Malamulo Mission, Nyassaland
By J. C. Rogers
At our baptismal service in April, seventeen natives from three tribes received the ordinance, administered by the writer in a small stream crossing our land. One of the candidates was a chief of local prominence in the Angoni tribe. He is a skilled carpenter, and is doing the woodwork on the church building, now nearing completion. Twenty other candidates who had been at the mission only one year were deferred for more instruction. These are now in a special Bible class receiving the necessary preparation. The new building is a combined school and church. Its dimensions are twenty-eight by sixty feet, having two class rooms at the rear, twelve by sixteen feet. It is made of brick, the material for which is taken from the ant-hill found one hundred yards from the building. Already over one hundred thousand good bricks have been made from this ant-hill, and it is not quite exhausted. While the workmen were digging one day, I found the white ant queen larva, measuring one and one-half inches long. The age of these ant-hills is unknown, but I would estimate it at many hundred years. The brick is made by native brickmakers, one by one with the hands, in a wooden mold. A good workman makes one thousand a day, and his wage is ten shillings ($2.50) a month of twenty-seven days. The floor is of tile made in the same way. The walls are plastered with sand found on the mission farm, with only water added. This plaster looks like the best rough cement-plaster of America. The outside is pointed with lime and sand, a little Portland cement being used on the foundation and chimney. All wood used grows on the mission land. Door- and window-frames, and beams to strengthen the walls, are sawed by natives with pit-saws, from the mbauwa (African mahogany) tree. One log of this tree sold in Liverpool, in 1903, for £1,046 sterling, a little over five thousand dollars. It contained 1,674 sale feet, bringing $3 a foot. But the report fails to say how much it cost to transport and market it. The rafters are poles from another native tree, as also all braces. The roof is thatch, supported on the rafters by bamboo tied with bark of another tree. The only imported articles are nails, glass, and locks. Malamulo Mission School holidays are from May 1 to July 31. During the holidays many of our boys and some families walk to their home villages, one hundred to three hundred miles distant. This year a teachers' summer school was held during July for our sixteen native teachers. The subjects taught were Bible, reading, writing, arithmetic, and school methods. The school opened August 3, with an enrolment the first week of one hundred twenty-four, later increased to one hundred thirty-one, with a daily attendance of one hundred twenty-five. We have constant opportunities for opening village schools far and near. At present we have only four village schools and two small out-stations. We should have scores of them. Our great need is well-trained native teachers for the village schools, and converted, soul-loving European overseers for out-stations. Africa awaits the message of the coming Saviour. The present enrolment of our school is one hundred forty-two, the daily attendance one hundred thirty-nine. The proportion of attendance will be somewhat less in the rainy season. Last term the average attendance in all our schools was three hundred. It is a peculiar fact that the attendance at Sabbath-school is less than at the day-school. Evidently some village children are not so much interested in the Sabbath-school as in the day-school; but in an attendance of one hundred nineteen at Sabbath-school, seventy-six had verses memorized. Our teachers who went out to hold village meetings last Sabbath, reported one hundred eighty-four in attendance at the several meetings held in seven different villages. At our Monekera out-station, north of Blantyre, the Sabbath attendance is about one hundred. Malinki, our head teacher there, has just reported two schools, with ninety-one enrolled. Another school in that district is to be reopened soon, with an attendance of fifty or more. All being well, I shall spend next Sabbath at that station, where a Bible class of twenty-one is preparing for baptism. Three boys have just come to Malamulo School from the Kirk Mountains, whose homes are near our Matandane out-station. This out-station is one hundred miles from our main station at Malamulo. As soon as we have a European teacher for that out-station, it will not be necessary for them to come so far. Last month a chief came to Malamulo from Angoniland, some two hundred miles away, begging us to send a teacher who would teach his people the Word of God. On inquiry, I found that other missions have schools not far from his villages, and they have asked his permission to open schools for him. He told me that he declined because he has been waiting several years for a teacher of the Sabbath truth. He heard this truth of a former Sabbath missionary, and has patiently waited for a teacher ever since. It was hard to put him off still longer, but we have not one teacher to spare from our schools already open. May the Lord of the harvest soon give us more reapers! Our hearts were refreshed last Sabbath by having three young men for whom we have worked and prayed a whole year, come to us to confess that they want to give their hearts to God. This is the one thing above all others that keeps the worker's courage up in a field like this. The people do seem to desire to know God's Word and to serve him. The change from heathenism to16Christianity is a great one, and few can grasp the mighty work of God required to bring about this change. It is beyond mortal comprehension. But God is doing the work, and we praise his name. I often wonder that such wonderful changes can be wrought in one generation. Sleeping-sickness has made terrible havoc among the natives of Uganda, on our northern border. Reliable authority states that already two hundred thousand out of the population of three hundred thousand are dead, and the end is not yet. It is moving southward, and no one knows where or when it will stop. It has no known remedy at present. May God give power to his Word to turn many heathen hearts to him before this plague is upon them. We need health for the work; we need money; we need men.