What are some of the fundamental principles that the missionary appointee should bear in mind as he approaches his new field, and comes into contact with a situation so completely different from his homeland life? What are some of the principles that should govern him as he endeavors to give the everlasting gospel to heathen peoples?
One of the first things a missionary appointee to a continent such as Africa should realize is that he is coming to a changed condition, to a different people, to those with an absolutely different viewpoint and mode of life. He needs to realize that there are many things he will have to learn, and numerous ideas he will have to modify if he is to make a. success of his work in, the new field.
For example, in the matter of health: We will assume that he comes out to the tropics. Here in America or in Europe you teach a worker to choose a room preferably on a southeast corner so that he will have plenty of sunlight. You encourage him to get out in the sun as much as possible. The doctors prescribe sunlight for this, that, and the other. The sun is valued as one of the greatest friends of man; but when one goes to the tropics, he must realize that the sun is his deadly enemy—not the friend of the homeland.
When I was in school at Battle Creek College, a Methodist missionary, who had been in India for thirty-six years, gave us a talk. When he finished, he said: "Now, if there were only one sentence that I could speak to those students who may go out to India as missionaries, it would be, 'Beware of the sun.' "
In the Literary Digest several years ago I read an article on the deadliness of the sun in the tropics, written by an American missionary stationed in the Philippines. Our natives in Africa realize the danger. You never see a native out working in the middle of the day, unless he is working for some white man who forces him to do it. He keeps in the shade, or stays inside in the early afternoon, and does not go out until the sun is not so hot. The young missionary, coming out to the field, may not realize the need of observing this rule. He thinks, "I could do so and so in the sun at home and I can do it here." But this is a most unfortunate attitude. More than one of our best missionaries to Africa has had to give up his work on account of sunstroke.
Why cannot all our young people realize that when they come to these fields they should learn from the dearly bought experience of others? Sometimes they come out with the idea that we who have been out there all these years are far behind the times, and will say, "We have learned a lot since you left America. Now, this is the modern method." Perhaps some of us do get to be "old fogies," but there are a few indispensable things that we have learned from experience. We may not have just the very latest instruction, but by spending years in the tropics we have learned some essentials about caring for our health in these mission lands.
You stated that our missionary appointees should realize that they are going to a changed condition, a different civilization, etc. If they look with disdain upon those changed conditions, those different peoples, what will be the result?
Such an attitude will be absolutely fatal. The natives are shrewd; they can tell whether a man is sympathetic, even if he does come from a strange country. Our natives in Africa can read character far better than the white man. When a new man comes to the field, the natives will look him over, size him up, and give him a native name indicative of his character; and no matter how long he stays in the field, that name sticks, and should it be unfavorable, will prove a handicap to him. So many times people say: "Those people cannot read; they are ignorant." True, they cannot read books, but they are far from being unlearned.
* These responses, stenographically reported—together with others to follow later—were given in the course of an interview at our office with this apostle to Africa who has served there thirty-seven years.— Editors.
