A Few Weeks at Soemberwekas, Java
By R. P. Montgomery
AFTER a few years spent in the tropics and nearly a year and a half in Borneo, Mrs. Montgomery and I felt the need of a few weeks' rest in a cooler climate. We sailed from Sandakan to Java, via Singapore. Arriving in Batavia, we took the train across to Surabaya, in the eastern extremity of Java. From Surabaya, we traveled by train about thirty miles southeast to the foot of the hills. From here we rode in small carts, pulled by two small ponies, going ungrade as far as we could, and then walked on up to Soemberwekas. Native coolies carried12our baggage. Soemberwekas is the name of the native village, or kampong. Next to this kampong, the Java Mission owns two pieces of property which are used principally for a place of retreat for our missionaries who are in need of rest or have been having malarial fever. There are two pieces of land, of about three or four acres each, with a frame house on one and a brick-and-cement house on the other. The land is set out with about twenty different kinds of fruit trees. Many beautiful flowers, ferns, and bushes adorn the yards. There is a nice stream of water from the mountains flowing through the land, which is used for irrigation. The location is ideal. A beautiful view of the surrounding country can be had from either place. Four miles to the north is Mt. Penangongan, about 4,000 feet above tide, a solitary mountain covered with tall grass and a few clumps of jungle on the sides. To the west and the south can be seen among the mountains two craters of volcanoes. They have been seen to smoke some at times, and occasionally a slight quake is felt. To the east, down below, the plains, dotted with groves and rice fields, stretch before your view for miles and miles onward to the sea. Here and there can be seen a tall, white smokestack, representing a sugar mill. Those plains down below are covered with millions of Mohammedan Javanese, who are plodding along in their paddy (rice) fields, cane fields, cornfields, and fruit gardens, day after day and year after year, knowing nothing of the Saviour. As I sit here and look out toward the east upon those thousands of little kampongs, I am constrained to make a plea in behalf of these people. How much longer must they wait before some one will explain to them the glad story? These same plains and these hills have been here for about two thousand years, practically as they now are, inhabited by the same race of people, waiting, waiting, waiting. Java is one of Holland's East Indian possessions, and is one of the most beautiful islands in the world. It has an area about equal to that of Pennsylvania, and a population of 33,000,000, or nearly one third that of the United States. Our missionaries here are few. In Surabaya, Brother and Sister Wood are located, and in Batavia Sister Tunheim is stationed. Now what are they for so many millions? Can one person preach the message to 11,000,000 persons? So we in the Malaysian Mission field plead for more help for Java, as well as for some of the other islands. We are thankful for the rest at Soemberwekas, and for the quiet study and meditation it has afforded us. We shall soon be on our way back to Borneo to continue the work in that field. When you pray for missions, do not forget us.