Barotseland Mission, South Africa
By S. M. KONIGMACHER
This, the eleventh of May, is a lovely, cool morning. I think the cold weather has begun. It will be better for us, but we become so accustomed to the heat that we feel the least cold very keenly. We have nothing but courage and progress to report from this part of the field. Yesterday the sixty-third student came in, and we were glad to see some of the local boys also coming back to school. I examined a large class that had finished one book and were anxious to enter the next book higher. We require the boys to finish the vernacular before they are permitted to begin English, which these boys are to begin next week. It is really encouraging to see how contentedly they will work while getting the vernacular, for many of them come from far in order to get the English. But they have confidence in their teachers, and know that when they finish the required12work they will be permitted to go into the English classes. I am sure it would be encouraging to our brethren and sisters if they could step into the evening school and see how busily the boys are reading to prepare for the next day. One boy who is working for wages by the month comes to the night school. All the books in the vernacular are on Bible subjects, so while the boys are practically memorizing their books they are getting a good foundation of the truth. In the regular school session they have the lessons explained to them, and we teach them new songs of praise, so that by the time the school term closes and they go back to their villages, they are able to do a little toward expelling the darkness. When a boy has finished a vernacular book it is given to him for his own, and he in turn will probably give it to a brother or sister, and help him or her to read at home. I have given the medical work a great deal of attention, and this helps to encourage the boys. For a time there was much sickness, and the boys wanted to leave; but when they saw that no one died, but all got well, they took courage and all remained. On my visit to Fufwa, I went into some of the near-by villages. In one I found a man who had been hurt three years ago and was in a dying condition. A native had asked him for some cattle and he refused. The native then played a practical joke on him and broke his leg. The poor man had no one to help him, and he did not, or could not, send for medicine. His wife left him, and he simply suffered on while his leg literally rotted away. I dressed it, putting on some boracic acid powder, and tying it up in a clean cloth, instead of in leaves as he had done, and then we had prayer. I asked the poor man if he did not want to enter the kingdom of heaven, and he said, "Eha." You can easily guess what that means. The other day while working in the back yard we saw a lot of natives passing through the compound, and I asked the boys what they were carrying. At first we thought it was game tied on a pole, but afterwards learned it was a native man who had been bitten by a snake the night before, and whom they were taking to his village, probably to die. I sent a boy to tell them to bring him to me. They had a string tied about the ankle, and the foot was badly swollen. A native policeman lanced it for me, and sucked out a lot of the poison. I then rubbed medicine into the wound, and hope it will save his life. The white workers are all well. We have kept exceptionally well, even though this has been one of the worst years for fever. Last Sabbath I spoke to the boys on the subject of baptism, and after the service quite a number followed me and said they wanted to be baptized. So the gospel is finding a place in some of their hearts. The Lord is truly good and greatly to be praised.