How the Lord Sent the First Inquirer to Somabula by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 28, 1914

How the Lord Sent the First Inquirer to Somabula

By W. A. S.

IN the planting of a mission station in a new region, the missionary is led to feel in a special way this dependence upon God. The trust is in the divine power alone all along; but it is most essential at the beginning that the Lord’s own hand shall be seen in awakening a genuine spirit of inquiry, and in bringing forth first fruits that shall indeed be promise of the coming harvest. Human undertaking may draw the curious or the self-seeking, but of souls that pass from death unto life, the work truly must all be wrought by the Spirit of the living God, who alone “giveth the increase.”

Speaking of first experiences in the Somabula Mission, near Gwelo, in Rhodesia, Elder F. B. Armitage has told how the first inquirer was sent to the mission from the heathen villages. Here is the story:—

We had been on the new location about two months, endeavoring to get a start and praying the Lord to send to us hearts open to receive instruction in the way of salvation. With us we had some Matabele orphan children, brought from our first Rhodesian station, near Bulawayo, where we had formerly labored. One Sabbath day, as we were gathering in our little meeting, in came four young people, three men and one woman. As the meeting closed, the eldest of the young men arose.

“Teacher,” he said, “I should like to speak some words to you.”

“Speak on,” I said.

“Night before last,” he went on, “I had a dream. In my dream I came here to this little room, and as I put my head into the door, I saw one of the boys sitting by the door reading from a book. I listened to the words and became interested. I sat down by the boy, and at last I said to him, in my dream, ‘What are you reading?’ ‘This is God’s Word,’ he told me. It was the first time I had ever heard of God’s Word. I had never heard before that God had spoken words. Then my dream ended.”

To make the story short, he told us that in the morning when he rose up he went to his father, and told him how he had visited the new mission school in his dream, and now he wanted to go and visit the place in person. “They have God’s Word there,” he said to his father. “I saw it in my dream. Now I want to go and hear God’s Word.”

“So we have come today,” the young man told us; “and I have seen and heard it all just as it was in the dream. This little boy,” pointing to one of the orphan children, “is the same one that I saw sitting by the door, in the dream.” And pointing to another boy and a girl, he said: “I saw these also, and the teacher there is the same. I would have known him if I had met him many miles from here.”

That was our introduction to the work in Somabula, and we felt that truly our Heavenly Father was verifying the promise: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: . . . yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” Isa. 41: 10.

It was this promise that had been special strength and assurance in the starting of the new station. “And what about the first inquirer?” we asked. “Did he accept the gospel fully?” “Ah, yea,” said Elder Armitage; “he became one of the trusted workers in the mission.” Thus again, as so often in the story of missions, we see the direct working of the Spirit of God, preparing the way before the human witnesses, and searching out true hearts that are waiting in spiritual darkness. W. A. S.