Nyassaland, British Central Africa
By S. M. Konigmacher
Since coming to this field, and especially to this station, we have had a varied experience, which has been good for us. It was hard to lose our baby when we first came, because it was so lonely here. But now, as the work is growing, and the school is larger, time passes more rapidly. We have been looking around for other sites for out-schools, and, by the blessing of the Lord, hope to secure three more, perhaps others. Day before yesterday one man came to ask for a school for his people, who live about thirty or forty miles from here. Thus the influence of the mission is spreading. Our medical work here is not very extensive, yet we are called out sometimes. Yesterday a boy came to school with a temperature of 103°. One look told me that he was really sick. I took his temperature, and found he had fever. I gave him some salts, and told his companions to take the machila and carry him home. The native is very difficult to treat. He does not like to undergo our treatments; but we can give them sometimes. The other day a little boy came who had been bitten by a snake. I put into the wound the strongest disinfectant I had, and one of the boys cut it open, so that it bled freely. He is all right now. The natives have the same idea as many people at home—that they must feed their people all the time. They will take a small child, a week old, and literally force the food down its throat with their fingers. One mother fed her one-day-old baby raw corn-meal gruel. It lived only three days. This is a custom. When this little one died, they wanted to bury it in their fashion; but I told the father that we bury our children nicely, just the same as grown people. I wanted to give the child a Christian burial. So my wife sent them over nice new white cloth to wrap it in; and on the way to the grave she found some wild sweet peas, which she plucked, and laid on the child. On arriving at the grave, we read those appropriate words in 1 Thess. 4:13. We had song and prayer. Then I placed some dry grass in the bottom of the grave, and the father laid the baby in, and I covered it with some more dry grass. One day, while on my way to my nearest out-school, I came to a village where some women were mourning for a child which had died, dancing and crying to drive away the evil spirits. The village is very near my school. I had stopped there some days before, and had tried to administer treatments with my handkerchief and a hot brick. I asked the mother to bring the child to the mission, but she said she could not. It was very sick when I went over, and nothing but expert care, which was impossible in the village, would have saved it. I told the women who were dancing and mourning that that could not drive away the evil spirits, but that they were pleased with that way of doing, that only the Holy Spirit could drive away the evil one. It was very difficult to get the consent of the chief of this village to allow me to put a school there, because I had been giving some pretty plain talks against their bier dances. After seeing the progress his sons were making at the mission, and after Peter, my head teacher, had talked to them, he consented, and we have an enrolment of more than fifty. I will have to send three teachers. God is surely blessing. We are glad to hear of the good news from the General Conference, and to see the encouraging reports from other fields. With God's help and the prayers of our people at home, we hope to push forward in Nyassaland.