Fighting the Fever

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C.

FromReview and Herald, Harvest Ingathering Number

Fighting the Fever

ONE great foe of the missionary in the African interior is the fever which lies in wait every rainy season. The last season brought much sickness to some of our stations. We thank God the season passed with the life of every worker spared. The correspondence shows how the workers in the various stations battle against this difficulty and endeavor to hold to the work. The Barotseland Mission superintendent, Brother W. H. Anderson, and his wife, have been ordered a furlough, both having suffered severely. In one of the first letters written after recovering, by the mercy of the Lord, from a siege with the deadly blackwater fever, Mrs. Anderson wrote from Pemba, the mission headquarters beyond the Zambesi:—

“We are still on the mission. It is hard to make myself go down country and leave Mr. Anderson when he is not at all well. But help has come now, and soon we must leave for our change. Mr. Anderson has just been out for three weeks, preaching, and visiting the outschools. He left them all well filled. It is good to see the work building up again. Two years ago it was torn and mangled, and it has meant much hard work to get it established again. The mission has been passing through the most trying experience of its existence. Now

that the work is going on smoothly again and the schools are full, we long to be able to stay and enjoy the experience that always comes when the sunshine dispels the clouds.”

“We have never left the mission when it has made us feel so sad as at this time. It is the idea that we are compelled to leave. I hope the brethren will be pleased to let us come back again. It may be thought unadvisable, as I have had so much fever, but I am willing to try it again. I believe it will not be so bad if I can go away and get these malaria germs out of my system. I hope some day the fever will be killed out of this region north of the Zambesi, as it is in Southern Rhodesia. But when will that be? And how will the gospel be preached till then if we do not go right on just the same?”

“Our fruit orchard is beginning to do well. Our herds are growing and enlarging. The children that we have almost given our very lives for are here. In fact, all that we hold dear in this world is here. The things that cost us the greatest sacrifice are always the dearest to us. It makes our hearts heavy when we think about leaving. But we feel that we can say, ‘Thy will be done.’ It takes much of the grace of God sometimes to say this and really mean it, but this is the way we wish to feel.”