Putting the Gospels into a New Tongue

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 4, 1909

Putting the Gospels into a New Tongue

What Five Years Has Wrought in the Wilds

REPORTING a visit to our stations in the Pare Mountain region of German East Africa, L. R. Conradi, of Europe, writes:—

“Our head station, Kihuiro, lies at an elevation of eighteen hundred feet, at the foot of the mountains. The next station, Friedenstal, lies at an altitude of about thirty-five hundred feet, and it is three and one-half hours distant from Kihuiro . The third station, Vuasu, requires a ten-hours’ march up the mountains, where one has to cross a ridge as high as seven thousand feet, though the station itself lies farther below, at an elevation of about fifty-five hundred feet.

“On a clear day at Vuasu one can see the snow-covered peak of Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain of Africa,—eighteen thousand feet. Away below in the plains are a number of villages.

“Five years ago, accompanying our first missionary party, I reached Kihuiro, where there was only a miserable hut to shelter us. What a change in five years! Now, a nice road leads up to the mission station, a mile from town. On one side is a beautiful ten-acre cotton field, and some good maize belonging to the mission station. At the station itself, we found a good dwelling-house and a number of good outbuildings , also a commodious school building, which serves as a chapel. This building will accommodate three hundred persons. It was packed full. The head chief of the town, and a number of his subchiefs, met us, clad in official attire. As we entered the house, we found one hundred fifty young people there, who are in regular attendance at our school. One of our familiar hymns was announced to be sung in the native language. Hundreds of voices joined in the praise to God. A convert prayed.

“Mission work is slow work. It requires many sacrifices. It costs the lives of workers whom we dearly love. It costs money, and much patient labor. But the greater the sacrifice, the greater the final results. To see people who could neither read nor write, and whose language was not even committed to writing, who were bound in the darkness of heathendom, freed from all this thralldom, and enlightened by the gospel, praising God and worshiping him, is not only a sight to make the angels of heaven rejoice, but it is a sight that stirs our hearts.

“Brethren E. Kotz and A. C. Enns have translated the Gospels into the Chasu language, spoken in this region. They have thus far no printed books whatever. Our Hamburg Publishing House has prepared a small hymn-book for them, to the great joy of the natives, and would be pleased to help them also in getting the Gospels printed.”