After more than twenty years' absence I was again sent to Musofu Mission near the Congo border, Northern Rhodesia, Central Africa. It was my medical experience that won friends in the old pioneer days, and I find that the medical work renews friendships and breaks down prejudice everywhere I go.
As soon as I returned to the region in which I could drink clean water out of a running river and see the beauties and handiwork of God in the hills and trees and flowers around old Musofu, I wondered what had been done for the native people living in the Serenje district, to the east of us. While we were out riding on our bicycles, Jacob, a native evangelist, asked me if it were not time now for him to take his long journey. I said, "Yes, the rains are about over, and there is food in the villages and water in the streams."
Well, Jacob had a real experience. To help him win friends in the new district, I gave him a supply of simple remedies, such as salts, castor oil, eye lotion, ointment for the itch, and a bit of eucalyptus oil for coughs and colds. The districts here in the wilds are allotted to different societies to work, and we are not supposed to enter the district of another society. When asked if he had a permit from the chief to hold meetings in the village, he would say he had none, but that he had medicines to help' the people, and pictures to show them of Jesus, the Saviour.
Finally he neared the village of Chief Chi-bale and was told if he proceeded to visit the villages ahead, without a pass, he would be beaten. Although I had given him a general letter to the chief of the district, the letter was ignored because I had not written the name of the particular chief.. There were three native chiefs in this village, the third one a woman who had four husbands.
Jacob held no services in Chibale's village, but succeeded in holding meetings in sixteen other villages before he was refused permission to go farther, and advised to return. He said he was without food for two days, and fainted from weakness. The women stayed in their gardens during the time to reap their millet, and the men in the village said they had no food. When he succeeded in reaching the motor road with a broken bicycle, he was denied a lift because he was a native and did not have the cash in his pocket to pay.
Altogether, he visited eighteen villages, held twenty-four meetings, and helped three hundred and twenty-six with medicines. In some of the villages the opposition was so bitter that they would not give him a but to sleep in.
The laws of the bush are to be kind to the stranger, but not so in this district occupied by a Christian mission. Fearing such opposition and not knowing the district, I had advised Jacob to visit as many villages as possible before going to the head chief or the government station, for there he would only be turned back.
Just now my son, Arthur, and his wife are out in village work. They piled all the supplies they could on two old bicycles, and two native boys pushed the bicycles while the missionaries walked. They are having good meetings, and souls are being turned to Jesus. The sick are being helped, and some at death's door are being restored to life.
Let us consecrate all to the Master and speedily finish the work. The world is filled with sin, sorrow, and woe. Let us hasten the glad day when Jesus will come, and sin and suffering will be over.
* Graduate nurse, 1905, Battle Creek Sanitarium.
