Our History and the Hope of Christmas: Part Two

"Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget 

the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart 

as long as you live.  Teach them to your children 

and to their children after them."

~ Deuteronomy 4:9

Knowing our past informs the present and gives hope for the future.  At least that's how it ought to be.  We look back and reflect and then consider our way forward.

We cannot know the past unless we learn about it, unless we choose to engage with whatever is known of our history.  Not everything is known, but often a great deal is.  Knowing history has many uses and I like to think that it, like Scripture, is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17).  When we learn about what was done wrong in the past we can hopefully find a better way forward.  When we learn about what was done right in the past we can hopefully find ways to replicate that goodness.

History is a powerful and earnest teacher if we're willing to be her student.

I am an ongoing student of the history of missions in Kenya.  I am learning both about what was done wrong and what was done right in the past, and hopefully finding solid ground to both reject what was done wrong and replicate what was done right as I live here now.

One of the greatest things I've learned that was done right, over and over again, was the faithful obedience of so many pioneer missionaries here in Kenya.  I can only hope that my level of faithfulness will amount to even a fraction of theirs.  Their stories have inspired me and moved me to tears, and I am eternally grateful to be following in their footsteps.

This is Johann Krapf, the first Protestant missionary to Kenya.  

Krapf was from Germany and spent seven years in Abbysinia (modern day Ethiopia) before coming to Kenya in 1844 with his wife, Rosina, and their infant daughter.  They arrived in Mombasa in May, and on July 13 his wife died of fever.  Their daughter also died, and Krapf was forced to bury his wife and daughter just two months after arriving in Kenya.

He wrote this: "God bids us first build a cemetery before we build a church or dwelling place."

He also wrote a letter to his mission society afterwards and said this: "Tell our friends at home that there is now on the East African coast a lonely missionary grave.  This is a sign that you have commenced the struggle with this part of the world, and as the victories of the Church are gained by stepping over the graves of her members, you may be the more convinced that the hour is at hand when you are summoned to the conversion of Africa from its eastern shore."

After this horrendous beginning, Krapf continued on alone for the next two years before someone else came to join his efforts.  He spent 13 years in Kenya (or British East Africa, as it was called then) and left with one convert to the Christian faith.  A book published in 1906 explained it this way: "Looked at from a human standpoint, Krapf’s life would seem to have had the word failure written around it.  Thirteen years in Africa, years of privation and suffering, and those at Mombasa of the deepest sorrow, and what was there to show for the sacrifice?  A broken-down body and a shattered constitution, two lonely graves on the hillside at Mombasa and one African convert.  But God has ordered it that no effort for good in this world is ever lost."

As God would have it, approximately 30 years after Krapf's wife and child died, a mission station and church were built on the plot of land where they were buried.  Krapf never saw that particular fruit of his labor.  He saw other successes, like compiling a Swahili dictionary and translating the New Testament into Swahili, and of course his one convert, but he never witnessed the joy of seeing a church built in the end.

I look forward to meeting Johann Krapf in heaven and saying thank you for his faithful obedience, for remaining in this land after it stole his family's lives, for not cursing the ground he stood upon but rather turning it into fruitful soil for the future - soil that we now stand upon and are continuing to reap the seeds that were sown by him 175 years ago.

I've been sharing his story with people who I know will be interested.  And I intend to share his story with our boys someday, so they will know our history and remember it, and be grateful for it.

The person who joined Krapf in Kenya was this man, Johannes Rebmann.  A fellow German, he remained in Kenya for 29 years without a furlough.

At some point during that time, their mission board "had dropped Mombasa as being an unfruitful field.  But ‘Old John Rebmann,’ as he was familiarly called, never lost faith in his work and refused to leave his post.... In his lifelong battle…he had been able to keep together a little company of Christians whose number equaled the twelve of his Master, and John Rebmann was content."

By the time he left Kenya, Rebmann was weak and nearly blind and yet had to be convinced to return to Europe for his health.  This is a photo of him and his devoted servant Isaak Niondo.

I look forward to meeting Johannes Rebmann in heaven and saying thank you for his faithful obedience, for coming in the first place even while knowing the dangers and hardships, for working so diligently to learn several languages and preach the Gospel to the nations.

I could tell you stories about others who came after these men, who saw little or no successes, who battled diseases and rinderpest and famine, who laid down their lives, some of whose names are forgotten to history although their presence was known.  There are too many to write about here, but I am learning about them so I can remember them and tell my children about them.  We are standing on their shoulders, just as others will stand on our shoulders in the future.

And although so many of their stories include incredible heartbreak, I am encouraged.  I am encouraged by their determination and resilience, by their absolute faithful obedience to Christ's call on their life.  

They did what they did because of Christ.  

Because He came, they went.

And I am reminded on this day of all days why we choose this life, why we spend Christmas halfway around the world from our families, why we reach across cultures to build the Kingdom in the here and now.  

It is because of Emmanuel, God With Us.

It is because of Hope Come Down.

It is because of the Desire of Nations.

All the struggles and sacrifices of the past, present, and future are given worth in the Christ child and the hope He brings to the world.

Our History and the Hope of Christmas: Part One

During grad school at Wheaton, I had an assignment for a cross-cultural research class that required us to explore the Archives in the Billy Graham Center and write a simple report on something we found.

I didn't realize it before, but the Archives are laden with missions history.

Missionary journals, newspaper clippings, old photographs and more fill the carefully catalogued collections.  Not only that, but the grad school library connected to the Archives is full of books on missions.  It's basically a one-stop shop for all things missions-related!

For my assignment, I wound up reading a journal written by a woman named Florence who moved to Kenya in 1906.  At the time we had no idea we'd also be moving to Kenya.  Eli was still in medical school and we were years away from moving overseas.  We knew Africa was in our future, but the specific country was still unknown to us.  Regardless, the journal was fascinating.

Florence wrote a small entry every single day.  She wrote about leaving America on November 1, 1905, and journeying on a ship across the Atlantic. She landed first in Liverpool, England, where she was delayed for four weeks because of diphtheria, but eventually continued on through the Mediterranean Sea, through the Suez Canal, around the Horn of Africa, and into the port of Mombasa.  She landed in British East Africa (as it was called then) on January 9, 1906.

Florence's ministry included teaching Bible lessons, reading, writing, and sewing.  She married a long-time friend a few months after arriving - his arrival in Kenya predated hers by a couple years - and together they worked among the Maasai tribe.  Her husband, John, compiled a dictionary of the Maasai language and also translated their language into Scripture.  They spent decades in Africa and had a fruitful ministry, and I am inspired by them.

I'm inspired not only because of their successes, but also because of their day-in, day-out reality.  What fascinated me so much about Florence's journal were the non-ministry details, the behind-the-scenes daily living that is so much of life.  She wrote about ants in the house, about ruining the bread, about her husband being sick much of the time, and about an elephant destroying their garden one night.  She wrote about going for walks and enjoying picnics, and about looking for colobus monkeys to send back to the Field Museum in Chicago!  This was their life, their faithful walk as they spent decades working to build the Kingdom of God in Kenya.

And I am inspired.

I, too, have battled ant infestations in our house.  I, too, have ruined the bread.  I, too, have suffered from extreme sickness here.  And although we've never had an elephant in our garden (thank goodness!) we know well the battles of trying to keep our house and garden intact just so we can keep on living here.  Some things, apparently, don't change much in a hundred years.

But many things have changed.  Living here is infinitely easier now than it was for Florence and John.  We have electricity (most of the time) and quick transportation.  We have modern technology and the ability to communicate easily with family and friends back home.  We have lots of options for food, even some Western goods, and access to basic medicine.

More importantly, though, is how much has changed in the last hundred years in the Church.  The ministry that we are able to do now, at a mission hospital that openly shares the Gospel with patients, is only possible because of the foundations that were laid by pioneers like Florence and John.  They advanced the Kingdom here.  They shared the truth and love of Jesus and they discipled many.  They prepared their generation for pouring into the next, which poured into the next and the next and the next...  And now we are here, nearly 114 years later, walking on the foundations laid for us long ago and doing our part to keep advancing the Kingdom here.

It wasn't until we'd been in Kenya for awhile that I remembered reading Florence's journal in grad school.  I wanted to look at it again and learn more of the history of missions in Kenya.  So, on one of our trips through Chicago during Home Assignment last year, I took the opportunity to spend a couple days at Wheaton and look at Florence's journal in the Archives again.  Furthermore, I took the opportunity to look through several books that pertained to the history of missions in Kenya.  The more I learned, the more humbled and encouraged I became.

The missionary pioneers I read about (which I'll highlight in the next post) endured much suffering and seemingly little success.  They sacrificed a lot and gained very little.  Sometimes I feel like that too, because something that's remained the same over time is how slowly things change.  We invest in time and energy and money and emotions and prayer and relationships...and the growth and change we came here to participate in happens very slowly.

When I, as a time-sensitive American, get frustrated or discouraged with the pace of change in our ministry, it helps significantly to remember where we've been.  Not just where we, the Horns, have been, but to look even further back to those who have gone before us.

Florence wrote this at the very end of her journal in 1906: "What this little book contains of joys and sorrow, struggles, and smooth sailing - may never be seen by other eyes.  Yet it has been a comfort to record them.  God has kept a better record for which we praise Him and are happy to leave ourselves in His hands for the next 365 days."

I am so grateful to Florence for writing a record of her ministry in Kenya.  I have read it and now I know and can remember what God has done.  I can remember and be encouraged by God's work and God's timing.  He intended to bring Florence to Kenya in 1906 and He intended to bring me here in 2016.  We are both part of a bigger story, a story of ages past filled with people crying out for a Savior, and of a God who provided a Savior who embodied eternal hope.  We are part of a story that declares "Christ has come" and "It is finished" and "Let the nations be glad."

I am filled with hope at this time of year as we reflect on all God has done this year.  And I think it would serve us well to remember beyond this year - to years past, to ages past - and remember what God has done in times and places beyond our own that have made our own time and place of ministry possible.