Beginning a New Mission by L. R. Conradi

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 14, 1907

Beginning a New Mission

By L. R. Conradi

L. R. CONRADI

While Europe itself, with its four hundred twenty-two million people, is a mighty missionary problem exceeding any of the other large fields so far as population and diversity of nationality is concerned, yet our brethren here have felt constrained by the Spirit of God to assist in carrying the gospel into the great “regions beyond,” into the adjoining parts of Asia and Africa. The Dark Continent has received special attention.

In 1903 the German Union Conference opened its mission to German East Africa. It now has three chief stations there, and eight missionaries. Its annual budget calls for an expenditure of over five thousand dollars. Aside from the head stations, there are several outstations. We have about three hundred young people in the schools there, and the brethren expect to have their first baptism this year.

The Latin Union followed, by sending two missionaries to Algeria, and a third worker is now to go there.

Following, came the British Union Conference, which began work in British East Africa, at the very door of Uganda: we now have four missionaries there.

Naturally, from the Levant Mission, we are working Egypt, having five missionaries there now.

The Scandinavian Union Conference is the last of our unions to decide upon taking active and aggressive steps to assist in the evangelization of Africa. They take for their special task that of reaching the Abyssinians. As Abyssinia itself is closed to foreign missionaries for the present, of course the mission to her people must be established in the surrounding territory. We have taken considerable time to study this most difficult problem, and to learn the best way of approach.

We had thought somewhat of trying to get an entrance through the country around Lake Rudolph, in British East Africa, and wrote to the British commissioner about the matter. We have just received the following answer: “Although this administration views with sympathy the extension of missionary operations, it is not considered desirable that work should be started in regions remote from administrative control, where there is no resident government official.” We have also learned that the Sudan is still closed. So the only means of access remaining to us would be the Italian colony of Eritrea, where the Swedish missionaries already have quite an extensive work.

The languages spoken in that colony are, besides the Italian, the Tigren and Amharric. Brethren P. N. Lindegren, and Julius Persson (née Andersson), of Sweden, have accepted the call to open this new mission. Brother Lindegren has been a nurse at the Skodsborg Sanitarium. He is thirty years of age. Brother Persson, who is nearly twenty-five years old, has been a successful gospel worker in the arctic circle, in northern Sweden. These brethren sailed from Hamburg on the German East African steamer, the “Princessen,” September 21, for Suez, where they will take passage on another line direct to Massouah, the principal seaport of Eritrea. We are thankful to God that already considerable means has been given by our Scandinavian and German brethren in Europe, and by the Scandinavian brethren in America, toward this work. These friends will naturally be happy to learn that this mission is now to be undertaken, and they will be glad to follow it with their prayers and means as the work develops.

The colony of Eritrea is about as large as the State of Virginia, and it has a population of two hundred eighty thousand. It extends on the western shore of the Red Sea down opposite to Aden. Its chief port is Massouah, with a population of eight thousand, while the government headquarters are in the mountains at Asmara. A railway has been planned from Massouah to Asmara, nearly one hundred miles in length, about fifty miles of which is now in operation.

We hope our people will remember this new mission in their gifts and prayers. We give herewith the picture of the two brethren.

Hamburg, Germany.