STORIES 
 
 from the 
 
 CONGO 
 
 ■ A< $1 il i +£'>> L 
 
 C* 
 
 American Baptist Foreign 
 Mission Society 
 
 Ford Building :: Boston, Mass. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2018 with funding from 
 Columbia University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/storiesfromcongoOOIesl 
 
STORIES from the CONGO 
 
 Opening a New Station 
 
 T HREE fellow missionaries, Metzger, 
 Moody and Bain, met me at Bandundu 
 with the mission steamer, “ Henry Reed.” 
 We came up the Kwilu River, looking care¬ 
 fully on both banks for a suitable site for 
 the new station. After two weeks’ search, 
 during which time we saw more people 
 than we had seen in any part of the Congo, 
 we decided that the best locality was that 
 which Mr. Bain and I recommended last 
 year. After several days’ close inspection 
 of the locality we all agreed upon this mag¬ 
 nificent site for the station upon a ridge of 
 land facing the river and a hundred meters 
 
 
 Steamer “ Henry Reed ” 
 
 back from it, with springs of good water 
 close by. A quarter of a mile distant is a 
 large village, and within a radius of five 
 miles there are eleven other villages. The 
 people are friendly, quite fearless, industri¬ 
 ous and abundantly supplied with food. A 
 call for workmen brought more than I could 
 employ at about thirty cents a week. We 
 began to clear for building, as the place was 
 
an impenetrable jungle. In ten days we 
 had eleven acres of land cleared, four acres 
 of corn planted and the frame put up for 
 a temporary house 52 x 28 feet. After the 
 other missionaries had departed I remained 
 three weeks to finish a place fit to bring my 
 wife, who had remained alone at Cuillo. 
 
 While moving to the new station I at¬ 
 tempted with the help (rather without the 
 help) of a native to take half a ton or more 
 of our goods on a raft down to the mouth of 
 the Cuillo to meet the iron boat that the 
 State kindly sent. The raft was heavily 
 loaded, the river very high, the native failed 
 to give me help at a bad point and the raft 
 upset and all our stuff was lost except a few 
 small pieces. The mail for America and 
 the Lower Congo was in my hand bag and 
 went down with the rest. We feel worst 
 over my medical library as almost every 
 book was lost and it will be difficult to re¬ 
 place the books. 
 
 The commissaire of the district came to 
 the station just before I left to tell me that 
 the Jesuits of Wambali were making a ter¬ 
 rible fuss about our locating here. They 
 threaten to carry the matter to Brussels. 
 
 The people here are of three different 
 tribes, one of them being a cannibal tribe 
 and the others reported to have a leaning 
 that way. But they are all friendly. The 
 prospects for immediate work are of the 
 brightest and I can scarcely wait the time 
 that must elapse before we settle down to 
 steady work. We are delighted to hear of 
 a coworker for us for this magnificent field. 
 We assure him a hearty welcome and plenty 
 of hard work. — W. H. Leslie, M.O., Cuillo, 
 Portuguese Congo. 
 
Mission House and Students’ Homes, Kimpesi 
 
 A Theological Seminary in the Heart 
 of Africa 
 
 T HE Congo Evangelical Training Institu¬ 
 tion at Kimpesi is only four years old, 
 but it has had a remarkable growth. An 
 African jungle of woods and great tall grasses 
 has been changed into a beautiful mission 
 station with streets well laid out and a good 
 road to the railroad station, one mile away. 
 The two lonely grass houses built for the 
 temporary accommodation of the mis¬ 
 sionaries have given place to two fine mis¬ 
 sion residences, and a third house for visitors 
 built entirely of brick. In place of the 
 grass houses built by the first entering class 
 there are ten double brick houses for the 
 students. A large storeroom, a dispensary, 
 a barter store, two temporary classrooms, a 
 carpenter shop, a blacksmith shop and a 
 large iron house for the native workmen have 
 also been built. 
 
 The jungle has been transformed into a 
 garden producing the finest of native and 
 European vegetables. The original grant 
 of thirty acres has been increased to eighty. 
 With a beautiful view of the mountains, 
 fertile soil, a central location and nearness 
 to the railroad, Kimpesi provides an ideal 
 place for the Congo Evangelical Training 
 Institution. 
 
 The school opened this year (1912-1913) 
 with twenty-four native teachers and twelve 
 wives in attendance. There is not accom- 
 
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modation for a large attendance. If there 
 wefe sufficient houses for a very large num¬ 
 ber it is doubtful if that would be desirable. 
 Rather ten trained men who will go back to 
 lead their people into a better life than a 
 hundred who might be discontented with their 
 lot as teachers and preachers and seek after 
 positions where they could earn more money. 
 There are many tempting offers placed 
 before the men who leave this school in the 
 way of clerkships with traders, state officials 
 and with the railroad. The various mis¬ 
 sion stations in their educational work pre¬ 
 pare young men for such positions and it is 
 gratifying to know that they are filling these 
 places capably, but the work of this school 
 is to train men and women for distinctively 
 Christian service. 
 
 The greatest problem at the present time 
 is to secure the attendance of the wives of 
 these evangelists. Some have not come 
 with tbeir husbands because the rains have 
 just begun and they want to plant their 
 gardens before coming, while others have 
 no desire to be trained. We are looking 
 forward to the day when these women will 
 desire to fit themselves to take a full share 
 in the work in which their husbands are 
 engaged, — the building up of the Kingdom 
 in the family and community life of their 
 own people. 
 
 Learning to Work 
 
 M issionaries on the Congo must not 
 
 only preach the gospel, heal the sick 
 and train Christian preachers and evan¬ 
 gelists, but they must also train the natives 
 to work with their hands. At each of the 
 mission stations considerable industrial work 
 is done. The girls are taught to sew, to cook 
 and to be good housekeepers, while the boys 
 and men are taught to build houses, work in 
 metal, make bricks and many other useful 
 occupations. It is now felt that the time is 
 ripe for an advance step in the establishment 
 
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of two centers for industrial training. Feeling 
 that Protestant missionaries in Africa have 
 probably not given due place to industrial 
 training, our Congo Baptist missionaries, 
 being of the opinion that it was time we 
 were making provisions to provide for this 
 deficiency, voted at their last conference 
 that they are heartily in favor of industrial 
 training and requested the Board to desig¬ 
 nate men for this work as soon as possible. 
 
 Class in Carpentry 
 
 “Heal the Sick” 
 
 T HE hospital at Banza Manteke is in a 
 little building scarcely entitled to so 
 dignified a name. Yet read these figures of 
 Dr. Antony Parsons, covering his first three 
 months in this hospital, and see if you do 
 not think a medical missionary and a hos¬ 
 pital are God’s own agencies for reaching 
 the people with a gospel of healing, of mercy 
 and of love. 
 
 Patients, 
 
 3,945 
 
 Visits to villages. 
 
 51 
 
 Night calls. 
 
 30 
 
 Hospital patients, 
 
 37 
 
 Major operations, 
 
 2 
 
 Minor operations, 
 
 7 
 
 Surgical dressings, 
 
 600 
 
 Equally striking is the work of Dr. R. W. 
 Nauss of Sona Bata, also a new recruit* 
 
The outlook for the medical work here I 
 think is very encouraging. We are seeking 
 gradually to improve our dispensary. Re¬ 
 cently I have been given six huts in addition 
 to the one already occupied, to be used as a 
 temporary hospital until we shall be fortu¬ 
 nate enough to get something better. Many 
 of our patients come several days’ journey, 
 
 Dr. Parsons Testing for Sleeping Sickness 
 
 and the sick ones must naturally be housed 
 and cared for until they are sufficiently 
 strong to attempt the return journey. We 
 have already done a number of quite suc¬ 
 cessful operations under conditions which 
 surgeons at home would consider impossible. 
 The expressions of astonishment on the 
 part of the natives at the accomplishment of 
 the miraculous, as it seems to them, are 
 sometimes amusing and often very pathetic. 
 
 Missionaries on Tour in the Jungles 
 
 N Friday, July 19, Mr. Moody, Mr. 
 
 V-x Wood and I, with a party of about 
 forty helpers and carriers and two mono¬ 
 cycles, started for a tour of the field. Our 
 first Sunday was at Mbominzoli, where we 
 found the people very sad because a fire had 
 burned the village, leaving only a few houses 
 
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and the chapel. The people turned out well 
 to the services and we had a communion 
 service, saw some inquirers and on Monday 
 saw the school in session. 
 
 At the next place we found the teacher 
 tired because the children were troublesome 
 to gather; but his school was fair and there 
 was a good attendance at the preaching 
 service. In reaching our next outpost, 
 where we were welcomed with shouting, we 
 had difficulty in passing through a swamp 
 for a distance of one and a half miles. Since 
 my last visit, this village had built a good 
 clay chapel. There is also a good school 
 here. As we came to the next station we 
 were met by the children and the people 
 and given a hearty welcome. Mankoto, the 
 teacher, invited us to sleep in his house, 
 which we did. The house was built of clay 
 and better than a tent, although there were 
 other occupants. A fowl kindly put an egg 
 in my bed the first day and a rat ran under 
 the bed when I was about to retire. This is 
 one of our best villages, with a good school 
 and a progressive teacher. We spent two 
 days hearing inquirers and conducting 
 services. 
 
 After four hours’ travel through the forest 
 we came to another village. Here there is 
 only one member. We held services in an 
 open shed. Here messengers came from 
 home bringing letters and good things to 
 eat. On the strength of these we came to 
 the next outpost. Here there were about 
 three hundred people at the morning service, 
 more than the clay chapel would hold. I 
 received the names of twenty inquirers, of 
 whom several were examined for baptism. 
 
 Our next place was a heathen village with¬ 
 out any Christians or a school and we could 
 feel the difference in the atmosphere as we 
 entered. In the evening there was some 
 drinking, and an inclination to quarrel with 
 our young men, but we had our usual serv¬ 
 ices. Our next stop was at a village a year 
 
 9 
 
old. We were heartily welcomed and con¬ 
 ducted the services in an open shed. The 
 people had been too busy with their own 
 gardens and houses to build a suitable chapel 
 and school. At the village of Mbaa we were 
 asked to send teachers. Here we saw the 
 natives making canoes by felling a tree with 
 a small axe and then with an adz digging out 
 the canoe. 
 
 Our third Sunday was at Mpobo where the 
 people requested a teacher, but we doubt 
 their motives in this case. From this place 
 we attempted a new road. After a tramp 
 of nine hours, we reached Mushie without 
 seeing a single soul and only a few buffaloes 
 in the distance and a few birds. We were dis¬ 
 appointed in not finding more people. Such 
 as there are seem more or less crushed and 
 hopeless. 
 
 The next outpost being twenty miles 
 down the river we borrowed a boat and all 
 crowded in. Our carriers are mostly land¬ 
 lubbers and so made a poor show at paddling, 
 but the current was strong and took us 
 down. We called at Priest’s wooding post, 
 but it did not look prosperous. We an¬ 
 chored for the night close by the water’s 
 edge and had a good night. The following 
 
day we passed a group (of^about thirty hip¬ 
 popotamuses. We got into shallow water 
 and had to be dragged over sand a good 
 distance. When we did get into deeper 
 water the channel became narrow and the 
 current swift, and the boat hard to manage. 
 Once we ran into a fallen tree and one man 
 was hurt and a paddle was lost. All went 
 well until we came in sight of our landing, 
 then suddenly our steersman saw people on 
 the beach and thought we had better land 
 there, and so put the boat for shore. The 
 current was too strong and the paddling 
 too weak and very soon we were bumping 
 broadside on rocks. When it looked as if 
 we must be swamped, the boat stuck fast 
 and out jumped Mingoli (our faithful woman 
 helper) and ordered all others to get out and 
 hold the boat. Between us and shore there 
 was a distance of three hundred yards and 
 a swift current. But we got clear of the 
 rocks and by skill and hard paddling reached 
 shore. Some of us felt that we had been 
 delivered from death and lifted our hearts 
 in grateful praise to Him who has often been 
 our refuge and strength and a very present 
 help in trouble. 
 
 After visiting other outposts and after 
 experiences many and varied, we reached 
 home again after four weeks on tour, during 
 which time we traveled some two hundred 
 miles, mostly on foot, visited forty villages, 
 preached the gospel many times, interviewed 
 many inquirers and baptized several. This 
 kind of work is like “ casting bread upon the 
 waters but it is done in the name and 
 power of Him who said “ My word shall not 
 return unto me void.” Will not all who 
 read this story, pray for us and the work ? — 
 A. Billington, Tshumbiri, Belgian Congo. 
 
 1005. — 1 Ed. 5M. Feb. 1913. Price 3 cents. 
 
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