p. 18 | A Visit to Gwelo by W. S. Hyatt

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Oct 8, 1903

A Visit to Gwelo

By W. S. Hyatt

RECENTLY, with my wife and the younger children, I made a visit to Brother Armitage, near Gwelo. It takes five days by rail to reach Gwelo, and from this point it is a full twenty-four-hour trip to the mission. We had the privilege of sleeping one night on the veldt. But we enjoyed the trip. We found all quite well, although only a short time before Brother Armitage's daughter had been very ill, and had been taken to the hospital at Gwelo.

When Brother Armitage went to this mission farm two years ago, he took with him the native children that had been in Brother Tripp's family. He began to erect buildings, and one year ago last April opened a school. The work of building and getting the garden started required time, yet his boys were able besides to do some work teaching in the kraals. He now has about thirty-five in attendance at the school, and of this number twenty-six are staying with him in the home, the remainder coming in from the kraals. Quite a number of these are full-grown young men; and some of them are very promising, as far as the eye can discern. He has two boys that Brother Tripp adopted in the beginning of the mission work in Matabeleland, and these are a great help to him. They are seventeen and eighteen years of age, and they take a great interest in anything that Brother Armitage does. They are like sons with a father. They look after the school, if need be, and do a large part of the teaching, and assist in keeping order, etc. They understand the English well, although they speak it very little. They serve well as interpreters. I talked to the people through them several times, and was well pleased with their work.

I must tell you of some of the boys that came to Brother Armitage. They were young men, and desired to find a school where the teacher taught that it was wrong to drink and smoke. After a long hunt, they found this little mission. When they had been there a week, like Philip, they went to find some more of their friends, and brought back three with them. In four months these young men have learned to read their Bibles, and write a fairly good hand. They are now writing home and telling their friends of the good things they have found. They are anxious to return and open work in that section, where little has been done by the missionary.

Brother Armitage has thus, by being able to turn his hand to different kinds of work, not only supported the mission, but has a little to their credit. The Lord has indeed blessed him, and opened the way before him, and he has done a great work for the boys that are there. No one can doubt, in looking the work over and hearing the words of thankfulness that the boys utter, what God has done for them. One of the larger ones arose at the close of one of my meetings, and with the tears streaming down his face, thanked the Lord that when they were in darkness and their hearts hard as stone, then the Lord sent the mission to them.

Mrs. Hyatt will remain five or six months with her brother, and assist him by teaching some of his English classes. She takes delight in this kind of work, as she has had some experience in the past, and is glad she can now drop home duties for a time, and enter upon real mission work at the front. We enjoy this work much, but realize more and more that great wisdom is needed to make it a success. W. S. HYATT.