AMERICAN BAPTIST FOREIGN MISSION SOCIETY Ford Building, Boston, Mass. WOMAN’S AMERICAN BAPTIST FOREIGN MISSION SOCIETY Ford Building, Boston, Mass. 450 E. 30th St., Chicago, Ill. STORY LESSONS FOR INTERMEDIATES These story lessons are for the Intermediate and even the Junior grade in our Sunday Schools. Since the time allowed for the lesson each Sunday is so brief, only five minutes, we suggest that the teacher simply read the story for the day and ask the ques¬ tions. It is better, of course, to tell the story with an¬ imation. Reference should be made to the pictures. It is hoped that the children will be interested enough to buy the booklet in some cases and so become bet¬ ter acquainted with the stories at home, or they might make an attractive Easter gift. They may be obtained at either of our Foreign Mission headquar¬ ters, at ten cents a copy, sixty cents per dozen. We hope that impressions may be made on the children during this foreign mission period of our Baptist churches, and that they may learn to pray for Congo children. The large colored charts issued by the societies are most interesting and should be displayed in the class room if possible. A set is given free to each Sunday School and additional sets may be provided at twenty cents for three charts in a set, post paid. The offerings are for the Missionary JV ork in Congo Land. Treasurers: Ernest S. Butler and Alice E. Stedman, Ford Building, Boston, Mass. LESSON I. THE MAKING OF A MISSIONARY. NCE upon a time not so very long ago there was a little girl six or seven years old who went to Sunday .School a whole year without missing a Sunday and the superin¬ tendent gave her a little red book as a reward for perfect attendance. It was the story of Mabita, a little African girl of about her own age, who lived in a little brown village under some palm trees in central Africa. One dark night, when all the family were asleep, slave raiders surrounded the village and caught nearly all the people and tied them together in a long line and drove them off many days’ march to the coast where they could sell them. They were hungry and thirsty, footsore and afraid, all the long way to the sea. Mabita’s mother and baby brother were left by the path to die when they became too weak to walk farther. Mabita was driven on to the coast. The little American girl felt very sorry for Mabita and asked her aunt, who was reading the story to her, why she didn’t tell Jesus. He could help her. Her aunt replied, “Mabita doesn't know Jesus. In all her country they have never heard of Jesus." It was the first time little Catharine realized that there were other children who didn’t know her Jesus. Why, she had always told Him everything, all her childish joys and sorrows ever since she could remember. Not to know Jesus really -would be too bad. So she took her doll and her little blue rocking chair over by the window and rocked and thought and rocked and talked it all out. Then she told the doll that just as soon as she was big enough she was going over there and tell Mabita all about Jesus. But she was only a little girl and soon forgot all about Mabita and her troubles. What with school and work and play, there were so many other things to think about. There were so many other things to do wdien one grew up. When she really had grown up she thought she would like to be a school teacher. Then one night she went with a friend to a missionary meeting and coming home the friend said, “Why don’t you go and tell those heathen people about Jesus?” and she kept asking herself, “Why don’t I? Why WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND 5 don’t I ?” until she made up her mind that she would. Then she went to a medical school and learned to be a doctor because the people who don’t know Jesus don’t have hospitals and doctors of their own. They don’t know how to take care of sick people. Finally one June day this American doctor sailed away from New York in a beautiful ship across the ocean and on down the west coast of Africa. Five whole weeks at sea! She watched the whales spout and schools of porpoises play. One morning some flying fish fell at her feet on the deck and the captain ordered them fried for her breakfast. Another morning she crossed the equator and that night saw the beautiful southern cross shining up in the sky. Soon the blue waters of the ocean began to look brown and the captain said that the great flood of water pouring out of the Congo river made it brown, and she knew that after many years she was nearing Mabita’s land. After a few hours the steamer poked her nose into the Congo river and stopped at a little town called Banana, I suppose be¬ cause there are so many cocoanut palms there. Almost before the anchor was down dozens of canoes full of black men yelling and shouting in a language you couldn’t understand surrounded the steamer. They had parrots green and parrots gray, baby monkeys and a big baboon, baskets, carved gourds, cocoanuts, pineapples and fish for sale. In two of the canoes were a lot of small boys who dived for coins which the passengers on the upper deck threw into the river just to see the little black rascals dive and bring them up in their mouths. And I say but they could dive and stay under the longest time! You couldn’t fool them. They wouldn’t dive for anything but money. Soon the whistle blew, the anchor was hauled up, the pilot rang up the engine room and the big boat began to crawl up stream between sandbanks. She called for a day or two at Boma, the capital of Belgian Congo, then went’on up to Matadi about a hundred miles from the mouth of the river. Matadi are stones in the Kikongo language and Matadi is a stony hill town sprawling there in the hot sun on the river bank. It was so hot that the American girl had to wear a broad, thick, pith hat to keep from having a sun fever. Above Matadi the river is full of cataracts and rapids so the rest of the way she had to walk or ride in a WHERE TEMBO WENT TO SCHOOL WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND / hammock carried on the heads of two natives along the old cara¬ van road the raiders had gone with Mabita. Now the caravan road isn't a road at all. It’s just a narrow trail over the hills, coarse grass growing on either side two or three times as tall as you are. This grass is full of buffalo and elephants and leopards and antelope and other wild animals. You need a man with a gun along. Beside the doctor’s hammock- carriers there was a man for the “chop box,” another for a canvas bed and bedding, one with a bath of dishes and cooking utensils and others with trunks and boxes on their heads, all going in In¬ dian file, walking and talking the queerest of lingoes all day long. At night they camped in little grass towns by the way until at last they reached the mission station at Banza Manteke. LESSON II. MAKING NEW FRIENDS. HE morning after her arrival at the mission station the American girl awoke early and thought how nice it was to sleep once more in a comfortable bed after all her weeks of travel from New York to Congo land. She remembered that it was last night back in California where her family were probably just going to bed. Three weeks seemed such a long time to wait for the first letters from home. She would have to wait three months for answers to those she sent home. Then she wondered if she would ever feel at home in this strange. new land. Wondered if she could ever care enough for these black folk to live always among them and heal their sicknesses and teach them of Jesus. Wondered if they would like her. Wondered if—, wondered more ifs “than you could shake a stick at.” At a timid little knock on her door she thought hard for a min¬ ute and then said “kota” and in walked a little maid of about ten carrying a tea tray on her head. “Kiambote, mama dokuta. Tomene sikama?” (Good morning, mama doctor. Have you awakened well?), she said in a soft little voice. “Inga ntondele, 8 WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND Tembo” (Yes, thank you, Tembo) replied the doctor. While her new mistress drank the tea Tembo stood with downcast eyes awaiting orders. The doctor had used up about all the Kikongo she knew and Tembo knew no English but she managed by signs to show the little maid about the bedroom work. For a good many days they had to depend mostly on the sign language. The doctor would point to things and say “inld” and Tembo would tell her the names in Kikongo. Sometimes she got the new names so badly mixed that poor little Tembo had a hard time making out what she meant. Ngila, the medicine house boy, was her teacher for two or three hours every day and all the children helped her until after a while she learned to talk in their language, which of course pleased them very much. Crowds of sick people came to the medicine house every day and the little tin hospital was full of sick folk and the children’s school and the woman’s school were all calling to her to come and help so that she really didn’t find time to be homesick except when she had a headache or fever or something like that. Soon she found that she liked the people and they liked her and it began to seem like home. Tembo was a little dear. She kept the bedroom spick and span, ran errands, went to school of course, and simply adored her new mistress. She was an orphan child whom the missionaries had found when she was a baby, half starved and neglected, her little body all covered with sores. Nobody would claim or care for her so the missionaries took her to the station and cared for her and now she was well and strong and happy as the day was long. She could read and write and sew her own dresses. She lived with Mbanda and Nlemvo and Sita, three other orphan girls in a cute little house close beside the doctor’s big one. The girls cooked their own food, kept the little house clean and had a peanut garden down in the valley. They all worked two or three hours a day in the white people’s houses beside going to school. One morning about a year after Tembo became the doctor’s girl she came flying into the house crying, “They’ve come. They’ve come. Don’t let them take me away. I won’t live with him. I won’t. I won’t. I won’t. I’ll run away. Let me die first!” WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND 9 It seemed now that Tembo was well and strong and able to work that an uncle bad turned up and claimed the child. He had agreed to give her in payment for a debt to an old man across the river who wanted a little girl wife, and had come to take her to her husband’s town where she would learn to work and cook his food according to the customs of his people. The old man wanted to see the girl before the bargain was closed and so had come with the uncle and some other men to see whether she was worth the price. After the missionaries had heard the uncle’s claims they said, “But who will pay your debt to us who have given medicine and clothes and food to the child all these years when you had no use for her—when you drove her out to die? The girl must stay with us two, three more years. She is far too young to go to her husband’s house now.” At this the uncle grew very angry and said that the girl was his. He had never given the mission¬ aries permission to take her from the town. He would take her by force and do with her as he liked. Who made the missionary a judge in his affairs ? The missionary replied that Nzambi (God) had made him a friend of orphan children and that he would surely protect Tembo and advised him “to drink water” over it before he attempted to take the child by force or even to come by night and steal her away. After talking for two or three hours the men all went off very angry indeed, threatening to bring the big chief. The doctor told Mbanda and Tembo to bring their blankets and mats into her house and sleep there every night where nobody could surprise them. About a month after that the uncle came alone one day and said that if he might receive two francs (40 cents) each month for the work which Tembo did she might stay with the mission¬ aries another year or even two years. With the money he would pay the debt. As this seemed the best way out of the trouble it was agreed upon. But the missionary pointed out that this would never pay the uncle’s debt to the mission; that Tembo must be free to marry whomsoever she chose when she was old enough to marry. A new law had come into the land. Girls were no longer goods to be exchanged for goats and pigs or debts. There 10 WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND was a Belgian judge at Matadi who would tell him these things if he did not believe the missionary. So Tembo went back to the girls’ house to sleep and soon forgot her fears in the happy station life where she grew to be a strong, fine young woman and a true Christian. LESSON III. NSIMBA GOES TO MARKET. SIMBA, son of Manimba, was having troubles of his own with a scraggly, bad tempered little Billy goat which didn’t like being dragged two or three days to market. Beside the goat Nsimba was carrying a bag of zinsafu, a kind of sour plums, which he had gathered from Tis own tree. He hoped there were enough to buy one of those magic glasses which make faces at you. The white man brings them. Just ahead of Nsimba walked his uncle Nsakala Nkanda, driv¬ ing two hogs. His mother followed with a great conical basket on her back supported by a strap across her forehead. The bas¬ ket was filled with kwanga or Congo bread. It’s sour, soggy stuff. You wouldn’t like it. On her head she carried a basket of tiny red peppers. A bright eyed baby rode astride her hip. They were all going to the big market where every two weeks, which in Congo land is every eight days instead of every fourteen, a thousand or more people gather to exchange gossip and goods. Long before the market came into view they could hear the loud voices of those who had arrived ahead of them. The mar¬ ket was held in the open country where five paths met. Nsimba and his uncle went over where they were selling sheep and goats and pigs. Lesa took her kzvanga and peppers to another part where there were all kinds of food spread out on the ground. They couldn’t really sell anything until the chief of the market beat the drum when the sun should reach the middle. But they were all bargaining. To hear them shouting at one another you WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND 11 would surely think that they were quarreling. Brass rods and beads were the money they used. When the signal was given they sold peanuts for baby straps, baskets for pots, bananas for grass cloth, chickens for beads and goats and pigs and powder for brass rods. You couldn’t hear yourself think for the noise they made. Under a big tree a man was selling drinks of palm wine, a little gourd full for a rod. After Billy had been sold for three pieces of red and yellow calico which a white trader had sent to the market and the zinsaju for a small round looking glass, Nsimba had nothing to do but wander about and see what was going on. He found that his mother had sold her kwanga and peppers for a hoe and a big, black water bottle and some blue beads to tie about the baby’s waist. She was talking with a strange woman who had a basket full of empty bottles on her head. The woman told her that she was going to the medicine house at the mission. What! Had Lesa never heard of the white woman doctor? Many, many people from many towns go to her every day with their sicknesses. “Listen,” she said. “At the time for planting peanuts my brother was shot. Shot in the leg. All the flesh was eaten. The bone was in many pieces. We kept him many days in the town but the leg would not heal. The Devil was in him. Then one day we took him to this woman doctor. She said his leg must be cut off. He said he would die with two legs and not with one only. So the white woman washed the leg with many washings and cut it with many cuttings and sewed and tied it with many ty- ings. I speak truth. I saw it with my own eyes. Listen. The dry season has come. The peanuts are dug. These many months my brother has lain in the house for sick ones. The white woman doctor has tended his leg with her own hands and now he walks. With a stick? Yes with a stick but on his two legs.” Nsimba left them talking and walked over to where a group of boys were throwing pebbles into little holes bored in the ground. They were playing a game of chance and soon fell to quarreling and then to fighting over it. Nsimba got mixed up in the scuffle and lost his precious looking glass. Some of the men scattered the boys and one of them who was only a few years older than Nsimba told him he had seen a boy steal his glass and NSIMBA MARKET DAY. LESA, NSIMBA’S MOTHER WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND 13 had taken it away from him. As he returned it he said, “Take it. It’s yours. The people of God don’t steal.” “The people of God? What are people of God?”, asked Nsimba. “Then you have not heard the good news?” replied the boy whose name was Joani Malembe. “What good news?” “The good news which the white people bring us from over the „^^ sea. “We of chief Vinganima’s towns have nothing to do with white strangers. Our wise men tell us that they are not real men but spirits. They will do us harm. I see great fear in my heart only to hear of them.” “Truly you know nothing at all,” replied Joani. “You live in the bush. I tell you the truth. White people are real people. The white people of God come to bring us the good news about God. They come to do us good and not harm. I know' for I have lived with them. Listen. When I was your height my whole body was covered with aching sores. Many nights I slept not for pain. A carrier going to Matadi with rubber slept in my mother’s town where I lay. He told me there was healing at the medicine house of the white woman of God. All night I thought about it. In the morning I asked my mother for food for the road. I told her not where I was going. When I came to the medicine house and saw the medicine woman white in face and white in clothes, I was afraid. I said in my heart she will not look at me. She will drive me away like a mangy cur. But when she saw me she called me in my own language and asked my name and my town and how many moons I had been covered with sores. Then she washed and dressed them with her own hands and gave me medicine to drink, a spoon full when the sun rises, when it is at the middle and at sunset and sent me to tell mother that I must come and live at the house for the sick until my body was well.” “It sounds very like a story of healing I just heard a stranger telling to my mother. I said she lies. It is mere woman’s talk and walked away.” “MEDICINE HOUSE” AND LITTLE TIN HOSPITAL AT BANZA MANTEKE THE DOCTOR CONDUCTING A MORNING CLINIC From “ Our Work on the Congo ” Used by Permission of American Baptist Publication Society iMJl WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND 15 “Listen boy. These are not lies. Truly it is strange. But it is their way of showing us what God is like.” Just then Lesa called to Nsimba that they were starting for home. Joani asked if he might not visit Nsimba’s town and tell him more about the white people of God. “No! No!” replied the little fellow. “It is forbidden. Chief Vinganima will have nothing of the white man’s news. If he hears that I have been listening he will forbid my ever coming to this market again. The next time I come I want to buy a cap like yours. Thank you for giving me back my looking glass.” LESSON IV. CHIEF VINGANIMA GOES HUNTING. T was early evening in a little grass thatched bamboo town overlooking the Congo river not far from Yelela falls. The red glare of a huge grass fire lighted up dusky little groups of women busy getting supper around their village fires. Earlier in the afternoon the fire had swept up over the other side of the hill and dozens of scared field rats scurrying here and there to escape the heat had fallen an easy prey to a crowd of small boys armed with sticks and stones and bows and arrows and sling shots. Now, hungry and tired but happy the boys were boasting excitedly about their catches while they roasted whole rows of fragrant juicy rats on spits about their own camp fire at the end of the town. Suddenly Wansadio, the swiftest runner of the tribe, came tearing up the path crying, “Engua mono! Nsamu wambi. Sami watobulua. Wadiua kuandi. Mbungi wandidi. Engua yeto.” (Woe is me. Bad news. My father is wounded. He is eaten. The Devil ate him. Woe unto us.) Old chief Vinganima had wounded a buffalo and it had charged and bored him full of holes, five great wounds, and they were bringing him home to die, if indeed he were not already dead. The charm or fetish which he always wore when he went hunting to protect him from such dangers, had he not worn it? 16 WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND Yes, surely. His new little girl wife had tied it about his wrist just before he started. One of the older wives who hated this little new one said she had cast an evil eye over the fetish while she tied it and fell to beating the terrified child. Soon they came carrying poor old Vinganima up the hill on a bamboo stretcher they had cut in the swamp. His five great wounds they had packed with leaves from the forest. After putting him into his house they got out all the strong family fetishes and old Nsita began making some strong new medicine to drive away the evil spirits that might get into the wounds and eat out the chief’s life. They saw that all the big carved images which guarded the entrances to the town were on duty and then sat down to watch. The little girl wife was shaking with terror. If the chief died they would blame her and she might have to eat poison. When the fever began and the old man’s mind wandered and he said strange things they knew that in spite of all they had done the spirits were eating him so they sent for an nganga or medicine man to drive them out. While he was coming they cut and bled the chief to let the Devil out but he wouldn’t come out. Finally the nganga came with his strong medicine for smelling out spirits. He looked awful and everybody was terribly afraid of him because he might say that any one of them was eating the chief and then they would have to eat poison to prove that they were not guilty. The nganga told them that someone in Ntoyo, a little town down in the valley where the buffalo feed, was eating Chief Vin- ganima’s life. The men must make a raid on the town and bring him all the people. Then he would smell out which one of them was “ndoki” or the witch who was sucking the chief’s life blood. The little girl wife was glad it wasn’t she. While they were all excitedly discussing this word of the nganga , little Nsimba who was standing with the other boys, all eyes and ears, sneaked away and ran as fast as his legs could carry him along the dark forest path to his uncle’s town. He was terribly afraid because the forest is always full of spirits at night. But once long ago he had gone with this uncle and his mother to a far away market where he had heard strange things 17 WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND ft about a white woman nganga who did wonderful things with knives and needles and thread for wounded people. Perhaps she could save Chief Vinganima. His uncle and some other men who knew about the woman doctor at the mission thought so too. So they hurried back with Nsimba and after a great deal of talk it was decided to carry the old man to the mission hospital. They put him in an old red blanket tied to a bamboo pole and the men took turns in carrying the pole on their heads. All Vin- ganima’s wives and sisters and other relatives filled their big conical baskets with food and tied the babies on their backs and followed after and so after walking several days they came to the doctor. Because they were all strangers and afraid of her and her ways the doctor let them watch while she took out the leaves and washed the wounds and put the old man to sleep. Then with knives and needles and thread and bandages she dressed the wounds and put him into the house for sick people. For a week it seemed that he must surely die but he didn’t. His little girl wife and all his other wives stayed with him and watched and wondered at all that the white woman did and most of all that she talked their language. Every day she told them about her great chief, Jesus, who had sent her into their country to cure their wounds and take away their fears. How his spirit helped her do it. How she asked him always to help her heal their sick¬ nesses and show them that God loved them and wanted them to be his people. There were pictures on the hospital wall of Jesus healing sick folk, or holding little children in his arms or sitting on the sea shore talking to fishermen mending their nets which perhaps helped to make Jesus real to them. And every day they watched the doctor wash and dress the wounds with her own hands until they were quite well and Vinganima could return to his town. They saw the children in the station schools and heard them singing and thought that they would like to have a school in their town and so when the doctor asked Vinganima if he would not let Nsimba remain and live with her and go to school and learn to dress wounds and care properly for sick people he said, “Ka diambu ko.” (All right.) NSIMBA WATCHES A GAME OF DOMINOES LESSON V. THE DOCTOR’S NEW BOY. HEN old chief Vinganima, after many days spent in the mission hospital, left for home his little grandson fol¬ lowed as far as the brook down in the valley. His mother promised to come again when the moon was at the full and bring him a stick wound with dried eels and lis looking glass bought at the big market. That morning she had given him a new stout string for the little carved image about an inch long which he had worn day. and night since his twin sister died when they were babies. While living with the white people she told him to hide it under his loin cloth where nobody could see it but always to wear it if he would be well. When the last charges and goodbys were all said Nsimba turned and with slow step and a sober face began to climb the hill to begin his new life with the strange white people. Before WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND 19 he had reached the top he turned and would have run back down after his mother but for somebody calling, “Nsimba, Nsimba.” Turning he saw Joani Malembe, the boy whom he had met at the market two dry seasons before. The doctor knew that her new boy would be pretty lonesome for a few days and had sent Malembe, who helped her in the medicine house, to meet the little chap and bring him back and see that the other boys didn’t tease him for a few days at least. She had told Mabiengua her cook to get some palm nuts and peppers, a cup of rice and a tin of red herring and make some good palm chop for Nsimba. Also to get him a new red blanket and show him his bed in the boys’ house. He could pay for the blanket by washing up over at the medicine house every day after school. Nsimba was so delighted to own a blanket that he forgot all about being homesick. Only two or three rich men in his whole town owned blankets. They had bought them for many brass rods at the market. Who ever heard of a little boy having a blanket? Joani told him to put his mark on it so it wouldn’t get mixed up with the other boys’ blankets. He was to sleep in the doctor’s boys’ house with Joani and Mabiengua and Loti, the garden and chicken boy. After supper a bell rang and all four boys went into the doc¬ tor’s house for prayers. They all sat on the floor and Mabiengua read about a boy who followed a strange man who came from across the sea as he went from town to town making sick people well. Crowds followed him and by and by he climbed a hill and sat down to rest. He was hungry and tired and so were all the crowd but nobody had thought to bring anything to eat except the boy. His mother had given him some bread and fish for the road that morning so he gave it to the stranger who broke it and fed all the people with it. That must be more of the white man’s magic thought Nsimba. The doctor explained that the stranger was God’s son who was always sorry when he saw people sick and tired and hungry and that he always wanted to heal and rest and feed them and that he wants us to help him heal and rest and feed the people who are all around us. Even a little boy can help if he will give Jesus all 20 WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND he has. Then she asked God to keep them all safely through the night and to help them follow Jesus every day and give him all they had like the boy in the story. Mabiengua lit the lantern and after saying, “Mavimpi, leka kiambote” (Good night, sleep well) the boys went to their own house. All but Nsimba had lessons to learn. Mabiengua who was studying English was writing out a translation of a second reader story of Hiawatha and as Nsimba watched him drawing pictures on the margin of his composition book just like the pen and ink sketches in the reader, he said in his heart Mabiengua also is learning the white man’s magic. Joani was working out a problem in arithmetic which made much trouble for his head, he told Nsimba. Loti who had been in school but a few weeks was trying to write figures up to ten. “Mo si, zole, tatu, yia, tanu, scimbcinu, nsuambuadia, nana, vua kumi,” he repeated over and over as he wrote them. Any boy can count tens on his fingers but counting on paper was different. Curfew rang at nine and lights went out. The other boys were soon asleep but Nsimba lay for a long time thinking of all the strange things he had seen and heard that day. He thought of his mother and grandfather sleeping on the path. He wished Mabiengua had closed the window over his bed. Nobody in his town slept with doors or windows open. Spirits were everywhere at night. He clutched the little carved image tightly in his hand. The white woman had asked Her God to take care of him tonight. Did God care for people? Was God stronger and better than the spirits? What was God like he wondered. The doctor had said that the stranger who healed and fed the people was God’s son. Was God like that ? An owl screeched in the nearby wood. Nsimba drew the new blanket up over his head and shivered. Nevertheless, almost before he knew it he was sound asleep. About half past five the next morning Joani shook him awake and told him to go quickly to the spring and bathe and bring up six pails of water for the medicine house before breakfast. He gave him a small piece of soap and bade him make his body shine and then come and have his hair cut and put on the new clothes which the doctor had given him the night before. If he worked for the white woman he must be clean, clean, clean. WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND 21 There was a blue denim shirt with white facings and a loin cloth which Nsimba wound around his waist and tucked securely in. It looked a little like a skirt but that’s the way boys dress in Congo land when they wear clothes at all. Nsimba never had worn clothes before, just a bit of a rag which he tied about his waist. He felt very grand in his new clothes and wished that the boys at home could see him now. But it was a very timid little boy who went into the school room for the first time with Joani at nine o’clock. LESSON VI. SCHOOL DAYS. SIMBA’S first day at school was full of surprises. The teacher’s name was Joshua Wamba. Wamba means slave. Was he, Nsimba, son of Manimba, son of Vin- ganima, a free-born boy to be taught by a slave ? “You silly,” said Joani. “You know nothing at all. Among the people of God there are no slaves. When Wamba was a boy shorter than you are, some traders slept one night in the valley below on their way to the coast to sell rubber and ivory and a boy. A missionary slept that same night in the valley. He bought the boy and made him free and Wamba stayed with the missionary and helped him learn our language. There were no books, no writings in our language at that time. The missionaries first wrote our language in their letters. Now we do not only speak our words but we also write and read them. Wamba learned well the customs of the white man and is a fine teacher. All the boys like him. Hear carefully, Nsimba, there are no slaves among the people of God.” Outside the school house stood a tub of water where the chil¬ dren who came from the town washed their hands if they were dirty, before going into school. Nsimba was put in a class of beginners near the door. He wasn’t used to sitting on anything but the ground. It seemed queer to sit on a bench with a half dozen other boys. The girls in his class sat on another bench A READING LESSON THE DOCTOR HOLDING A STORY HOUR WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND 23 across the aisle. When the nine o’clock bell rang all the children stood and sang Jesus loves me this I know For the Bible tells me so. In Kikongo the chorus goes something like this Yesu utuzolele, Inga, utuzolele. Yesu utuzolele, Nkanda watutela wo. Then they repeated the twenty-third psalm together and Wamba told them that Jesus was the good shepherd who had given his life for the sheep that had gone astray and how he was now call¬ ing his little black lambs who were wandering afraid in the dark over the Congo hills, calling them to follow him home. How he carries the tired sick ones in his arms all the way home. Then he asked God, the father of Jesus, to give the children ears to hear and feet to follow the shepherd and hearts to obey him. Wamba gave Nsimba a slate and pencil and wrote across the top i i i and bade him copy it. Nsimba had never before held a pencil and the marks he made didn’t look very much like the copy. He watched the other boys and wondered why they made marks and then rubbed them out and if he ought to rub his out. But there were so many other more interesting things going on all around him that he soon forgot all about his work. Just outside the door by which he was sitting a class was read¬ ing about a tortoise and a hare who ran a race. There was a picture on the blackboard of a fox standing up like a judge, start¬ ing them off. While they were reading the doctor came past and listened. “Now,” she said, “lets play tortoise and hare. Di- atezua, Miriam and Lutete read best to-day. Who will be the tortoise? Diatezua? All right. Remember you must just crawl and crawl and keep on crawling all the way. Miriam with her swift little legs will make a fine hare. She will go to sleep under the mango tree and sleep and sleep and sleep until the tortoise 24 WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND almost reaches the goal. Lutete must look wise and be Judge Fox. All ready.” Just about that time Madede across the aisle had filled her slate so she came over and tried to show Nsimba how to fill his. He felt queer to have a girl show him anything. Wamba called their class to come up to the board and Madede told him to come along. The teacher made some marks on the board and when he asked what they were Madede quick as a wink said "cat, rat, four, has, feet.” Nsimba just couldn’t understand how marks like those could be rats and cats with four feet. Could words which are made in the mouth be made with chalk? Could girls learn wis¬ dom as well as boys? The morning full of surprises passed all too quickly as indeed did the many which followed and soon Nsimba was reading and writing with the best of them. Afternoons he worked over at the medicine house, washing cups and pitchers, measuring glasses, bottles and trays and scrub¬ bing tables and floors and basins. Woman’s work he called it and at first rather wanted to rebel but Joani Malembe, the hospital boy, told him that he had begun as wash-up boy in the medicine house and only after he had learned to keep everything clean and in order, had he begun to help the doctor with washings and dressings. Now he was making cough mixtures, weighing pow¬ ders and giving the sleeping medicine which goes into the nose. Nsimba thought Joani very wise indeed. Had he not heard peo¬ ple who came for medicine call him “dokuta Malembe” ? So he stuck to his job like a man. Three moons had come and gone since Lesa, Nsimba’s mother, left him promising to come soon with the dried eels and the precious looking glass. She had had rheumatism so badly that she couldn’t walk so far she told him when she did come. "How you have grown. How well you look my son,” she said. "Those clothes are very fine. The image of your sister ? You have worn it by day and by night?” "Yes, mother, I wear it always. For many nights after you left me I held it tightly until I slept, but these nights I am for¬ getting fear. Listen, mother. The white woman of God tells me that my little twin sister will not harm me. That she plays in the town of God where it is never dark and children see no fear. WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND 25 When I asked how she could find her way to the town of God, —and she so little—the white woman told me that Jesus, the son of God, carries the little ones in his arms all the way,—and that perhaps God’s town isn’t really very far away. It just seems far because our eyes can’t see it.” “It is a fable of the white people, my son. Our fathers never heard of such a town. There may be for the white people who are not really people,—but for us black folk of the grass lands? No, it cannot be, else we should have heard. Is it not the spirits of our dead who make us sick, who haunt the paths and shadow our lives always? Trust not the talk of the white woman but wear your twin fetish by day and by night.” “But mother, the white doctor tells us that mosquitoes, not spirits, cause us to burn with fever. The medicine she gives quickly cools the hot skin. She says tetse flies bring the terrible sleeping sickness and not angry spirits. Truly she is very wise, wiser than we. She says that God loves us and wants us to trust in Jesus instead of in fetishes and every night she asks him to guard and keep us safely through the night, to help us follow Jesus every day and give him all we have. I don’t want to give him my looking glass.” BRINGING WOOD AND WATER TO COOK THE CHRISTMAS FEAST LESSON VII. CHRISTMAS ON THE CONGO. T was a Saturday afternoon late in December. All the station boys had washed their clothes and hung them on the bushes to dry and were shouting and splashing and ducking one another in the swimming hole down under the big trees by the creek. “Lumingu Luamputu (Christmas) draws near,” remarked Mabiengua who was sitting on the bank with a few of the bigger boys. “We must go on the second day of next week and hunt over the hills for the bush with shining leaves and little red berries which our white people want at Christmas time. It is their custom to hang it in the windows and put it on their dinner tables. The school boys must go to the forest and bring palm branches, many, many to decorate the church. As for me Mabiengua, I shall have much cleaning and cooking to do in nengua dokuta’s house.” “Christmas? What is Christmas?” asked Nsimba who had been on the mission station but a few months. “Christmas ? Have you not heard ?” exclaimed Diatezua. “Christmas is the very best time in all the year. The white peo¬ ple give gifts. We boys all have new clothes and the girls new dresses and we play for a whole week with no lessons to make trouble for our heads and there’s feasting and fun. Last year Loti and I awoke at midnight at the singing of the students. They went at midnight to all the houses of the white people and sang Christmas carols. Christmas is a day for singing and glad¬ ness. You shall see, Nsimba.” “And for gifts,” added Mabiengua. “Last year some children in America sent knives to all us boys. Mine is a beauty. It has four blades. There were mouth organs for the little boys and dolls and beads for the girls. Knives are better than dolls. Neli Nlandu who lives across the river took her doll to her town when she went to rest in the dry season. While she was digging pea¬ nuts in the garden with her mother some thief stole her doll. 28 WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND Many moons afterwards an up-country carrier slept in her father’s house, and told them that he had seen Neli’s doll. Yes, it had a red dress. It was hanging under the roof of a chief’s house, guarding it while he was away on a far journey. The people of the town had said that if any one touched the powerful fetish which had come from the white man’s country he would surely dry up and wither away. Nengua dokuta told Neli when she cried for her ‘little white child’ that perhaps some little girl in America would send her another ‘white child’ next Christ¬ mas.” “But you boys haven’t answered Nsimba’s question”, said Joani. “Christmas is the birthday of Jesus, the son of God, Nsimba. We, Bafiote, have only one birthday, the day on which we are born. It is the white man’s custom to have many birth¬ days. Each year he is glad that he was born and receives gifts on the day of the moon on which he was born. He has names for all the moons. This moon they call December and on its twenty- fifth day they are glad when they remember the birth of Jesus. They sing because the angels from Heaven sang the night Jesus was born. Out of their gladness of heart they give gifts in his name. They have brought us this Christmas gladness together with the good news. Now we are of God’s tribe and keep its customs.” “Nsimba is not yet a person of God”, remarked Mabiengua. “Only now in the swimming hole I saw that he still wears the twin fetish.” “He is learning the ways of the new tribe”, replied Joani. “Remember he has been here but a little while and that in all his country it was forbidden to speak the name of Jesus until his grandfather chief Vinganima’s heart grew soft during the long weeks he lay in the hospital.” Then turning to Nsimba he said, “You should put your trust in Jesus, Nsimba. Then you will no longer see fear in the land of your heart and will throw away that carved image. Have you not yet understood that Jesus so loved you that he died for your sins ? All our lies and thefts and quarrelings and our disobedience God forgives and forgets and gives us white hearts when we love and follow Jesus. Listen. When I was smaller than you I stole five eggs from my grand- WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND 29 mother. At that time I had not heard of Jesus. "But when I became a person of God I saw great shame and could not rest until I had given back the eggs. Two weeks I worked for old Madede clearing her garden. She paid me eight eggs. I gave them to grandmother and told her of the theft and quietness came into my heart.” Just then the five o’clock bell rang and the boys all scampered off each to his evening work, Mabiengua to the cook house, Loti to feed the chickens and Joani and Nsimba to the medicine house. When they met at prayers that night the doctor noticed that Nsimba listened carefully as she read and talked about the Christ¬ mas story. She prayed that the love of God who gave us Jesus might drive all fear out of the boys’ hearts and make them real Christians. Christmas morning the doctor’s boys came at breakfast time with their gifts. Mabiengua brought some fine leopards’ claws, Joani a witch doctor’s gong which she had wanted for a long time. Loti brought a beautiful basket his mother had woven and Nsimba shyly offered some zinsafu (sour plums) which the boys told him his mistress liked. For Mabiengua who was beginning to read English the doctor had a copy of Robinson Cruso with colored pictures. There was a leather belt for Loti, an Ingersoll dollar watch for Joani with which he could count heart beats over at the hospital and for Nsimba the very thing he wanted most of all, a cap. There was candy to divide among themselves and new clothes all around. The morning after Christmas everybody was astir as soon as it was light. One of the missionaries had gone with a gun to hunt. The older boys went to bring back the meat. The children were busy bringing wood and water to cook the feast. Girls were shell¬ ing peanuts and picking open squash seeds and grinding them into a paste together with spicy leaves and peppers. Boys brought great bunches of bananas and baskets of mangos from the gar¬ dens. In the doctor’s cook house Joani was popping corn which Mabiengua made into sugared balls while Nsimba washed the dishes. Before noon the hunters returned with plenty of meat and the feast was assured. WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND 31 When everything was ready the bell rang for the sports. There were peanut and sack races, a mile race and lots of funny stunts. The happy winners received little prizes and then came the feast. Everybody ate and ate and ate till he positively couldn’t eat any more. In the evening a sheet was strung between two trees and the day ended with a picture show. Congo children have not seen moving pictures yet but they very much like a lantern show. Nsimba didn’t quite know what to think. He was more than half afraid but didn’t like to show it wedged in as he was between the other boys. First there was a picture on the cloth and then there wasn’t! What made them come and go? Spirits? It must be more of the white man’s magic like the curious corn that danced and popped. LESSON VIII. VACATION DAYS. WO more days and school would be out. The children could think of nothing but the good times which the long vacation would bring. The boys were going hunt¬ ing and fishing and canoeing. What steaming pots of savory food their mothers would cook for them ! And the long moonlight nights when they could sit up with the men all night if they chose! There would be no nine o’clock curfew in the towns. The girls would visit and go with the women to their gardens. Yes, they would work in the gardens. Girls must always work. But it would be with their hands, not with their heads. That night after prayers the doctor told her boys that next year she was going to her town far across the sea when school closed. This year she wanted to visit as many of their towns as possible during the vacation. So if Mabiengua would tie up the canvas bed and bedding in the ground sheet and pack the “chop box” and road things in the morning, they would all go together, 32 WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND first to Nsimba’s town. Joani would pack the medicines and knives and bandages. He must go to help with the sick people they would find in the towns. Loti must stay behind to care for the chickens and garden. Next time Nsimba would stay and Loti could go. The third morning they started off about six o’clock with bag and baggage, laughing and joking as they went along the trail Indian fashion. It was good to leave the medicine house and school and the station behind. There were many streams to cross. Over some the doctor was carried in her hammock. Others she crossed on fallen trees. One quite wide river was crossed on a swinging bridge made of stout vines swung from trees on either side of the river. You had to climb up into the tree to get on to the bridge. The third night out they slept in Nsimba’s town. Chief Vin- ganima was very proud to have the white woman doctor who had saved his life two years before sleep in his town. He was proud too of Nsimba who had grown to be a fine strong boy of fourteen or fifteen. The chief offered the doctor the cleanest house in town and gave her a fowl for supper. His women brought her wood and water and food for the boys and carriers. While Joani set up the bed and Mabiengua was busy getting supper she asked if there were any sick people in the town and found quite a few. She promised that they should all have medicine in the morning. The little folding table with its white cloth was set out of doors and the little children stood at a distance shyly watching the white woman eat. After supper the doctor suggested that instead of the usual prayers they have a story hour and that each of the boys should tell a Bible story of his own choosing. While they sang two or three songs the children and most of the grown people too, came and sat on the ground all about them. More than twenty dogs came too and brought their fleas with them. Joani started off with the story of the prodigal son and Ma¬ biengua followed with the good Samaritan. The doctor explained that God was like the father and the Samaritan in the stories. He was always wanting his sinning children to come home; always helping them when they fell into trouble. He is powerful enough WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND 33 to save us. Fetish is not. Nsimba was rather bashful just at first about talking before his own chiefs but finally he screwed his courage up and began. “You all know me, Nsimba the child of Manimba. I am only a child. I haven’t much to tell. A short story I know about a great chief who made for himself a strong fetish and told all the people to fall on their faces before it at the sound of the war drums. All the people were afraid and fell down when the drums spoke. In the great chief’s town were three slave boys whom he had taken in a raid. These boys knew no fear. They had no fetish. They were people of God. They would not fall down before the strong fetish which the chief made. He was very angry and said they should be burned with fire. Could God save them out of his hands? The boys said God could. They didn’t know whether he would but they would not bow to the fetish. So the chief threw them in the fire but God was stronger than the flames and kept them untouched in the fire. When I first heard this strange story from the book of God I said in my heart their God is a real God.” “These two years while I have lived with the white people at the mission I have kept my mother’s command and worn always the twin’s fetish. At first I saw great fear and wanted to run away to my mother’s house. But with many hearings I heard the story of Jesus and hid it in my heart and my fears melted away. I will follow Jesus and be one of the people of God. I will wear no fetish.” Going over to the fire beside his mother’s house he dropped the little carved thing into the glowing coals. For a minute there was a dead silence. Then everybody began to talk at once. Most of the people thought that something dreadful would probably happen to the boy. After staying a few days in the town the doctor arranged to go in a big dugout canoe across the Congo river and visit some of the towns on the other side. The current was so swift that the paddlers had to go a long way down stream to get across. Out in the middle of the river seven hippopotami came up to see what was going by. One mother hippo had an ugly little baby hippo on her back. The father hippo looked awfully cross and 34 WITH JESUS IN CONGO LAND bawled after the canoe a long time. The paddlers didn’t answer back but paddled for all they were worth. They stopped for lunch on a sandy bit of bank where the hippos had been ashore for breakfast. In the big trees overhead seven or eight monkeys were swinging from tree to tree making re¬ marks about the picnic party and some green parrots were adding their bit. You see in Congo land it’s the wild animals and not the people who go to the circus. Just as they were getting into the canoe after lunch they saw another canoe signalling them. When it came alongside the men said they had come for the doctor. Nsimba who had stayed behind for a few days with his mother had gone bathing in the river and had almost been taken by a man-eating crocodile. The crocodile had taken a big bite out of his leg. Back up stream they paddled as fast as they could go and after the doctor had dressed the ugly wound she said they must take Nsimba at once to the hospital where she could take proper care of him. He was well and strong and the wound healed nicely but he had had a very narrow escape. His mother begged him to wear another twin fetish but he wouldn’t have it. He told her that he .was now one of the people of God and couldn’t wear a fetish. Soon after he came out of the hospital Nsimba was baptized one Sunday morning down in the pool under the palm trees to¬ gether with about twenty other boys and girls. His mother and grandfather knew from his happy face that he saw no fear and they wondered and talked about it all the way home. That night after prayers Nsimba said, “Since I am now counted as one of the people of God and am learning their customs I will choose a new name for myself from among the names in God’s book. I will be called Daniele. Daniele Nsimba.” THE CROSS IN CONGO LAND . --"■• = 1917-1918 . SUNDAY SCHOOL STUDIES PREPARED JOINTLY by the AMERICAN BAPTIST FOREIGN MISSION SOCIETY and the WOMAN’S AMERICAN BAPTIST FOREIGN MISSION SOCIETY For Charts, Lessons for Other Grades, Easter Concert Programs, Collection Envelopes, and other sup¬ plies, apply to any of the following: Department of Missionary Education, 23 East 2Gth Street, New York City Literature Department, A. B. F. M. S., Box 41, Boston, Mass. Publication Department, W. A. B. F. M. S., 450 East 30th Street, Chicago, Ill. Rev. A. W. Rider, D.D., 313 West 3d Street, Los Angeles, Cal. Rev. A. M. Petty, D.D., 403 Tilford Building, Portland, Oregon One complete set of supplies furnished free to every Sunday School