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.