By Malcolm Forsberg, supplemented with correspondence collected by Marian N. Kraft, compiled and edited by Robert A. Kraft
Land Beyond the Nile was originally published by Harper & Brothers in 1958 (reissued by Moody Press, Chicago, 1967) with copyright by Malcolm Iver Forsberg (1908-1991). Permission to reuse these materials was obtained by Robert A. Kraft from Malcolm's widow Enid Miller Forsberg in a letter postmarked 18 October 2004. Enid Miller Forsberg is daughter of the late Irving Charles Miller (1886-1941), and first cousin of Robert A. Kraft's mother Marian Northrop Kraft (daughter of Irving's sister Margaret).
[Adapted from a publisher's blurb:] The Forsbergs taught the people of southwestern Ethiopia to read, helped them to recognize and abandon old superstitions, preached the evangelical gospel and set an example of Christian living. Part one of Land Beyond the Nile, which is reproduced below, covers 1934-1937, with their wedding in Ethiopia during their first assignment, to start a station in Gofa, southwest Ethiopia, and their expulsion after the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. Part two deals with the Forsbergs later ministry in the mysterious and mystifying semiarid Sudan, with its famine, polygamy and baffling taboos, where they also translated parts of the Christian Bible into native languages, and shared in privations and perils among the primitive Uduks -- all this while struggling to raise their four children. Malcolm and Enid Forsberg were first appointed by the Sudan Interior Mission [SIM, now renamed Serving in Mission] in 1934, to the Gamo area in Ethiopia, and secondly in 1939 to the Chali Station in the Sudan.
[[part I was scanned by RAK 21se2004; letters collected by Marian N. Kraft, scanned/typed & added by RAK and student-worker Elizabeth Rosado; on 15de2004 RAK found the original letters from which MNK had prepared her typescript, and another copy of the typescript]]
====
Contents
Appreciation
[Maps]
I. ETHIOPIA
[see the more
detailed map with some towns located, the satellite
map, and basic information]
First the blade …
1. The Evil Eye
2. Our African Home
3. Africa Began at Wheaton
4. We Go Our Separate Ways
5. Some Trust in Horses
6. Till Death Do Us Part
7. African Honeymoon
8. "And
Rumors of Wars"
9. Taboo
10. Some Were Healed
11. "The Orange and the Blue"
12. "They That Wait upon the Lord…"
II. THE ANGLO-EGYPTIAN SUDAN
... then the ear ...
13. We Get Married Again
---
14. Return to Aftica
15. Up the Blue Nile
16. The Uduk People
17. The Polygamy Problem [[8]]
18. The Night the Wind Blew
19. "For of Such Is the Kingdom..
20. We Accentuate the Negative
21. A Name for God
22. The End of the Rainbow
23. Our First Uduk Convert
24. Flight
25. "These Died in Faith . . ."
III. THE SUDAN
... the full corn in the ear
26. War Babies
27. Back to Chali
28. The Uduks "Do the Paper"
29. The Road to Heaven
30. Furlough at Last
31. A School for Our Children
32. A School for Our African Children
33. Our Daughter Is Born
34. "And Children in This Life"
35. "The Power That Worketh"
A group of illustrations follows page 128
[[9]]
Appreciation
THIS STORY had to be autobiographical. There was no other way to write it. But the story represents the thousands who have labored more dm we and whose experiences did not always end in deliverance. And it is the story of our fellow missionaries who have given themselves gladly for Africa. They will recognize themselves, often unnamed, in the pages of this book. If I should name all of them, and place welldeserved crowns on their heads, they would unhesitatingly remove them and cast them at His feet. They are that kind of people.
I am grateful to our Sudan missionary-artist, Charles Guth, also of Wheaton, for setting aside his own important work to make the maps.
His Excellency Dr. Ibrahim Anis, the first ambassador of the Republic of the Sudan to the United States, kindly granted me an interview in New York and brought me up to date on present trends in the Sudan.
His Excellency Mohammed Osman Yassin, Undersccretary for Foreign Affairs in the Sudan government, graciously rmeived me at his hotel in New York. He was there to set up his govemmenes delegation at the United Nations, of which organization the Sudan is now a member. His commentary on the place of the Sudan in world affairs was most helpful.
My appreciation also goes to the following individuals:
Janet Smith, of Tacoma, Washington, who first typed the manuscript.
The many persons who sent me pictures for the book.
The First Presbyterian Church of Tacoma, Washington, for its loyalty and support over many years, and to my pastor there, Dr. Albert J. Lindsey, for giving me an office in which to work.
The Garfield Avenue Baptist Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and its pastor, Dr. William E. Kuhnle. None of our supporters has prayed more earnestly or given more liberally than these.
The Fint Methodist Church of Santa Barbara, California, and its pastor, the Rev. Frank Matthews, for providing me with a place in which to write. [[10]]
The First Presbyterian Church in Flushing, New York, and its pastor, the Rev. Louis F. Hutchins. The church has contributed to our support during most of our time in Aftica, and while I was in New York City, working on the final draft of the manuscript, the Hutchinses welcomed my farmily.
Friends and officers of our Mission in our New York headquarters, who put up with me during this time.
Dr. A. D. Helser, General Director, Sudan Interior Mission, the Rev. Guy W. Playfair, General Director Emeritus, and Dr. M. A. Danoch, Home Director, who gave their blessing to my writing.
It is a source of deep satisfaction that I can write of the work of the Sudan
Interior Mission with complete confidence and affection. We have carried on
our missionary labors in this organization during all our adult lives. Many
of our happiest friendships have been formed within its membership. Without
the Sudan Interior Mission there would have been no book.
It was while taking a course in nonfiction writing at the Adult Education Center in Santa Barbara, California, in the spring of 1956, that I received my first real indication of where I was going. As part of my homework, I turned in a chapter of this book which was already under way, The instructor, Chet Holcombe, of the Santa Barbara News-Press, read it to the class and asked for criticism. The favorable response encouraged me to continue.
Some missionaries go abroad over the protests of their parents. In 1933, my mother said she would mortgage her home if by doing so she could help me go. I hope I have brought some of her loyalty to the Lord into my work and into the writing of this book.
When I launched out on this uncharted literary sea, I needed help. Virginia Matson plotted my course and Muriel Fuller brougbt me to harbor. I owe a great debt of gratitude to them.
Eleanor Jordan of Harper & Brothers took a personal interest in my manuscript and guided it through the editorial shoals.
Enid and the children, with their courage and devotion, made the writing of the book possible. Without the prayers and support of God's people back home through the years, nothing would have been possible.
MALCOLM FORSBERG
Khartoum
The Sudan
January, 1958
====[Part I, chapter 1 (background)]
[[17]]
IT WAS only seven-thirty but already the sun had risen high and hot over our African home. We were sitting in the living room, our after-breakfast devotions completed, and our daughter Dorothy, blonde, curly-headed, not yet two, had toddled out the door to where her two friends were waiting. They were daughters of native Christian couples and together they disappeared down the path toward the clinic to see what new babies might be there.
Enid, my wife, was preparing for her class when Mona, our first convert in the Uduk tribe, suddenly appeared at the back door.
The woman has come!" he said. The Uduks do not show excitement easily and Mona was plainly excited. His eyes, trained to conceal rather than to reveal feeling, were alight.
"What woman?" we asked, as we both tried to get through the screen door at the same time.
"The woman has come with her twins," he said.
So certain were the superstitious Uduks that twins brought calamity, that up to the present time none had been allowed to live. The non-Christian Uduk women were killing their twin babies at birth.
We ran down the steps and out into the yard. There, in the shade of a tree, sat Doatgay. Her short hair was matted with red oil and dirt, and although she was still young, wrinkles were forming. Her face was haggard, her eyes pleading. She held her babies but did not press them to her breasts. Since childhood she had been told that twins were not human. Only goats had twins. She knew that even though the babies were destroyed, as the mother of twins she would be considered dangerous to her tribe. In the long years ahead she would always be suspect in any illness, death, hardship, or famine that might come to her people.
We snapped fingers -- the Uduk version of a handshake -- with Doatgay. [[18]] I pressed the middle finger of her right hand with the thumb and middle finger of mine and she did the same to me. Then, drawing apart, I pressed hard and the act was completed with a loud snap.
As we beamed at the babies, we realized the significance of this day for us; these were the first Uduk twins we had ever seen. My mind flashed back to our early days at Chali, when we had noticed the conspicuous absence of twins and encountered a frustrating secrecy about multiple birth. "Twins have the evil eye," the people had finally told us, shuddering.
Gradually we had learned that even to talk about twins was taboo. Then the truth was revealed: Twins were buried alive at birthi Thirteen years had passed since our first arrival at Chali. Now, unexpectedly, on this hot morning in 1952, aft opportunity such as we had prayed for was being offered.
"We are glad you have brought your twins, Doatgay." Enid measured her words carefully as we stood looking down at the trio. "We will help you take care of them."
Doatgay was the picture of misery. "I wanted to bury them," she said, "but I was afraid of the government. My people said I couldn't stay in the village with the curse on me, so I came to you."
Three years before the birth of Doatgay's babies, a mother and two women helpers had been caught in the act of burying newborn twins alive. The infants had not been saved but the British District Commissioner issued a solemn warning to the Uduks. He held a trial to which he called the elders of all the villages. He asked us to sit with him, for he knew we could be a help in this particular case. The situation called for drastic action.
"You have buried your babies alive," he began, addressing the women. "Why shouldn't I bury you alive?"
The mother of the twins and her two helpers turned their heads slightly. They were sitting sideways. The whites of their eyes showed as they looked up with the faintest trace of surprise.
"In fact," the D. C. continued, "the men will start digging the hole now." He selected several men and showed them where to begin. Then he went on: "It is the job of the government to see that the people of the country behave themselves. Nowhere does the government allow people to be killed, not even twins." He turned to the gravediggers. "How is the hole coming?"
"It's not ready yet," the men replied. At first the three women had not believed that the government official [[19]] would actually bury them alive, but as the digging proceeded they slowly turned ash-gray. One of the women called her son to her side, and instructed him about her affairs. "Keep an eye on the red cow which is about to calve," she said. "And don't forget to pay the witch doctors. We owe them a goat."
The D. C. walked over to the grave and inspected it carefully. Then, returning to his seat, he ordered the men to stop digging. He pronounced his verdict.
"I am not going to bury you alive."
The crowd relaxed. The women sighed with relief.
"However," the D. C. said, "the mother will spend one year in prison. The others will get two years each. This is the first time we have had court about a matter like this. If it happens again, the guilty people will be hanged with a rope until they dic."
The crowd scattered, leaving the women sitting forlornly on the ground. The D. C. turned to us.
"We have no place to keep women prisoners here," he said. "I'll parole them into your care. They can spend their time grinding grain and cooking food for the school children. I gave the mother only one year because she was the victim of tribal custom. The other two are professionals. They have probably been involved before."
I was thinking of all this as Enid, Mona, and I stood looking down at Doatgay. Mona spoke:
"You don't have to be afraid of the old talk any more, Doatgay. The paper tells us that twins, too, are people. We who believe the paper are not afraid of twins. God will help you and we will help you."
"What have you named the babies?" Enid asked.
"Have twins in our tribe ever lived to have names?" Doatgay countered. "You name them."
Enid looked at me questioningly. Names do not always come easily. We had had a hard enough time naming our own children. "I know," she said at length. "The Lord has heard us in this matter of twins. We'll call them Borgay and Thoiya -- Praise and Prayer."
Thus the first twins ever allowed to live in the Uduk tribe were appropriately named. It was by such incidents that we marked our progress in a program that had started a long time ago. Looking back, there was much to remember ...
IN 1952, we had been missionaries in Africa for nearly two decades, first in Ethiopia, then, after Mussolini put us out of that newly conquered dominion, in the Sudan. The official records of the Sudan Interior Mission list us as Malcolm and Enid Forsberg, appointed in 1939 to the Chali Station of our Sudan field. On our arrival the station had consisted of one house. In 1952, there were several. Our bungalow had three small rooms in a row -- a bedroom and a bath on one end and a combination dining room and kitchen on the other, with a living room in the middle. A screened-in veranda, nine feet wide, stretched the length of the house. One end was separated by screening to form a sleeping porch, for it was usually too hot to sleep in the bedroom.
The outer walls of the bungalow were red brick veneer, with an inner layer of mud bricks which were cheaper than the burnt ones and also provided better insulation against the heat. The inner walls were plastered with a mixture of dirt and sand and were whitewashed. A ceiling of aluminum sheets was topped by a roof of corrugated iron over a framework of mahogany timbers.
In the living room we sat in solid, comfortable armchairs made by local Arab carpenters, who had also built the dining-room table of lumber sawed from native trees. The heavy furniture, so out of place in the modern American home, was perfect in our African bungalow. There were pictures on the walls, one a snow scene, and occasional tables, bookcases, and kniclkknack shelves. The windows had no glass, but there were wooden shutters, open most of the time.
At her desk Enid put the finishing touches to her Bible lesson for class. For several days she had been trying to get the Children of Israel out of Egypt but added detail and application of the lesson to the lives of the Uduk school children had made the march to the Red Sea a slow one. Today she was determined to cross it. [[21]]
I had sent the mail boys off with their donkeys. They were late starting for it had rained in the night. During the rains, mail came only once every two weeks. Air-mail letters to us reached Khartoum from New York in five days, were then sent to Kurmuk, the end of the government mail line, and delivered to us ten or fifteen days later. Two days would be spent by the mail boys slushing through mud and crossing swollen streams to cover the thirty miles to Kurmuk. Then, after a day's rest, they would start homeward with the heavy mailbags. However late the mail was, we always hunted for the familiar handwriting of our three boys -- Leigh, in boarding school in America, and James and Kim in our own Mission school in Addis Ababa.
On this September day, made memorable by the advent of the twins, I looked at the distant mountains of Ethiopia, their heads dark and majestic just across the fields. They always seemed much closer after the rain, and even after eighteen years, they still excited me. The rocky hills scattered about the plain looked like abandoned offspring of the mountains. I walked around to the front of the house. The big baobab tree was in full leaf, with nests of the white-bellied storks forming dark blobs along its branches. The young storks had hatched out in April and flown north in June. Perhaps they were in Europe, getting ready for the return flight, though they would not visit us on the southward journey.
Several years before we had planted neem trees, which are native to India, but they had not grown well in the shallow soil that covered the solid granite of our Chali knoll. Still, they did add greenness and shade during the dry season. Along the edge of the station the grass grew like a wall eight to ten feet high, stretching away into infinity. The trees in that vast expanse never grow tall, becoming twisted and stunted by the furnacelike fires that sweep through the grass in the dry season.
The Sudan is a land of birds. Perhaps Isaiah meant this land when he wrote of "the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia." A sunbird lit on a zinnia blossom nearby and helped itself to the nectar. A blue waxbill scouted along flic ground for insect food, while just beyond, a wagtail foraged, tail flipping up and down as it minced along. Overhead a flock of grain-eating finches, myriads of them, wheeled and whirred in perfect, if seemingly erratic, formation. Soon their young would be hatched out in the thousands of woven nests hanging from the tall grass down by the stream just a mile away. Then the Uduks would rob the nests before the young had their feathers, the baby birds eaten almost like candy. The bee eaters were still with us. They flashed crimson and malachite in the sun as they dived and turned [[22]] and swooped after their prey -- bees, moths, and grasshoppers -- which they caught in their slender turned-down bills.
As I mused upon these scenes, a single line of Uduks came toward me. Instead of clothing, they were covered with red oil, and held their short-handled hoes. These were men and boys of a Chali clan on their way to the field of one of their number. They would work all morning on their knees, hoeing out the weeds and grass in the sorghum field. By one o'clock the group would return to the home of the owner of the field to spend the rest of the day drinking the beer his wife had brewed in ten-gallon earthenware pots. Dozens of men and women who had not worked in the field would also be there to drink the beer. Unfortunately, this maldistnbution of time between working and drinking resulted in small crops and there was never really enough to eat. The grain used to make beer would have gone much further as food.
I returned to the house in time to hear the mothers of Dorothy's playmates call from the back yard. They were looking for their daughters. They stood there in their clean dresses, heads clean shaven, a sharp contrast to the men and boys I had just seen. But it was not only clothing that made the difference. Their pleasant, bright, relaxed expressions set them off from the others. Each of the women held her copy of the Gospel of Mark, in Uduk. I told them I had last seen their daughters going down the path in the direction of the clinic and that by now they would be outside the school, distracting the children with their antics. The mothers laughed and went off to find them.
It was easy then to prepare my Bible lesson for the men's meeting. The contrast between the men in the front yard and the women in the back made our long efforts as missionaries seem worthwhile. It had not been a superficial change. The women believed in Christ in their hearts and the joy they felt was visible in their faces. The power of God was working. A visiting Egyptian anthropologist had once told us that the Uduk people were among the most primitive in Africa. But we believed that eventually some of the people would accept the truth that Christ died for their sins and would become Christians. Then we would teach them to read the Scriptures, which we were to translate into their language.
The Lord had been good to us and to our fellow workers. Once we had but one baptized believer, Mona. Now there were others, living settled Christian lives. A new generation of boys and girls was coming up through the school. They would not follow the old ways of their fathers.
[[23]]
IT ALL began in 1928 at Wheaton College in Illinois, twenty-five miles west of Chicago. Back in the First Presbyterian Church in Tacoma, Washington, I had been deeply moved by the magnificent preaching of my pastor, Dr. Clarence W. Weyer, and decided to go to Wheaton to prepare for some kind of active Christian service. Its fame as a Christian college had reached the Pacific coast. Wheaton had been founded in 1860 by a sturdy Vermonter named Jonathan Blanchard, whose purpose was to provide a higher education dedicated to the elimination of the sins of slavery, intoxication, secret societies, and worldliness. I had been attracted to Wheaton by its evangelical precepts and its high moral standards.
The sun was warm and the tree-lined streets beautiful on my first day there. I made my way up the walk to Blanchard Hall, the long limestone building named for the founder and his successor-son, Charles A. Blanchard. It was on top of a small rise known as College Hill, from which a wide expanse of lawn sloped gently, dotted with hardwood trees. I remembered reading in the college catalog that the east wing had been completed the previous year. The building was indeed nicely balanced. Dominating the center of the structure was the Tower, the architectural heart of the college. The annual was called The Tower, and I remembered also that the bell in the Tower was rung to announce athletic victories and engagements.
It did not take long to see the whole campus. There were the women's dormitory, the chapel shared with the College Church of Christ, the cracker-box gymnasium, and the Academy building. But Wheaton was growing, and even then enrollment had to be limited, so numerous were the applications from prospective students. As materialism and an agnostic interpretation of science and life increased in secular universities and [[24]] even in once-Christian colleges, the popularity of Wheaton and colleges like it expanded. In the 1950's Wheaton, with facilities for only fifteen hundred students, would be receiving seven thousand applications a year.
I took my place with the Class of '32. There were six hundred students in the college and a sense of belonging came very quickly. I found I could enter wholeheartedly into every activity. Chapel was daily and compulsory in the same way that it had been compulsory at home to appear at the table three times a day. The services were seldom dull though the student body was critical. The rare speaker who was dull soon found himself looking into a sea of bored faces. The one who had something worthwhile to present could hardly find a more responsive audience.
One day during the first term of my freshman year, a missionary from the Congo was the chapel speaker. He told of representatives of tribes in the Congo coming to him and begging for preachers and teachers to help them. There were never enough. So impressed was I by the lack of opportunity they had to hear the gospel compared to the opportunities thrown away in the United States, that I left the service convinced that God wanted me to meet some similar need in Africa. This is a conviction that sometimes takes months or years to mature. My experience, for which I was wholly unprepared, was compressed into minutes. It had never occurred to me before that day that the Lord might want me to serve Him in a foreign land.
Most of my college days still lay ahead of me. I earned much of the money I needed for my college expenses shoveling coal into the furnaces of the college heating plant and raking ashes out. I had time for lectures and student activities, parties and musicals, too. Wheaton was fun and deeply satisfying.
My second year, Enid Miller arrived on the campus from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She, too, was a Presbyterian. On her father's side she came from the same Pierpont family from which Jonathan Edwards took his wife [Sarah]. Enid's English mother and Yankee father had moved their family to Wisconsin from Waterbury, Connecticut, about the time Enid entered high school. When she was ready for college, she had wanted to go with her high school friends to the University of Wisconsin. However, her mother felt she needed the atmosphere of a Christian college and urged her to consider Wheaton. Enid finally agreed, if she could transfer to Wisconsin at the end of her freshman year.
The fall evangelistic services were held early in the new term. Enid soon realized that she was not a born-again Christian. The visiting minister [[25]] said there had to be a personal acceptance of Christ as Savior. She decided for Christ and the University of Wisconsin was not mentioned again.
Enid was full of life and ideas so it was quite natural that she should be elected social chairman of the freshman class. I was attracted by her naturally curly brown, hair, her ready smile, and the fascinating little wrinkles on her forehead when she was in deep thought. Her head reached to my shoulder (I was about an inch less than six feet) but she made up in drive and zeal what she lacked in height. At that time I was eating at various boardinghouses around town.
She saw a youth with blond hair, a first-generation American, as my parents had both been born in Sweden. I regret to say a shock of hair usually hung down over one eye, and my nose was as high as my Scandinavian cheekbones. My friends frequently remarked on the size and shape of my nose, but I found it provided a firm saddle for the horn-rimmed glasses I wore through college.
It was midwinter before Enid even knew who I was. One night at ten below zero the freshmen were going on a sleigh ride. As social chairman, Enid arranged for the sleigh to be at the Tower entrance at eight o'clock. I heard about the plans and, asserting my privileges as a sophomore, called the livery stable and told them not to send the sleigh. In the furor that followed, I was exposed as the culprit.
That autumn Enid and several friends were subjected to lengthy discipline for a campus prank, and they were sent home for a week to reflect on their conduct. When I overheard two of my friends planning to date Enid and her companions on their return to the campus, I thought it a good idea. I decided to get ahead of the rest by writing her a letter, but when she returned to college, she and her friends were not permitted to attend social or athletic functions for the remaining four months of the term. All I could do was say "Hello." I had to progress the hard way.
At that time I was eating at various boardinghouses around town. When I learned that Enid was working behind the counter of the college cafeteria, I changed my habits and joined the slow-moving line there. I had plenty of time to observe her. She seemed to be the center of the banter behind the counter, with a word and smile for each person. I had complicated matters for her by writing, now she had to face me in line. She blushed slightly as she served me, wrinkling her nose when I turned away.
Friday nights were sacred to the half-dozen college literary societies, but as these meetings were regarded as social events, Enid and her [[26]] friends could not go. To fill in that time, the assistant dean of women met with them and told of her former work among the Navajo Indians. This meeting was followed by prayer for missionaries all over the world. Enid's heart was stirred. Missionary speakers from Africa also moved her and by midterm she realized that Africa was looming large on her horizon.
[From a letter to MNK dated 2 May 1930, near the end of Enid's freshman year: "Are having a Missionary's Alliance conference here this week and they're holding some splendid meetings. Went to one this afternoon and had a wonderful speaker from French West Aftica and another from South America."]
Now I was at least a speck on that horizon. During study periods I began to sit by her in the library and I also walked home with her to her dormitory, a distance of nearly two hundred yards. At least I wasn't losing ground. By the end of my junior year we were seeing each other often. We walked the Wheaton streets until they were familiar. One Sunday night we decided to try the subdivisions. There plots had been divided, but the depression had come and no houses had been built.
The street ended and we stood looking at each other. I blurted out the question and she said "Yes."
Suddenly the restraint was gone and Enid told me about the prayer meetings. "Since then," she added, "I've told the Lord I was willing to go to Africa but I asked Him to give me somebody to go with."
[Enid's ambivalence about her social life before she became involved with Mal is illustrated by this passage from a letter to MNK dated 7 September 1930 -- the start of her sophomore year: "E. called last night and we went riding. It's so funny -- I'm crazy about a fellow until he shows signs of really liking me and then after maybe a month I get so sick of him. I'll be glad to get away from E. He's too devoted. He's a nice kid alright, but not very exciting." Three months later she writes (17 Nov 1930): "Talking about fellows, I've been going quite stady lately with a fellow from Takoma, Washington, Malcolm Forsberg, who's training for a missionary [career] in Africa. He's a peach of a kid, but I think he has it worse on me than I have on him." A year later the ambivalence is gone and she writes (20 Nov 1931): "I've been going with Mal Forsberg (Swede) steady all this semester so far. I've been with him every night, 'cept one when I was sick. He's a wonderful fellow and I guess we're pretty well gone on each other. I'm planning to go to Africa as soon as I can be accepted by a mission board after getting out of college and maybe Mal and I will go out together [as missionaries]. I don't know as you'd better spread this around as a certainty, but it's a big probability."]
The fact that I also wanted to go struck her as the answer to her prayer. That was Baccalaureate Sunday, June 14, 1931. From then on, things began to happen. We knew nothing about mission boards. I had assumed that since I was a Presbyterian, I would go out under its foreign mission board. But one day the following year a representative came to Wheaton to interview all candidates of that denomination.
"Are you interested more in working with your hands or with your head?" he asked.
I tried to think of things I liked to do. It wasn't easy to answer such a question on the spur of the moment. "I guess I like both," I replied.
I waited for my interviewer to ask me something about my understanding of the
gospel and of my spiritual fitness to be in Christian work. The question never
came and I left in confusion. For the first time I had misgivings. I thought
of the speakers we had had in chapel, especially Sir John Alexander Clark, the
Plymouth Brethren missionary who had represented their missions in the Congo,
and Dr.
Thomas Lambie from the Sudan Interior Mission -- a faith mission whose support
comes not from any one denomination but from believers everywhere. Both men
had told of their pioneer work and of the tribes that were then without a witness.
We learned that James
Hudson Taylor, better known merely as [[27]] Hudson Taylor, was the father
of faith Missions. In the 1850's he had gone to China as a medical missionary
under the Chinese Evangelization Society. China was then being torn by the Taiping
rebellion and foreigners were allowed to live only in Shanghai and in four other
coastal Treaty Ports. During his first term, Taylor did medical work and learned
the Chinese language. But he was unhappy that the Society was going into debt
to pay him his small allowance and he longed for an organization that would
be alive to China's need and that would seek to meet that need in utter dependence
upon God.
Hudson Taylor's first furlough was spent in acquainting Christians in Britain with the appalling conditions in China. God was moving in his life. He felt he could not fully respond to that moving in his present affiliation, so be determined to start out alone. He made his first bank deposit in the name of the China Inland Mission, announced his need of twenty-four men and women to accompany him back to China, and with these recruits returned to Asia.
His expressions of faith and his compassion for China had stirred thousands to give their support to him and his new organization. He formed a board at home in England to receive the contributions of these people and to send the funds on to China. There would be no public appeals for funds and the board would be under no obligation to send any stated amount to the missionaries who would trust the Lord to supply whatever they needed. Nor would the missionaries in the new organization, who came from many denominations, receive any help officially from these denominations.
But trusting the Lord for money was only one side of faith. The doors to inland China were still closed. Taylor kept up the pressure against these doors by prayer, by faith, and by negotiation with the Chinese. Faith opened the doors not only to the China Inland Mission but through it to dozens of other societies that followed. Eventually Hudson Taylor's missionaries preached the gospel in every province of China.
It was 1893 before West Africa had its Hudson Taylor in the person of Rowland Bingham. Bingham went to the coast with two companions, determined to take the gospel inland. Evangelical missionaries from several denominations eventually joined him and the work of the Sudan Interior Mission began in inland Nigeria. One day John Gunther would refer to our Mission in Inside Aftica as "one of the most celebrated institutions in Africa." Elsewhere, similar groups were rising and in time [[28]] formed a loose organization called the Interdenominational Foreign Missions Association.
Meanwhile, the Christian church in Europe and America was becoming deeply concerned with the expanding field of textual criticism of the Bible. Many of its leaders were asserting that the Bible could no longer be taken literally. Part of the church experienced a new theological outlook and consequently lost much of its evangelical fervor. Missionary work found greater expression in educational, medical, and social institutions.
The new self-styled interdenominational missions represented a reaction to this theological and missionary change in the church. They preached the simple evangelical gospel. They built their program on a wide basis of reaching as many people as possible through evangelistic work rather than giving intensive training to a few in institutions, although they gave increasingly of their time to help the church with educational and medical work. The older missions now emphasized an applicant's educational qualifications. Gradually, some missionaries were accepted who were more educated than devout. On the other hand, the new missions made spiritual fitness basic to all other qualifications. In the end, both types of missionary organizations produced their spiritual giants and both had to number their failures.
Enid and I found that our study of the various types of organizations was leading us more and more in the direction of the interdenominational missions, in our time no longer new. Some friends of ours, Wheaton graduates, had been accepted by the Sudan Interior Mission [SIM] and assigned to Ethiopia. Our interest ripened.
"Perhaps it is more than a coincidence that they're going to Ethiopia;" I said to Enid when we heard the news. "I was impressed with the message Dr. Lambie gave with his pictures last year. I don't think I'd ever heard of Ethiopia before that."
"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to write the Mission and ask them for information," Enid suggested.
With the information came application forms. By this time our friends had reached Addis Ababa and were writing to us about Ethiopia and the mission board. We would be expected to go out single, but we could marry after spending a year learning the language and getting into the work.
We decided to apply for membership. The papers, along with a written statement of our Christian experience, were mailed to the Mission. Then there followed a six-week period during which we were [[29]] observed by Mission officials at the Berkshire Bible Fellowship in Massachusetts. We survived this test. At the end of it, we went to Mission headquarters in New York for questioning by the Mission Council. Finally the ordeal was over, and both of us accepted for service in Ethiopia on condition that Enid finish college. I spent that year at home in Tacoma. I needed funds to pay for my outfit and my passage to Ethiopia. The Mission had said I should trust the Lord to provide these funds. It seemed they looked on this provision as the Lord's seal of approval on my call to Africa.
It was not the easiest time to be entering the foreign mission field. Enid's capable engineer father [Irving Miller] had lost his job. He had found other employment of sorts but he had had to dig into his savings to keep his family clothed and fed. My schoolteacher sisters were being paid in warrants that were not valid for a month or two after receipt. They had to support my mother, as my father had died when I was eight years old. America was in the depths of depression. Few Christians could pay their church pledges in full and fewer still could make extra contributions for sending out a new recruit. I tried to find a job but there was none to be had.
I spoke in several churches, telling the people of my call and of my hopes for the future, helped with the work of my own church, and prayed long hours for the needed funds, believing that the Lord had a purpose in delays as well as in progress. In answer to my prayers many members of my church decided to designate their missionary money for my work. I would soon be able to sail!
[In a letter to her father dated 29 June 1933, Enid describes in detail her trip to Tacoma with Mal, and comments on the church as follows: "Yesterday, [Mal's sister] Leona and Mal and I went down town and then he took me over to their church. It is surely some establishment. I never saw such a big church -- [it] has a big gymnasium hall, chapel and then the regular church and just hundreds of class rooms, four assembly halls for the different departments, kitchen ladies parlors, etc. They're thinking very seriously of getting out of the Presbyterian denomination and have already drawn up a new Mission board." No doubt this rethinking of the church's mission involvements was a positive development for the developing plans of Enid and Mal. She also describes their visit to a "very active" church in Portland, from which support was also forthcoming.]
Enid and I were to learn that missionary life is marked by frequent separation from loved ones. I said good-by to her in Milwaukee. I was to sail ahead of her and by December, 1933, I was on my way.
[Enid to MNK, 18 November 1933 from Wauwatosa WI: "My last letter from the Mission put off my sailing time 'till near Christmas time and I'm half planning on leaving here two or three weeks early ... and coming up to Waterbury [CT] for a few days. If I sail a few days after Christmas, I'll be in Waterbury for that day." Then, "Mal sailed the 10th and is in Liverpool today! Wish I were with him." The next letter in MNK's file is dated 18 January 1934, and postmarked Marseille-Gare: "I wish you ... could be along! You'd just revel in it!! Just now the sun is going down in the blue, blue Mediterranean, the young moon and the evening star have appeared also in the west, and all is warm, calm and peaceful. We did have a rough Atlantic trip, but this makes up a hundred times for any discomfort we had." She then details some aspects of life on board the ship and mentions that she enjoyed "the good time I had at your place Christmas." So she did stop in the Waterbury area enroute to sailing, as hoped.]
Many missionaries had crossed the oceans of the world but not many had landed at Djibouti at the bottom end of the Red Sea. Nor had many made the journey by train from that sea-level town in French Somaliland to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, which sits on the plateau at an elevation of eight thousand feet. I disembarked at Djibouti and entrained on the express for Addis Ababa. Early on the morning of the third day we began winding our way through the eucalyptus groves of the highland towns. We watched and smelled intently. This seemed to be the only kind of tree growing there. It covered the hills and filled the valleys around the farms.
I had heard that Ethiopia was beautiful. The previous day I had seen only the black volcanic rocks of the eastern slope. During the night we [[30]] entered the highlands. As day dawned, we could see mountains in every direction. Meandering streams flowed through the meadows. Newly cut grain was stacked in the fields. There were brown, recently harvested fields, and green fields in which sheep, cattle, horses, mules, and donkeys pastured. The smoke from the many fires in the thatched huts smelled strongly of eucalyptus. Warmly dressed Ethiopians were beginning to move about, their shoulders hunched. The problem here did not seem to be one of staying cool but of keeping warm.
When I arrived in Addis Ababa, Dr. Lambie was away visiting mission stations in the south. He was then Field Director of our Mission and on his return would introduce the new missionaries to the work and give us our orders. The Field Council advised him on all matters.
One of my first concerns was to find out if Enid had sailed yet. I went to the office to inquire. The secretary looked over the schedule of arrivals and departures. "Enid Miller is traveling in Dr. Bingham's party," she informed me.
A month and a half, I thought as I left the office. And she'll be traveling in a party headed by the General Director! We were young and easily awed by Mission officials, especially by Dr. Bingham, its founder. We never did stop being awed by him. He was a great man.
My first task was one that would occupy me for years -- language study. I was confronted with the two hundred and fifty-two characters of the Amharic alphabet. Amharic is the official language of Ethiopia. An Ethiopian teacher labored with me over the new sounds. There were the ejected t, k, and ts. There were gutterals. I had to learn how to form letters using down strokes only. The whole process looked hopeless, but soon I could put a few simple sentences together. When the boy who kept our horses understood me, I became optimistic. Perhaps I would one day speak this language after all.
As the day of Enid's arrival approached, my agitation increased and my linguistic interest decreased. The younger men and women at headquarters did everything to me but take my pulse and temperature. A large delegation turned out to welcome the traveling party. I joined the group but for me Dr. Bingham was not the main attraction. I walked far down the platform. As the train approached the station, it slowed down, and Enid leaned out from her car in our prearranged signal. I jumped onto the platform as the train passed. By the time we reached the rest of the crowd, we had finished our greetings and I could meet our General Director.
Missionaries new and old were massed around him. Time had chisled [[31]] his face and paid special attention to his nose. There was firmness in the jaw and kindliness in the eye. He greeted us individually.
"I remember you," Dr. Bingham said to each of the new missionaries. He had met very few of us but he remembered us from our candidate papers, which he no doubt studied carefully.
Each morning during the days that followed, Dr. Bingham brought us messages from the life of Abraham. As he illustrated his talks with experiences from his own life of faith, we wondered if he were not another Abraham.
At first Enid and I were considered one of those odd pairs -- an engaged couple.
We had heard many remarks about young people who embarrassed others by their
open display of affection, so we agreed not to offend anyone. But, correct as
we seemed to be, we were not so settled in our ways that we didn't long for
the time when we could be natural and act as though we were meant for each other.
After all, we had been engaged for nearly three years and knew we had at least
one more to go.
[[32]]
[[Insert here Enid's letters of 23 February 1934 from Addis Ababa, to "Family and Friends" and also to "Dearest Marian"]]
SOON IT was March, 1934 and time to say good-by again. Dr. Lambie had returned from his trek through the country and the Field Council had met. We received our orders. Enid was to stay in Addis Ababa for a few months, studying the Amharic language. I was being sent to Gamo to help open up our new station there, and would travel with Merle and Lillian Anderson, who were going to Gofa.
[Enid wrote a happy birthday letter to MNK dated 17 March 1934 (RAK was born the next day): "I'm sending along with this just a bit of a present for the coming baby.... I had quite a time finding something here in Abyssinia fit for an American baby. Babys here have a rag wound around them -- and nothing else but a string of charms. I got this in one of the downtown 'shops' -- made in France, but at least bought in Abyssinia." Then later in the same letter: "I'm digging in on language like a good fellow now -- it's getting more and more fascinating as I can pick out more and more words while listening to the natives speak. Maybe someday I'll be able to jabber as they do."]
Before I left Addis Ababa, Dr. Lambie delivered a series of lectures to the younger missionaries. He was a loose-jointed man, of medium height. Many hours in the saddle had given a swinging motion to his walk so that he seemed to be riding instead of walking. His face radiated kindness and concern for us young workers.
Dr. Lambie had started his missionary career with the United Presbyterians in Egypt and in the Sudan near the Ethiopian border. The governor across the border had called him to remove an insect from his ear. Word of the successful operation traveled rapidly and before long Dr. Lambie found himself building a hospital in Addis Ababa. But Dr. Lambie was a pioneer at heart. He could not settle down to hospital routine when millions in Ethiopia were still unaware of what God had wrought through Christ. He felt there would be more opportunity to carry on a widespread ministry in the Sudan Interior Mission. So he joined that organization in America and entered Ethiopia as leader of the work in that field.
Dr. Lambie was a man of wide interests and many of us who began our missionary work under his leadership owe him much. I remember him best for leading me to a love for the old hymns. Whenever I sing one of them, he is not far away. Dr. Lambie's lectures were very helpful. He told us how to travel southward and where we would find water and market places. He told us about Ethiopia and its Emperor, His Majesty Haile Selassie. [[33]]
After the lectures and the books he suggested we read, we began to piece together some Ethiopian background. We were surprised to learn that the Amharas, who are Christians and who form the top strata of Ethiopian life, do not consider themselves African. They had probably migrated from Arabia to their African home in pre-Moslem times. Streets and market places in Addis Ababa provided evidence enough that the population was made up of more than Semites. There were Moslems, and their mosques were scattered throughout much of the country. There were pagans who needed no buildings for their religious practices. But the Amharas dominated the country politically and their Coptic religion dominated the populace religiously. We felt that, like the churches in England in the time of Wesley, the Ethiopian church needed an awakening.
If Ethiopia and its state church were not thriving it was not the fault of the Emperor. Though small of stature and with fine features he was every inch a king. Some of his ministers towered above him but they bowed low and did his bidding. Under his regal bearing and air of authority he was a kindly man whose heart was burdened for his country's welfare. He called on foreigners to introduce their education, machinery, and medicine. He especially encouraged missionaries to make their contributions to the spiritual and material welfare of his people. But he had to carry the whole country on his fragile shoulders and progress was slow.
Roads were almost non-existent. The Franco-Ethiopian Railway brought manufactured goods to Addis Ababa from the port city of Djibouti and took hides and coffee to the coast for export. Between Addis Ababa and other points almost all goods had to go by mule and camel caravan. It was a slow and costly system. One missionary had two pounds of cement sent to him in each fortnightly mail. He used it to set the stones in his fireplace.
T'he generation of Ethiopians that we saw was trying to bridge the wide gap between the passing feudal state and the future modem African state. Old-timers in the country said that with each round of change, the modem, the organized, and the stable emerged with substantial gains. Each time a move forward was visible, His Majesty was leading the way.
T'here was no doubt in the minds of the Ethiopians that their monarch was born to reign. The legend of the origin of the royal line was real history to them. The Queen of Sheba had gone to see the wonders of King Solomon in Jerusalem. Their acquaintance, though fleeting, had [[34]] been intimate enough to result in the birth of a son who was named Menelik I. His Majesty Haile Selassie bad come from this royal line. The Ethiopians had tucked their story between the lines of 2 Chronicles 9.12: "And King Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked, beside that which she had brought unto the king. So she turned, and went away to her own land, she and her servants."
Dr. Lambie had to acquaint us with Mission affairs, too. He reminded us that we could expect financial difficulties. "When it was proposed to Dr. Bingham," he told us, "that the Sudan Interior Mission begin a new work in Ethiopia in the midst of depression in the home countries he put the matter up to his missionaries. He asked them, 'Shall we go ahead with our program of reaching out to unreached people and perhaps suffer a decrease in our personal allowances or shall we stop expanding?' The missionaries voted for continued expansion, even though it meant hardship for them."
This kind of response to Dr. Bingham's question warmed our hearts. After all, millions of unemployed at home were living on the brink of disaster. It would have seemed strange had the missionaries voted against expansion in the field. Better to follow the Biblical way, "And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it" [1 Corinthians 12.26]. If we had to cut down on our food supplies or hired help or equipment, it would be all right. We had joined the Mission not for what we could get out of it but for what we could put into it.
Enid and I said our real farewells in the evening. Our final one took place the next morning, when the Andersons and I rode out into the great unknown.
[In her aforementioned birthday letter to MNK dated 17 March 1934 Enid comments: "I'm now a widow once more. Mal left Tuesday for 'down-country' -- Gamo! I hope this will be the last separation before we're married. The camels went last Thursday with the bigger things, and then the mules went Monday -- along with five head carriers. He'll have three weeks on trek and then will have to help build and try to get the Gamo language at the same time."]
Travel in Ethiopia meant mule caravans, head carriers, camp equipment, and riding horses or mules. I had bought a dappled gray horse. He had not come out ahead in any of the missionary gallops we had indulged in across the fields to the weekly inter-mission prayer meetings, but in walking he could outdistance almost any horse. Ethiopian geography was beginning to take some shape in my mind. The route I would travel lay south and slightly to the west. After ten days in the saddle we would reach our central station in the province of the Walamo-speaking people. It was called Soddu (pronounced so do). There the Andersons and I would separate. They would go west for another eight days to Gofa, I southeast for three days to Gamo.
The Andersons were older than Enid and I. They had had their own home in America before coming to Ethiopia. Though still in his early thirties, Merle's hair had begun to thin. He was the studious type, the [[35]] saddle hardly seeming the place for him. He was always interested in something extracurricular. On trek it was bird watching and duck hunting. On the station it was stamp collecting and such specialties as delivering a calf, studying anatomy with the aid of the body of a monkey, and pursuing and killing a twenty-five-foot python.
Lillian was a homebody. Her combed-back hair and pointed nose and chin showed determination. Like Merle she was good-natured if timid. She was accustomed to having places in which to store her household goods and foodstuffs so that she could work efficiently, but she adjusted bravely to the tightly packed trek boxes that replaced her cupboards at home. She soon had the stove -- three stones with a circular metal piece resting on top -- producing tasty camp meals.
The three of us were greenhorns; we had been in the country a bare few weeks. We could speak and understand a few phrases of Amharic but could not communicate effectively with the mule drivers and carriers, although we had been coached on travel and camping. But we muddled through and eventually reached Soddu.
[[insert letters dated March 1934, describing the trip; ]]
---[letter #1]
At the Little Lehman River
March 14, 1934So this to trekking in Ethiopia!!! It's a lots of fun, and lots of work, and lots of worry, but most of all, lots to laugh at. I've been chuckling ever since we left the Sudan interior Mission Headquarters in Addis Ababa. But this is not the place to start the narration
We planned to send our negadis, men who handle baggage and freight, off on Friday, so that we could leave the next day, and spend the week-end at the Hawash River. But no one ever leaves at a planned time when Negadis are in the picture. Tomorrow always means next week. So they didn't go on Friday. The next best thing was to send them on Monday, so that we could go
on Tuesday. They actually left on Mondayl Since there are three of us travelling, we have twelve mules. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are going to Gofa, so we go together as far as Soddu, in Walamo province. Besides the twelve mules. we have six head carriers and three boys to do the work. That is our party, but I mustn't forget the three horses, and mention in particular my 'Brummy' who steps right out and makes [[2]] time. But he is so peppy that he is a nuisance in camp. He is always heading off in some direction, or kicking at his chain when he is pegged out. But in spite of all his faults, I like him a lot.Tuesday morming, Mr. Horn piled us in his, or rather Dr. Lambie's, car and drove us out several miles. I had gotten up before five to get the horses saddled and the boys started with them. We met them at Alam Gunna. Enid rode out with us in the car, so we had our goodbyes there. Then began the long ride. The road was good, in spots, as Negadi trails go. In some places the rock was worn almost two feet deep by the incessant beating of horses' and Mules' hooves. The morning ride was cool and pleasant, aside from the first rumors of a stiff neck and a sore back. About eleven o'clock we stopped for a lunch of sandwiches and lukewarm water. The afternoon hours were warmer, and the stick I had to rub on my lips to keep them from chapping was melted to a grease spot.
We were a bit long on the way, but got to the Hawash river camp about 2:30. Our tents were set up and. looked inviting. The horses drank deeply of the river water, and I was tempted to do the same, but didn't. After we got the boys started on the supper, we started out to look for ducks, and saw lots of them, some big ones, but Mr. Anderson's "22" wasn't quite the thing for them. Finally, after many shots, he got one on the opposite side of the river. Two men there took off their clothes and swam across and returned the beast. It is in the stew pan, now. It was only a very small duck, but will give us a taste, and add flavor to the potatoes and carrots. We were very late in gettitig supper over, but managed to get to bed by nine. Groups of natives were singing, here and there. Some of the music was pretty, some atrocious. The hyenas contributed [[3]] their part to the concert, and to complete the symphony I could hear the horses chewing their hay every time I awoke.
This morning, we got up at 5:30, and it was freezing cold. It was a real effort to get out of a warm (?) bed under such conditions. But a little activity in getting things packed, and a warm potato eaten in the hand changed the temperature considerably. We dropped the tents, and the boys got things packed up, and we left at seven, ahead of the Negadis. The country, for the most part, was fairly level, at times broken by seams of limestone, through which deep ruts had been worn by much travel. At one place we had to get off the horses, because there wasn't room for our feet in the ruts. There were many brightly colored birds flying around, and the pigeons were cooing incessantly. unfortunately, we saw no game, not even a guinea.hen. We thought to go to Bienthrash, about a half-hour from here, but because of the dearth of water there, we stopped here near the river. Tomorrow we will go as far as Amosgabaya. Those who know this road will realize that we are traveling short days, but this is our first trip..... enough! We're learning a lot of things. This afternoon I repacked my boxes so that I'll only have to open one, each day. It takes a lot of time just to keep alive. Some day I'll make the trip in respectable time.
---[letter #2]
Marako, Gurage Province,
March 17, 1934We have arrived at our first rest stop, and are enjoying it. But then, the trip so far has been very good. Again we got a late start from the little Lehman river, and plugged along all day. [[4]] The carriers were having 'chick-a-chick' all day, and one fellow lost a bucket and paid the Negadis one besa to carry about five pounds of potatoes. We got to Amosgabaya about two o'clock and waited for the Negadis to come. Our saddles were of, and some of the carrier loads were in, and the carriers had left. When the Negadis finally came, about four o'clock, they didn't want to camp there, so we had to give the loads to our own boys and resaddle the horses and ride on for about half an hour. We camped by a nice river and had good water, but it was too late in the day to really enjoy the camp. We got the tents up, and supper cooked, and ate in the dark. Amosgabaya was an interesting place. In English the name of the place is Thursday Market. And that is exactly what it is. The rest of the week it is just a piece of ground along the road. When we got there, there were lots of people in the market, and the smell of pepper was over the whole country side.
To the natives, the country between the Hawash River and here, is Shifta (bandit) country. And, indeed, for a long time it wasn't safe for natives to go through here. More than once, our mail has been stolen, and several carrier loads also have been taken. Some time ago they had a shooting affray, and two Shiftas were killed. To show the people the dangers of being a Shifta, the two bodies were hung from trees along the road. It was a gruesome sight to see the bodies thus suspended between heaven and earth. Now, if these bandits had been caught alive, they could have gotten some money together with which to bribe the officials, and they would have gone free. But when they get killed in the scuffle, they haven't any chance to pay out. The night before we got here, four Shiftas stole eleven [[5]] cows from a man near here. The next day four of the thieves were caught. Three of them were able to pay up and were released, (not legally, of course, but through bribes) but one poor fellow was kept in the house of the man who captured him. Finally he confessed to several crimes, and said he had stolen money from Dr. Lambie along the road. Incidentally, about sixty camels were camped near here that same night, and two boxes were stolen from the caravan. Strange enough, Anderson's and my goods were in that same caravan. One box was returned, but the other is still missing, This Shifta said he had stolen the boxes. The Arab in charge of the camels described the boxes and was sure one was ours. However, there is the possibility that he is saying that to give strength to his court case, as by connecting Dr. Lambie's name to the affair, he can make it loom very large. Dr. Lamble is a very big man in this country. So the boxes may not have been ours at all.
Well, yesterday was the day on which we were due to arrive here at Marako. I wanted to give the Bartons a little warning of our coming, and I wanted to try an early atart, for once, and I wanted to see how fast I could go. So I got up at 3:20, ate some breakfast, and packed my stuff, and at 4:30 I was off in the dark, a boy going ahead with a lantern, and a carrier behind. The latter went along because he was the only available one who knew the road. The going was pretty rough in the dark, and I had to ford a stream three times. But about 5:30 the first touches of a new day appeared, and the lantern became unnecessary [[6]] The sunrise was a glorious birth of a new day. It was cool and comfortable, the best time of the day for travel. At 7:20 I reached the Marako valley. Scattering up the hill in a hurry, were about thirty or forty baboons. A man was chasing them from his field. The place was very beautiful, and what a sight was presented far below, in another valley... the big camp of camels, not yet started for the day! At eight o'clock, three and a half hours from the time I started, I came into the Marako compound of the Sudan Interior Mission and was greeted by Mr. Barton. He and Mrs. Barton had been conducting school for their Christians since daybreak, so I was just in time for breakfast.
The Andersons left Amosgabaya at six, and got in at 11:30, and the Negadis got in about an hour later. We had dinner with the Bartons, and pitched the tents in the afternoon. There was plenty to do in the afternoon, getting things organized. We had supper with the Bartons, and chatted in the evening, There was much talking about Shiftas, and trouble and some shooting, but apparently no casualties. The Arab camel driver stayed here, because he was afraid to sleep in a native hut. This morning, they escorted the thief to the judge, about two hours from here, and probably by now are doing some wonderful orating. We'll be here over Sunday, and Monday will leave for Duromie, Kambatta Province.
---[letter #3]
Saturday, March 24, 1934
UrbaruqueThings have been running in true Ethiopian style this week, in that our plans have not worked out particularly well. [[7]] instead of being in Duromie today, we have three days to go, but are camped here for the weekend. We had a good time at Marako on Sunday, attending the native services and seeing how they do things there. The first service was Sunday School, which I did not attend. But at 9:30 there was a prayer meeting for the native Christian boys. No bell is rung for this service, and nobody is invited, the idea being to let those come who are interested enough in prayer. The brother of our Negadi has been an outstanding Christian, and Mr. Barton has encouraged his to read the Bible for messages that he and his people need. On his 1ast trip to Addis, the Lord spoke to him concerning Romans 15:6,7. Apparently the Marako Christians had not been at one in their testimony so he asked to be permitted to speak to the Christians on this subject. He spoke at the prayer meeting, and very clearly told them the need, and mentioned names where that was necessary. It was a great blessing to us. But I'll write more about the work at Marako in a separate letter.
Saturday night, as we were eating supper outside, the first of the "little rains" began. These rains supposedly come in January or February, and last about ten days. I don't know what is "little"
about them, unless it is the duration. We scurried around to get our stuff under cover, and, not being able to do much then, we went, to bed. The next night it rained again. Monday morning we got up ready to leave. But since that was the home town of the Negadis, they were in no hurry. One of our carriers had deserted, so we had to got another, and they were scarce. The deserter was a slave [[8]] who had wandered away and had been eaught and taken back. At the last minute, a second carrier failed to show up, so the head Negadi managed to got two now ones. A third carrier waited until we were all ready to go, before he refused to pick up his load, saying that he wanted more money. After about half an hour of fuming and fussing, (they call it "chick-a-chick" -- very expressive) he picked up his load and went on. He has been sweet as a daisy ever since. They never remember those things, apparently. We had gone only about an hour when a fellow came running up behind us and stopped one of the now carriers. This time the story was that the carrier owed the stranger 100 dollars, and of course he wouldn't let him go far with that hanging over. So when the Negadis came along, they picked up his load without a word, and we went on. I had sharp words with the interferer, and wouldn't say good-bye to him, so he followed along, bowing graciously, pleading with me not to leave him without saying good-bye. I didn't feel led to speak to him further.We finally camped Monday afternoon, at Afineguschafne. There, as everywhere since, we had to use slightly thickened water. When it rains, the erosion is so terrific that all the streams become dark brown. We put alum in the water to settle it, and it works wonders, but usually tastes alum. It rained again that night, so that in the morning we got a late start. Fact was, that it started to rain hardest after we had started packing, and the Negadis don't like to load wet tents, as they are some extra heavy that way. Late in the morning, as we were on our way, the [[9]] boys started taking us up a steep hill for apparently no reason. But when we got to the top and looked down the other side, we saw the reason...a beautiful crater lake. It appeared to be small, but when we tried to throw stones into the water, we couldn't touch it. There were ducks and geese on the water, but they looked like sparrows. The boys protested our throwing stones into the water, as it was "God's water".
I kept getting unreasonably tired, all day, and about every half hour stretched out on the grass to rest my back. When we got to camp, I was all in. We camped at Arattabur (four roads). I went to bed right awav, without eating anything, and was kept going all night, quite sick. We couldn't go on next day, nor the next, but on that second day I began to feel better, and got up, and ate. Ths day before, Mr. Anderson had sent a boy back to Marako for medicine, and he got back the next day. The pills settled my stomach. Friday morning I felt well and strong again, so we set out for a short day's trek as far as Warabe. I forgot to say that Tuesday, Mr. Anderson shot a big goose, which I didn't taste, and yesterday we had roast guinea fowl.
Today we trekked another short day to Urbaruque, where we arrived about 11:30. We will stay here over Sunday. When we pitched our tents here, we little suspected what we were in for. About two o'clock some 50 natives had congregated and set to work staring at the 'frangis'. Soon the crowd was increased to well over 100. Then we discovered that the Negadis had camped us almost in the middle of a huge market which convenes on Saturday. Being so close to the market was, of course, a great pleasure to them. We were, and are, a great attraction to the [[10]] people. They keep coming by the hundreds. Right hard by, there are other hundreds doing their weekly business. The odor that arises from so many Africans is tremendous. It is almost unbearable. They have many strong condiments, pepper by the ton, and sour bread, and other odiferous edibles - edible to them, at least. In keeping the crowd away from the tents, the boys have come little short of war, but being fond of all this, they prosecute their business diligently. Finally I suggested to the head Negadi that they take up a collection for the priviledge of viewing the white freaks. He proceeded to ask each for a besa, and they moved away like a crowd at a street meeting in Podunk, U.S.A.
We have just finished another meal of potatoes and guinea hen. Would any of you folks like some, or some duck, or goose? You can have all we shoot, and we'll give you a dime for taking it away. A nice, cool strawberry milkshake would make me go to bed without crying tonight. Now Mr. Anderson and I are going to wander around the market to see if we can find some limes, or native peas, or beans.
Later.
Darkness finally came, and the crowd dispersed, to leave the place to us, alone. Which brings this account up to the present. Perhaps the addition of a little detail here, wouldn't hurt anybody. When we get into camp, we usually have to wait a little while for our mules to get in. Our horse boy is with us, and he takes off the saddles and bridles, and hobbles my horse and lets all three loose to feed on the meagre supply of grass. When the caravan arrives, the [[11]] carriers and personal boys get at the tents, and usually have them up in half an hour. During all this, we have to supervise, and dash around to see that things are not done hind side before, and up side down. When the tents are up, two of the carriers go for water, and the others hunt for wood, if there is none, we have to buy it. The horse boy goes out to try to buy barley and hay. At times, women bring the stuff, and offer it for sale at the camp. The cook and one of the boys set to work making a fire, and pooling vegetables. For a stove, they get three rocks on which they plaoe a round, concave piece of tin. When the fire is started, they put long pieces of wood in from each opening between the rocks, and as the wood burns, they push it in farther. Really those people can be delightfully bright, or abysmally dumb.
We try to eat about four o'clock, so that all the work will be done before it gets dark. Also, the lunch for the next day is Packed, and a breakfast arranged, so that we can eat in a hurry, and got off in the morning. We don't leave anything until the morning, either. About six o'clock, as it is getting dark, the boy gets the horses ready for the night. We have an iron peg to which are attached three chains. The peg to driven into the ground, and one leg of each horse is padlocked to a chain. A thief could pull the peg up, and lead the horses away, but it to harder to lead three horses than one.
During these rainy days, the Negadis have been piling all the boxes into my tent to keep the goods from getting wet. So I have half a tent. in the morning the big job is to [[12]] get through with all our stuff so soon as possible, so that the boxes can be loaded on to the mules. The carriers pull the tens down and fold them up, and we wait around until most of the mules are loaded. Then we leave. About ten o'clock we stop for lunch. Saturday, the Andersons brought their little gas stove along, and had the materlai for pancakes all prepared, so that when we stopped for lunch, our cook made pancakes. They tasted mighty good! They have to take the place of bread, now, because we have been on the road longer than we planned, and are out.
I've been the traveling doctor for this outfit, ever since the first day. My kit consists of one tiny bottle of murourochrome, some cotton, and a bit of adhesive tape. Usually, in the course of a day's travel, the boys manage to get their feet cut, more or less. So I get out my kit, and they gther around, and I administer the potent cure-all. If one has a real bad cut, I wrup it up. Usually the cuts are old, and the result of dry cracking of the skin. Some have cracks all over their feet and legs. It's pitiful, sometimes, to see them. I don't think I've seen a good pair of feet yet. But as long an they go around in their bare feet, medicine will do them little good.
I could have used some eye medicine here, yesterday and today. A great many natives have swollen eyes, caused by road dust, and flies. A little silver nitrate does wonders for them. Today, a man brought a little girl in. I shuddered to look at her eyes. One eye ball was protruding way out, and there was very little pigment in it. I told them where they might get help from one of our doctors or nurses, but the nearest one is two days away. I don't suppose they will take the trip. [[13]] Yesterday, when the big crowd was here, we were thinkling what a big opportunity it would be to preach to them. But not being able to speak their language yet, we were helpless. We have travelled for days, between stations, and have seen many people who never come in contact with a Christian. Unless the native Christians evangelize their own people, the country will not be won to Christ. For it is certain that no organization could ever send enough missionaries to a land to convert that land. The native Christians must finish what the missionaries begin.
"Uncle Nick is waiting for you," Harold Street informed me on my arrival. Street was later to join me in Gamo.
"Is that what you call Mr. Simponis?" I asked, referring to the missionary at Gamo.
"Yes," Street replied. "Out here we are all uncles and aunts to the missionary children. But Mr. Simponis seems to be a special uncle. Anyway, you'll soon find out."
The Streets had heard the call to Ethiopia after they and their children were already settled in a pastorate, but they pulled up stakes and went anyway. I learned that Uncle Nick had gone to America from his native Greece when he was about fifteen. He had become a citizen but when he heard Dr. Lambie tell about the many Greek people living in Ethiopia, he decided to go there to give them spiritual help. After making good progress with the Amharic language, he assisted in the increasing work in the provinces, and was now readying the new station at Gamo.
[[letters 5 April (arrival at Gamo)]]
---[letter #4]
Shamma, Gamo Province,
April 5, 1934.I have arrived, after three weeks on a horse. This country is beautiful. This is home. But more of that later. I 1eft you all at Urbarque, I also left the Andersons there. You see, we have a station at Lambuda, near Hosseina, and the station is a two day trek from the main road. I wanted to see all the stations I could, so decided to hop over the hill to Lambuda. I left camp at five-thirty, with a boy who didn't know the road any more than I did. After a half-hour's ride across the plain, we started up. it was some climb, up the rocky facs of a sheer cliff. I had to get off the horse so that he could get up through the last narrow defile. When pack mules go that way, they have to be unloaded and the loads carried up the cliff. We went up hill and down dale for eight hours, before we arrived at the station. It was good to see my old New Zealand friend of Addis Ababa days, Thomas Simpson, come out of the gate. The natives had [[14]] cried out "Frangi", which meant a foreigner was coming. I stayed with the batchelors Simpson, Norman Couser, and veteran Clarence Duff. We had supper that first evening with Mr. and Mrs. Annan, and Zillah Walsh.
Tuesday, while I was at Lambuda, I read most of the story of Adoniram Judson - "Splendor of God." The book, written by Honore Wilsie Morrow, is very good. It gave me more than one idea concerning missionary work.
We wanted to get an early start on Wednesday for Duromie, as it takes about six hours, if one gallops at every opportunity. Clarence Duff had to go to Duromie to see about fixing up a house for Miss Walsh, who is going down there to be the nurse. But it rained that night, and the road was slippery, so we didn't leave until after eight. We stopped along the way to visit some natives, friends of Mr. Duff, and we got into Duromie about four o'clock. The Andersons had arrived at noon. They had to leave the next day, but I stayed with Mr. Duff in his tukul. My stuff went with the mules when the Andersons left. Friday was the day of prayer, as is the last Friday of every month. We spent the time together, Mr. Duff and Mr. and Mrs. Phillips and I. Saturday morning I climbed on my horse again, and set out to do in one day what is usually two days' trek to Soddu. I left Duromie just before seven. I trotted practically all the way. If you have ever ridden very much, you'll know how it was, to keep up that posting motion for over five hours. About twenty minutes before I got to the station, Mr. Street came out to meet me. He had an extra horse [[15]] for me, so I rode him while Mr. Street's boy walked in with my Brummy. So, from Monday to Saturday, I trekked six days in three.
After eating, we had a peculiar job to do. Dejazmatch Abeba, formerly of this province, had sent 10,000 thalers, all in silver, and slightly larger than the American dollar, to Soddu in care of the mission. That week the Dejazmatch had sent one of his men to Soddu to get the money, and take it to Addis. So Saturday afternoon, three of us counted out all that money. There were twenty bags containing 500 thalers each. After this job, we had to got my stuff packed for a new set of Negadis. My stuff that came down by camel had to be made up into mule loads. A big box that I had, had to be lightened, so that two carriers could take it between them.
In the midst of the packing job, it began to get very cloudy. All at once, and without a moment of warning, a terrific wind came up, ripping tin off the roofs and tearing the thatch to pieces. It lasted only about two minutes, but was followed by a hail storm such as I have never seen before. It felt as if we were getting shot. It oontinued to hail until the ground was white. In places, the stuff was several inches deep. Dr. and Mrs. Roberts got a tin bathtub full of hail, and set their churn into in, and made two batches of ice cream. I was staying with the Streets, and in the front room they had to set the furniture in spots that weren't getting wet. It all passed over soon, and the evening was very pleasant.
Sunday morning, I attended the native service, and heard one Desta, a particularly fine Christian, speak to about[[16]] eighty people assembled. The church building in made of mud brick, and has a thatched roof. A thin eosting of hay covers the ground. The people come in, and are seated with their legs crossed. Some six or eight fairly "big" men come to the service, and their mules occupy the back section of the church, but cause no trouble. The missionaries sit in front on boxes or stools. Here at Walamo, nine were baptized last year, and the work is progressing. In the evening, the missionaries took communion with the native believers. It was a glorious service, to see those black ones, called out of darkness, and now breaking the bread and drinking the cup in remembrance of the Lord's death "'til He come."
The trek from Soddu to Gamo usually takes four days, but, by sending the negadis on one day, and camping with them next, and then going on, in to the station here the second day, one can make it in two days. Mr. Street and I left Soddu just before five o'clock Monday morning. My horse was showing signs of being tired, after almost three weeks on the road, so I couldn't do as well as I would have liked. About two o'clock, we arrived at the village of Boroda, where we were to camp. We stopped at the house of a Coptic priest, friend of Mr. Street, and had some native coffee, served with a bit of salt in it… no sugar or cream. The priest came with us to our tent, and we gave him and two of his friends tea and bread. We had supper, and then went to bed. Four o'clock found us up, and before five we were on the road again. It was some day! The road to up and down most of the way, and We had to get off and walk a good deal. It sets one to puffing, too, because of the altitude. At one point the road goes up to [[17]] 10,200 feet. Most of the day, we were in sight of Lake Abai, and just before we got into Shammah, we could see both Lake Abai, and Lake Chamo. We got to the station just at twelve o'clock. Mr. Simponis, who had been staying here, was in town, and didn't got back until about three o'clock.
I was mighty glad to get to my destination, after three weeks on the road. And it was great to see the country in which I will be worklng for some time. Those of us in this station, when we are settled, will be the first ones to preach the Gospel in this land of Gamo. This in one of the more heavily populated or the Ethiopian provinces. At one time the land must have had a tremendous population. Every mountain and every valley is terraced. Each terrace is retained by a wall of stones, and the whole represents a huge amount of work. So intensively has the land been cultivated, that some terraces are only two or three feet wide, and ten feet long. Thus, every mountain looks as if it has steps up the sides. If you look at a good map of Africa, you will see the two lakes in southern Ethiopia, Lake Abai, or Abaya, and Lake Chamo. We are just on the western side of the neck of land that separates the two lakes. Our station is on a wide terrace, high above the lakes. But from here we get a wonderful view of the surrounding country. We can see across the lakes into Sidamo; to the south we can see the mountains of Gardula, and over into the hills of the Boran country; directly back of us is the Shammah mountain, and on every side the ground either goes up or down. We had to go down into a deep valley, today, to see about getting timbers for lumber, and it was some hike! We had to crawl, at times, and all the time we were crossing [[18]] streams and passing waterfalls. The hills are very rugged, and bare rock protrudes everywhere. We'll have to be going over these rocks all the time in the future to reach the people. It took us about an hour to walk up out of the valley, and we didn't go much more than half way down. We saw lots of baboons, and jungle was more like Africa should be.
We have a wonderful house. It in a native tukul which was moved onto the place. It is some twenty feet in diameter, and the ceiling is about 25 feet from the floor. Here, the natives split bamboo, which grows abundantly, and weave it for the sides of the houses, and bring it to a point at the top. Then they thatch it with grass. So our house looks like a haystack. The men are putting up a stable, and the kitchen for Mr. Street's house is already finished. When more money comes through, we hope to get to building his house, and next, the nurse's house and clinic. I will probably build our house next dry season.
I am exceedingly happy that we are going to be in a country where the Gospel has never been preached. It means a lot, to build on no man's foundation. Building will take most of the time before we can get to language study. At present, the natives know nothing about working for foreigners, and we are having a hard time getting workers. Eggs are scarce, and we can't get chickens very often. Once in a while, we get a sheep for a thaler (33 cents, American) but they are so small that they only last three or four days. But we are trying to show ourselves friendly, and in time they will come around. Just before I came down, the governors of Gofa and Gamo were changed. The one we [[19]] have now, Dejazmatch Bienna, is more liberal than old Abeba, so we are looking forward to more freedom in building and in carrying on the work. Since the work in Gofa is well established, we believe the Lord ordered the change for the good of our work. We went to Chincha, the capitol of Gamo province, yesterday, and had a nice visit with the Dejazmatch. He wants us to help him to build a church. He said he would help with our houses if we would help him. We told him we wanted to be as helpful as possible, but that our purpose in being here is to preach Christ. He assented to that.
I continued on my journey to Gamo where I met Uncle Nick. He had a large classic
Greek head which could have easily been graced by an olive wreath. In the absence
of the latter, his black wavy hair was an excellent substitute. Socrates and
P1ato would have recognized him as one of their own. His shoulders were broad,
but from that point his figure tapered down to spindly legs.
America was Nick's homeland, not Greece. He loved his adopted [[36]] country passionately and treasured his citizenship and passport more than did we who were native born. I detected a trace of a foreign accent in his speech but I was soon unconscious of it. He did have a few peculiarities, such as pronouncing the "p" in "psalms," but he spoke better English than most Europeans.
Nick led me to an unlikely looking building resembling a haystack with a door. "This is our house," he said. "We bought it from some Gamo people as temporary quarters until we build our own!"
He opened the door and I entered the haystack. The room inside was about twenty feet in diameter, the size of a modem living-dining room. A partition of woven bamboo, six feet high, divided the hut into two rooms, each with a little square window resembling a porthole and providing the only light and ventilation.
"This is our living room," Nick announced. "And that is our heating plant."
He pointed to a flat fireplace without a chimney which sat on the floor. There was a small table by the window and a few cupboards lined the walls, which were plastered with mud to a height of about six feet. The air blew through freely above that. I looked up. The walls gradually came together until at the peak, some thirty feet above me, there was scarcely room for a bird's nest. Thirty feet, I recalled, was approximately the height of a three-story house.
"The Gamo people build this way in order to have a long-lasting house," Nick explained. "When the termites eat off the bottom or when it rots away, they dig a trench around the house and drop the walls into it. The whole house is lowered by a foot each time they do it. With a house this height, they can lower it many times!'
It sounded sensible. The Africans were engineers in their own way in spite of all that I had heard to the contrary.
The building of the station had already begun. The first house was to be for the Street family, who would move from Soddu to Gamo as soon as it was ready. The house had not been started but Street and Nick had erected a unit that would serve as kitchen, pantry, and storeroom for the new house. Each room in the building was about eight by ten. The kitchen was already in use.
"When we start building the main house, I'll have to do most of the dealing with the men on materials and labor. You could help out most by taking over the responsibility for the meals," Nick suggested.
T'hose were distressing words. I had not thought I would begin my missionary career at such a level. Weren't missionaries supposed to be [[37]] aided in their work by hired help? I had brought a boy with me from Addis Ababa and Nick had one working for him. They seemed much like ourselves. We needed help for we had a great deal to do and would require many free hours for uninterrupted language study.
I had been given a set of Walamo language notes when I passed through Soddu. It was the language used with variations all through Gofa, Gamo, and Walamo provinces. I was to study Walamo (with a Gamo accent) instead of Amharic. Learning the Amharic alphabet had been helpful, for our missionaries always used it in reducing the tribal languages to writing. Language study would include much time spent visiting our neighbors so I could hear the correct pronunciation of words, the use of idiom, and real native sentence structure. By getting established on a friendly basis with the people, they would be more likely to believe what I said about spiritual matters once I spoke their tongue.
Building the main house would be a full-time job. I would have to snatch what time I could from housebuilding and household duties. In tropical Aftica the building of houses for missionaries to live in cannot be avoided. Unlike some parts of the missionary world, there are no houses to rent or buy.
I looked forward to the day when I would be able to speak the language fluently, to the day when there would be no more houses to build. The housekeeping affairs would be Enid's, and together we would start Sunday services and weekday meetings for men and women. There would be an informal school where we would teach the neighborhood children their two hundred and fifty-two characters. As we gained believers, we would give their leaders initial instruction in Bible school. The church would be established and we would try from the beginning to make it the church of the people. Each local church would mean a goal achieved.
But these plans were all in the unknown future. I was still in Gamo, scarcely able to converse with my neighbors, and the time I thought might be used in language study was to be spent in the kitchen. We had no stove. For baking, Nick used an uninsulated sheet-iron oven. I did not know how I could produce bread with the little metal box he balanced on one hand as he explained its simple operation. He showed me how to set the bread in the evening. Then, early in the morning, he added the necessary flour and kneaded the dough. I watched with interest but no enthusiasm.
"Now we have to put the bread in a warm place to rise," Nick said.
The mornings were always cold in Gamo's mountains. I was shivering. [[38]] I could not think of any place warm enough to raise bread but Nick had solved that problem long ago. We carried the pans from the kitchen to the house. Nick threw back the covers of the bed from which he had recently risen, put the pans in, and pulled the covers over them. In about an hour the bread was ready for baking, at least as ready as it would ever be. The bed was not getting any warmer.
Nick had set his oven on four stones out in the yard. The fire was burning brightly under it. Soon it burned down, leaving a bed of coals, some of which Nick placed on top of the oven. When the oven was hot enough -- I never did learn how to find that out -- we whisked the bread out of the bed, through the door, and into the oven which sat smoking forlornly. Not once in the nine months that I was with Nick did the dough rise in the oven. It a1ways sank to a level nearer the bottom than the top of the pans.
Our so-called Ethiopian cooks could put wood on the fire, boil water, and watch vegetables or meat cooking, but they could not make desserts. I tried to stir up various kinds but inevitably returned to the simplicity of chocolate pudding. We had built a stone fireplace in the kitchen. It was shaped to provide a firebox over which we laid a sheet of iron, already warped out of shape by the heat of previous fires. A sheet-iron pipe served as a chimney but most of the smoke escaped into the room.
When the chocolate pudding was ready to be cooked, I stoked the fire and began stirring. I could not keep my eyes open, the smoke was so thick. I coughed, blew my nose, and occasionally went outside to recover. Eventually the pudding thickened and was ready to be served. According to the cookbook the recipe would serve six people, but Uncle Nick and I divided it and it was just enough.
The most important item in our diet was coffee. With the rain, the fog, and the loneliness, we needed something to lift our sphits. We had coffee for breakfast, in the middle of the morning, for lunch, in the middle of the afternoon, and for supper. Occasionally Nick brought out his Turkish coffee maker and we had some black brew before going to bed.
One day I told Nick that I thought our boys were taking sugar. It was disappearing at an alarming rate. We knew that boys who worked for foreigners were often tempted by the ample supplies of sugar, salt, and cooking oil that had to be on hand. We believed it our duty to keep temptation out of the way of the boys, but a certain amount of food had to be available. While meditating on the problem, I began to consider our own rate of consumption. Two cups of coffee each ... five [[39]] times a day ... that added up to twenty cups. Nick used at least two heaping teaspoons in each cup and I used only a little less. That was where the sugar was going -- though I can't remember that we cut down on the coffee drinking.
T'he boys who helped us were having their problems, too. We missionaries timed our work by our watches, but the food was not always ready when we wanted it. Africans tell time by the sun, moon, and stars, and are usually accurate within an hour. Then we noticed a sudden improvement in the timing. The boys had worked out a system of their own. When the corrugated iron was nailed to the roof, a nail hole had been left. This allowed a thin ray of light to describe an arc on the shaded floor as the sun passed across the heavens.
The boys explained it this way: "When the spot of light is here, we put the vegetable on to cook. Then at this point we put on the meat, and here the potatoes. When the ray hits the middle of the floor, we put the coffee on. Then at this point we wait for you to say 'Bring the food!'"
After I had served half-cooked beans and nearly raw potatoes to Nick and myself a few times, I began to ask questions. Then I recalled that the higher the altitude, the lower the temperature at which water boils. Of course it would take longer to cook the food! After that, the string beans and potatoes went onto the fire right after breakfast. I thought of the ladies in Denver and how they had to regulate their cooking to their mile-high altitude. That of Gamo was eight thousand feet, more than half again as high as Denver. Far away and below us at five thousand feet -- still nearly as high as Denver -- Lake Chamo and Lake Abaya lay in the floor of the Great Rift Valley which runs from Kenya to Palestine. The dry season haze gave the lakes an otherworldly appearance, perhaps a netherworldly one. As the rainy season came, billows of fog rolled up from the lakes. Other billows descended on us from the tops of the mountains. It was not merely that the weather was bad; at eight thousand feet we were living in the clouds. For weeks on end the sun did not break through. It was no place for a lonely like me.
Every morning and evening the boys lighted the fire in our open hearth. As we sat reading or studying, the smoke rolled around us. We coughed, sneezed, and rubbed our eyes. The clothes would not dry outside in the rain and fog, so we had to hang them on the lines that crisscrossed our tiny living quarters. We often ate lunch invisible to each other, our heads up among the shirts and trousers.
One day we received a letter from Earl Lewis, in Soddu, saying that he was coming with a gang of workmen to help us build the house. Our [[40]] two beds left very little space in our half-moon bedroom, but we would squeeze him in somehow. Lewis had taken over the office of District Superintendent from Walter Ohman when the latter went on furlough. As D.S., Lewis was supposed to see that we kept the building job moving.
Lewis was about five feet ten, with a solid frame. He disliked inactivity and a trip to Gamo to spend a few weeks on the building job with a gang of noisy, singing Walamos would be just what he wanted. His presence would make life more interesting for Nick and me. Lewis had learned the Walamo language by spending long hours with the people in their huts, for he could not sit still long enough to study the language notes worked out by his fellow missionaries. It was natural that he should become as fluent in Walamo as he was in English. And he was very fluent in English! He kept the conversation going; all Nick and I had to do was respond now and then. He hustled around the station all day long, bringing his native optimism to every problem. It did not matter how crooked the wood; we could build a house with it. Nor did it matter how wet it was; we could make a fire with it.
We laid out the Mission house to suit our Western mode of living but the manner of construction was Ethiopian. We marked the places where the windows and doors were to be. Then a workman dug holes on either side. The heaviest and straightest cedar poles were selected and set in place, then trenches dug between these openings. Alternate split cedar or eucalyptus and bamboo were set in the trench and tied together with cross pieces lashed with rope.
"It's hard to make a straight wall with this split timber," Lewis observed as we surveyed the completed woodwork.
"When we plaster the walls, we can always put a little more mud in the low places and a little less in the high," Nick commented.
The house looked ghastly with its array of split timbers tied together with ropes, but we were not through yet.
"We'll start on the roof tomorrow," Lewis said one day. We had to get the roof on before mudding the walls. The rains had begun in earnest and the plaster would need protection.
Between periods of supervising the cooking of potatoes and meat, and the baking of bread and stirring chocolate pudding -- the coffee came by itself -- I helped Lewis with the building of the roof. Nick worked on the ground. It was all he could do to watch us walk around on the slender roof timbers. He suffered from acrophobia.
We built the ridge and then ran the rafters into it, picking out long [[41]] poles for the hip rafters. Then we stretched lines and hammered down the purlins as straight as possible. Lastly, we nailed down the sheets of corrugated iron and the roof was finished. It had taken many days of skidding around on the raw timbers that became slippery in the rain.
Meanwhile three large pits had been dug, the dirt in them loosened, and water added. In these the men walked round and round, tramping the mud all day. The brown clay had to be worked this way for three or four weeks. Before it was applied to the walls, the fine straw of a grasslike Abyssinian grain called teff was added as a binder.
With the iron roof overhead, the Soddu men could go ahead with the plastering. They threw handfuls of mud on the walls and rubbed it smooth. It oozed through the timbers and spread out on the other side where it caked and dried, giving the plaster strength. When the last finishing coat had been applied, with a little cow dung added for smoothness, we surveyed our labors. The walls were wavy, but it was the best we could do with the help we had. It would be a fine house.
Lewis was hearty and full of ideas. When some young men appeared on the station and started a simple dance to the tune of a native banjo, he invited them into the new house. "If they have to dance," he said, "they might as well tramp down the dirt floor."
At last Lewis returned to Soddu, leaving Nick and me to finish the building.
Four months had passed since I left Enid in Addis Ababa. We wrote to each other faithfully but mail trained back and forth only twice a month. I had become a confirmed mailbag watcher. But not even the urgent necessity of opening the bag to get Enid's letters out in a hurry could interfere with the greetings to the postman:
"Are you in peace? Did you spend the night in peace? Are your people in peace? Are our people at Soddu in peace? How is the road? Did you arrive well?"
Having answered these questions for each other, we could open the bag without seeming to be rude. But the greetings continued, though less formally, as we dumped magazines and letters onto the floor. I recognized the writing on the letters I wanted to read first. Settling down in a chair next to the little window, the rest of the world stopped for a while as I read.
"Well, what's she doing now?" Nick asked one day, as I finally looked up from my reading.
"She's coming south soon," I replied. [[42]]
[[insert letters from Enid dated 18 May 1934 and 26 August, from Addis Ababa; then 18 Sept from Marako, enroute to Gamo; another 22 Dec 1934, from Duromie, Kambatta (mentions spending Thanksgiving with Mal and Dr. Roberts in Soddu, and Mal's one day rush trip) -- originally, this is where MNK started her book, entitled "American Girl in Africa: A Book of Letters"]]
---[letter #5; original typed on onion paper, one side only, and folded]
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Africa
May 18, 1934Dearest Marian and Howie,
[...] I've been busy as usual, only more so. Just yesterday got my china barrel and big boxes off by camel for Soddu -- wish you could haye seen them swaying along on those "ships of the desert." They've surely had all sorts of conveyance. And they're just the forerunners of me, for I expect to leave here in a week and a half or so, for Soddu -- about 250 miles, and only 60 or so miles from Gamo and Mal -- two hard days' trek. I won't be able to see him more than once, I suppose, but then, it wlll take just a few days for a letter to come from him, rather than months. However, it wi11 take nearly two months for a letter from home, so write often. Soddu is a station that has been established for about five years and there they speak practically the same language that is spoken in Gamo. There is a dandy bunch of people there [[20]] from all reports, room being made for me by two going home on furlough, this next week. A Dr. and Mrs. Roberts are there, Mr. and Mrs. Street, and a Miss Lois Briggs, with whom I will Live, a nurse. I'm frightfully anxious to get going -- will have about a two week's trek, with a Mr. Lewis. (His wife is one of those going home, with bad heart trouble -- he'll follow in about six months, preferring to stay and finish some work before joining her.) On the way, we'll visit four or five other stations, and see the workers, the work, and the natives. It will be interesting, and "something to write home about", I'm sure.
The final word hasn't been given for my going, but it is pretty certain. [...]
As usual, I've been having adventures on my horsey. The other day, going to town, Lottie Blair and I were racing on one of the few suitable stretches, when all of a sudden my horse braced his feet -- and there was I, wlth my legs clinging around his neck, and my hands grabbing his ears. Something had frightened him, so he just stopped -- and how! I didn't fall off, but I had a great time hoisting myself back into the saddle, I was laughing so. Then, again, coming home from inter-mission prayer meeting he saw that terrible creature -- a bicycle -- when we were going at a slow canter. As he shied, his shoes slipped on the rocks, and he went down on his knees, me going over his head, and landing on the back of my head. My watch got busted, and my coat torn, but that's all. (My watch is fixed, now.) He's a grand horse. I'd 1ike to race you, Marian. [[21]]
Last week, I saw the King and Queen for the first time. Dr. Lambie invited them out to tea, and, although we weren't invited to the tea, we got permission to stand in the upstairs window and watch them alight from the cars. The King came in one automobile, the Queen in the other. As the King stepped out from the car, he greeted Dr. Lambie with the sweetest smile I ever saw. His whole face lighted up. He is noted all over for his magnificent smile, and the beauty of his hands. They're such expressive ones. He's a slight man of medium height, with Jewish features, and was dressed very simply in the tight=fitting native trousers, and then a black cape trimmed with red and gold. The Queen wore a tan silk dress with a cape, also, and a veil hanging from her sun helmet. They had many attendants - gun-bearers, an eunuch and a priest, and others. It was all very thrilling. We stayed upstairs during the tea, had eats sent up to us, and after the party left, went down and sat in the same seat that the King had occupied.
I just met some of the boys that will be our carriers and servant boys on the trek south. They're a fine bunch. Boy, it's thrilling to think of getting into the country and among the people that I'll be working with the rest of my life. The Wallamo peoples are a simpler, and less proud people than the Amharas - and more loveable, if anything. At Gamo, they've had very little contact with foreigners, and are unspoiled - so many times traders come in, and just ruin their morals, and give them wrong ideas of [[22]] foreigners in general. We're hoping all people of low morals may keep away from them.
I'm enclosing an account of a visit to one of the nearby native huts. And talking about fleas - wish you could see me. My legs, and around my waist are just covered with bites - and itch!! I wake up night after night scratching them, and there's no preventative against them that I know of. They get into our rooms in spite of cleaning them every other day, and I've caught I don't know how many, on my ankles, or legs, while studying in the living room. [...]
[Cooking, out here, is very strange, and quite hard at first.] You have to substitute so many things for what you can't get - dried peas and roasted wheat for nuts, caramelized white sugar for brown, and one gets so that one can make a decent cake without eggs, milk, and almost without flour. It's a great life! [...]
Oodles of love to you all.
Enie(NOTE:-- The "[...]" represents deletion of more personal sections.)
VISIT TO A NATIVE HOME
Won't you come with me for a visit to one of the neighboring native homes? After donning sun-helmets, and calling Byena, a native Christian, who speaks some English, we go off down the eucalyptus shaded path to the home of our night watchman. When approaching, we call out, "May health be given you! Did you pass the night well? Are you well?" And the mistress anwsers, "God be praised! May health be given you," etc.
We are ushered into the round mud-plastered house, [[23]] with its straw roof, and made to sit on a seat of eucalyptus leaves covered with a dyed cow hide. Several earthenware water jugs are in a corner along with several large storage baskets holding grain, and built into one side of the room is a bed. The chickens immediately crowd around to make friends, and the sheep and cows in the adjoining alcove, poke out their noses inquisitively. After more greetings, our hostess bustles off to a corner to prepare food for us. Smoke fills the house, and presently she comes out with some small cups of potent coffee, together with the injera and wat. (Injera is a sort of sour bread, made in disks 1 ½ feet in diameter, and about ? in thick. Wat is a sauce, ? red pepper with either chicken or lamb mixed in.) Our hostess tears off a piece of injera, rolls it up, and after 'dunking' it in the wat, stuffs it into the mouth of the guest sitting on her right. That one forces a smile, swallows quickly, and grabs for the coffee, which, being seasoned with a good deal of salt, tends to act as an emetic. She keeps it down, however, and then we are asked to help ourselves. We proceed, gingerly to do so, being careful, always, not to offend our hostess. When unnoticed, we may feed a large bit to the chickens, who gobble it up in a hurry, and, well, --coffee soaks into the dirt floor quickly! Suddenly we hear a scratching at our side, then a growl. A board is lifted, and out from a hole in the floor jumps the family dog just awakened from his nap.
After eating, and exchanging of remarks, Byena reads a portion from the Bible. By interpretation we give a short [[24]] message, setting forth the story of our Lord's coming from heaven to this earth to take on the form of a man, and dying on the cross, thus paying the penalty for our sins, - that we, believing on Him, might have eternal life. The boy leads in prayer before we depart, our hostess saying, "May God give you thanks, you will come again? May health be given you," and so we leave, with a prayer in our hearts that the Lord will touch her heart and bring her into a personal relationship with Himself.
(Incidentally, when home, a quick disrobement is in order. Fleas hide in the most unexpected places!!)---[letter #6; original in long hand on onion paper, one side only, and folded]
Addis Ababa,
August 26, 1934Dearest Marian,
I'm a pill! Here I have two unanswered letters from you now! Maybe some day I'll turn into a good correspondent, but chances seem slim.
I'll try to answer questions before I start other ramblings. Firstly, [about lepers], I see lepers every day of my life here. They're everywhere, roaming about, many of the worst of them begging on the streets. Our mission has a Leprosarium where present we have 75 lepers, giving them the latest treatments. I was visiting on the compound last Wednesday, and visited in the clinic where they give the various injections. I've lost all fear of them, and some of the lepers are most loveable. The nodular cases are most interesting and unusual. What is a crime is to see small kids with it, though; one fellow eight years old is over there. They are kept busy weaving, gardening, and helping build, and are very happy. Many claim to [[25]] be Christians, and it's wonderful that at their frequent deaths and burials over there, there is none of the heathen wailing, practiced by most Abyssinians. Incidentally, another girl and I started a Sunday school class for girls and women in town today, and one of those who came was a leprous woman in fairly advanced stage. Of course we don't touch them, and so can't get it.[The following two paragraphs were omitted by MNK in her final draft.]
However, one thing here that does cause me to shiver whenever I stop to think about it is that about 99% (various estimates differ) of these people have either syphillis or ghonorrea. For instance, our cook has it, our night watchman, in fact, of all the boys on the place, there's but one who I'm sure hasn't the disease. We just have to trust the good Lord to protect us, and He has, too! The cook is clean and every once in a while has an injection, but still he has it. It's frightful.Just today, I met a very sad case. In Sunday School class we told them the story of Moses being put among the reeds as a baby to be saved from Pharoah. We told how God loved the child and saved him from death and how he loved each one of us. One lady spoke up then, and said she had a little baby, and wanted to know if God loved it, too. We told her "yes," and then after the meeting, she insisted on taking me to her home and showing me the child. I went. The baby was naked, half wrapped in a bit of cloth. I could see at once it was a half breed, half Greek or Armenian, probably, and its legs and tummy were covered with syphillitic sores. It just made me shiver, and they were so revulsive. The mother said, "Jesus loves it, doesn't he?" and she gave me and it a big smile. Such is the life on the mission field. But it's not all sordid, by any means.
Some of the darlingest girls about ten or twelve years old came today. We had to go visiting on the various compounds in back of our bookshop in Addis, to get permission of the mothers for their children to come, and two or three of these girls were awfully shy when I called for them today. However, they went home gaily singing "Jesus loves me, this I know" (in Amharic, of course) and it gave me a thrill. They're SO responsive to a little love. [...]
If you still have those old seeds, you could slip a few in a letter, IF YOU WISH. Most things grow wonderfully, out here. Good soil, lots of rain and sun.
I'm still here in Addis, after I had everything all set several times to go down to Soddu before the rains began. However, I still have hopes of going down there about the middle of October or November. In that case, we'll be married at Soddu, two days trek this side of Gamo. We're expecting the wedding to take place about February first, maybe before, maybe a bit after. It depends upon when Dr. Lambie gets there. He'll be visiting the station about then, and we want him to marry us. He's a dear! [[26]]
The rains haven't been as bad as I thought they would be. Each day, we've had at least an hour or two of rain. Usually, if it rains in the morning, we can count on sun in the afternoon, and vice versa. Only when it rains, it pours, and how!! The grass has shot up, the flowers also, and everything is so fresh and pretty, and amazingly cool. I usually wear a sweater all morning, anyway. The rains stop on Sept. 15, (usually on that day, exactly) and then the winds begin; cold and stiff for about two months, and then our hottest season. It all seems so funny! [...]Marian, I wish you were out here to see me engineering life here at Headquarters now. I've been made housekeeper, have had the job about one and one half months, now. Overseeing the two cooks, two table boys, two laundry boys, as well as horse boy and woodchopper (handy-man). It's interesting, and has many problems. Had 25 people at supper tonight, some company, but our crowds vary frightfully fr
