Northwest Rhodesia Mission

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 16, 1910

Northwest Rhodesia Mission

The headquarters of this mission is at Pemba, six miles from the railway station of Monze, north of Victoria Falls. Elder R. C. Porter, who visited the mission during the year, wrote:—

We were happily surprised to find that, instead of a wild-looking frontier station, the surroundings were such as to remind us of home life and civilization,—a neat brick cottage for the superintendent and helpers, a brick chapel for school and Sabbath services, and a brick building for the natives' dining- and study-room. Another brick cottage was under construction for J. R. Campbell and wife. The native thatched huts for the students' living quarters, and a native cattle kraal, reminded us that we were in the wilds of Africa.

The report of Elder W. H. Anderson, the superintendent, has some how miscarried; but in a letter he says:—

We are now operating seven out-stations in addition to the central home mission, and it keeps us busy looking after it all. Some time ago we published a reader in the Chitonga tongue. The only Chitonga reader was a book of fables and worthless stories; we have told in our book the Bible story. The reader was so helpful that we have just sent to the printers the manuscript for a second book. All we have in the Bible is the Gospel of Mark. In our readers we shall cover much of the Old Testament ground, and I mean to work for the Gospel of John in Chitonga during 1910.

We have now almost filled the Monza district with schools, and next dry season

we shall fill the Mombashi, and so on until all parts of the field are covered. In our appropriations for 1910 we are not asking for all the wages we shall pay out to the workers; so we are forging toward self-support on the old work, and are spending most of the appropriations in opening new schools. Our teachers are developing. Students come from the western and eastern and northern parts, and these young people are catching the spirit of the message, and are ready to go with it to others.

During the present year we have had five cases of malignant black-water fever with our native boys. In the nature of things we have to deal with it on the ground; we have to know how to take care of them. We also have many accidents and emergency cases. About two years ago one of my boys, while out chopping wood to burn bricks, put the ax right through the center of his foot, severing a fair-sized artery. No doctor was there. I got hold of the artery, drew it out, tied it, and dressed the wound. He did not have any infection, strange to say, but got along all right. A year ago one of my boys was gored by a vicious ox, and I had to put his organs back in place. A year ago last July a native, while out hunting, stopped to rest, and put his hands over the muzzle of his gun. The gun was loaded with gravel stones, and it went off, blowing off three fingers of one hand and a thumb and finger on the other. He came to us to be treated. I did not know how to cut the bone, as I had never had a nurse's training. All I could do was to cut away the flesh, and cauterize it with carbolic acid.

We often have to treat snake bites. The natives come rushing in, having been bitten, usually on the feet or leg, the bitten part being badly swollen. Some of the methods we use are rather crude. With my surgical knife, I cut the wound open, cutting it good and deep, so it will bleed profusely, thus washing out considerable of the poison. Then I apply a saturate solution of permanganate of potash, and dress the wound; if I have not that at hand, I cauterize it with carbolic acid. Then the patient is given a liberal cathartic, to cleanse the stomach and bowels. Patients so treated get along all right.

Sometimes I have dental work to do. Many of the natives have very poor teeth. I never learned the art of filling teeth, but I know something about extracting. One time a woman came to me who had nine very bad roots in her jaw. These natives are something like children; as soon as they see a little blood, they get wonderfully scared. You can hurt them as much as necessary, but it does not seem to annoy them until they see a little blood. This woman had some ulcers also, and was in a very bad condition. I saw the only thing to do was to take out all nine of those roots. We do not have any dentist's chair, so I had her kneel down on the ground, and one of my boys held her head between his hands; then I got hold of her head, and took those nine roots out before I let her shut her mouth. She got up on her feet, spit some blood, and then ran.

You see from these experiences something of what is expected from a missionary out in the field. He has to be prepared to deal with anything that comes his way, and he ought to have a training, an education, that will enable him to deal with these things successfully.

At the present time we have seven out-stations that we have to attend to, and that means to travel about two hundred fifty miles every month. Traveling the way we do, one can walk only about twenty-five miles a day; at least that is all I care to stand up under. Then you stop a day, two days, or three days, at the out-station. This means that in order to visit these out-stations, one must spend from sixteen to twenty days traveling. And he must keep it up the year round. There are many hardships and privations to meet in this field. If a man is not willing to endure these things, and go through them cheerfully as a part of his regular experience, and not grumble about them, he should not become a worker in this field.

This mission expects to push ever northward toward the Kongo State border. In his first translating, Elder Anderson had to put the matter first into the language of the Matabeles, which he knew, and then his native boys, who knew both the Tebele and the Chitonga, helped him to put the thought into the Chitonga language.