our missions in Matabeleland.

“It is hard,” said one of these out-school teachers, “for the Mashonas say to us, ‘Your fathers came down to raid us; how do we know but you will do the same some time!’ They do not forget.”

But the work is winning its way among the Mashonas. Brother T. J. Gibson is the superintendent, and Brother Lawrence Sparrow, who speaks this tongue fluently, is assistant. When I visited them their families were battling with fever, but with never a murmur. The new houses must be completed, giving room and protection from mosquito infection. It is an earnest and, at times, even desperate battle that the workers have to fight in establishing these new missions. The knowledge that the brethren and sisters in the churches are praying for them and supplying the means to go ahead is such a comfort to these missionary homes. And as I meet with these workers, I hear them praying for the home churches. The tie that binds our hearts together is a very real one.

Northeastward across Mashonaland, at Tsungwesi, near Umtala,—which is marked on most maps,—is our first station for the Mashonas, established by Elder M. C. Sturdevant. The station is beautifully laid out. One can see the signs of the heavy tasks that now have compelled Elder Sturdevant to let go the pioneer work for a time, though down in the provinces, at Johannesburg, he is still working in part for the native peoples.

Tsungwesi’s 3,300 acres are spread over a great valley, skirted by mountain ridges. We got it by exchanging a like acreage cut off from the old Solusi farm, our first mission in Africa. Brother A. P. Tarr—twenty-five years ago a student from South Africa at Battle Creek College—has been in charge, but on his transfer to the Kafirland work, Brother F. B. Jewell takes the superintendency, with Brother E. Tarr assisting.

Here, in a little inclosure, I saw the last missionary grave that marks our way in Rhodesia—that of Brother C. Lynn Bowen. It is a part of the price to be paid, and Brother Bowen never shrank from it. Sister Bowen has for a year been teaching in a family school near Bulawayo, but now she returns to Tsungwesi, to join the teaching staff at the mission.

So, on goes the work. The light is shining out from these two stations in Mashonaland. With some very good evidence, many think that Mashonaland was the principal source of the gold of Ophir, which the Sabean traders supplied to Solomon. All about are the marks of a gold mining industry carried on in prehistoric times. But at any rate, we are seeing in our mission work in this land that the grace of God is still able to “make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.” Isa. 13:12. W. A. S.