FAMOUS CRICKETER

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 153, 31 May 1937, Page 8

FAMOUS CRICKETER

LIFE AS MISSIONARY. WORK IN CENTRAL AFRICA. The story of how the famous English cricketer, the l.ate Mr C. T. Studd, sacrificed his life and fortune for mission work and began the World-wide Evangelisation Crusade a.nd, possessed of a' burning faith, went out into the heart of Africa among Cliristlesa savages and there pioneered a. mission which has since flourished into a vital and wonderful work, was told to the “Standard” to-day by Miss __ Mary Rees. Visiting Palmerston North in the course of a tour of New Zealand on deputation work, Miss Rees was for seven years in Central Africa as a missionary, a.nd hopes to leave England early next year for Africa once more, with a party of missionaries, to continue her work. Miss Rees is full of enthusiasm for her work —a task, which has given her the great joy of feeling that her life i 6 Teally worth while.

Mr Studd was back in England, at the age of 53, after years in China and India, a man broken in health, with an invalid wife and an empty exchequer, having given up a fortune of £30,000 to missionary work. Could he retire to a quiet life in such circumstances ? The answer was shown in the fact that he went out to what was, in his opinion, the neediest unevangelised part of the world, and there started a new crusade, Miss Rees said. After 6ix months’ journey by foot and cycle, through cannibal tribes, stricken to the edge of the grave with fever, Mr Studd found wliat he called his “Eldorado,” the fertile and populous interior' pf th|j great Ituri Forest in the North Belgian Congo. Here in 1914 he established the first station of the Heart of Africa Mission. Miss Rees quoted Mr Studd as having said: “Don’t play marbles if yon can play cricket, and. why play cricket if you can preach the gospel of Jesus Christ?” He wrote a hundred hymns, and translated most of the Old Testament and nearly all the New into the Ivingwan.a language, spoken by the natives. Translations had later been effected into the other native language, Bangala. “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him” — that was the crusade motto, and the words Mr Studd had written on a postcard when he left his wife and England for Africa. He had given the postcard to his wife, who was unable to accompany him because of her health, and he did not see her again for 11 years. Before he died he had held a five-hour meeting for the natives, and when the news ,of his death spread among the people they said: “Bwana is dead, but his work shall never die. We shall carry it on.”

THE WORK GOES ON

The work had been carried on, said Miss Rees, so the words of the natives had come true. As a striking evidence of what it had grown to, she added that in the Christmas of 1933, two and ,a-half years after the death of Mr Studd, a large meeting had been held at which there were 20,000 people, 64 of whom had travelled 225 miles on foot to be present. Many of these people were . mothers with babies on their backs. The natives could, in their enthusiasm, teach something to the white people. i It was in 1926 that Miss Rees travelled out to Central Africa, to a point 200 miles north of Stanleyville, in the Belgian Congo. The journey took three and a-half months, because there were no roads, and for two weeks they travelled in a canoe, paddled by eight men, catching as they went glimpses of crocodiles. Now t*he same journey was possible in three days by motor-car, over the roads which had since been, laid down. Schools had been established, and were attended by men, women, boys and girls, and from these schools native evangelists went out, often 300 miles from home, and took the Gospel to other tribes. These evangelists braved all perils, having to pass through herds of elephants and colonies of apes, with other ivild animals lurking all around; but they did so “with the faith of Daniel,” commented Miss Rees. To live in Central Africa was like living in the zoo, she added. She described the bamboo and palm string lints which were the dwelling places, and said that leopards often came around the huts. The missionaries, however, had never been harmed by the animals, their faith in God protecting them from that. CHANGED LIVES. It was wonderful to see the change which Christianity had brought into the lives of these natives, continued the visitor. From cannibals, tree worshippers, and “ivitch-crafters,” with their minds dark with superstitions and strange beliefs, they were converted into enlightened people, apt in learning, spreading the joy of their new faith. Miss Rees had gone on foot through the great Ituri Forest, with its thousands of beautiful palms and lilies growing wild, crossing various streams, unaccompanied except for a girl interpreter, who was useful because of her knowledge of three languages and her sharing of the missionary’s faith, visiting the villages and carrying the message of the Gospel. The natives would give up a hut for them, and the fact that it was often infested with rats was smiled at tolerantly by Miss Rees, who considers .such happenings no real hindrance in her work, if the belief and faith were there. There were now fifty white missionaries and numerous native evangelists ; from one cannibal station alone sixty natives bad gone out to preach the Gospel. Curious and cruel customs such as binding the heads of babies with string, in order to make i'eTr heads.long and not like those of monkeys (the reason advanced-by the natives), were being eradicated by the influence of Christianity. Little girls who were previously sold to be wives to natives with a number of wives already, who were more or less slaves, were being brought to the mission stations instead. At one station there were ninety girlsTo illustrate the intelligence of the children, Miss Rees said that many of them went right through their reading class in four months and could then begin reading the Bible. There were also nurses working in the mission field, diseases being rampant, and one out of every five natives it was estimated, was a leper. It was among the lepers, however, that some of the happiest Christians were numbered. The Belgian Government, however, had made the work more difficult for the nurses, by stipulating that they must qualify in French as well as English: THE FOOD. , Speaking of the food in Central Africa, Miss Rees , said that goats’ milk took the place of ordinary milk, and chickens, which were very cheap, took the place of meat. Eggs were sixty for one shilling, but it was sometimes difficult to obtain them fresh, as the natives liked them otherwise. Fruit was abundant, and included ’paw-paws, pineapples, bananas, oranges, lemons, mangoes, strawberries, loganberries and cape gooseberries. String beans and tomatoes, as

well as sweet potatoes, were plentiful, and there was plenty of green vegetables. Tea was 'expensive, and although it was now possible to obtain it in loose form at three shillings a pound, Miss Rees had seen it priced at ten shillings; white flour cost eleven shillings for six pounds, and butter was very expensive. Fat was obtained from peanuts and froni ants, which were crushed and provided a solution just like olive oil, which was useful for cooking. Miss Rees mentioned that the worldwide Evangelisation Crusade, which was purely a faith mission, was now working in a Republic of Colombia (South America); the Ivory Coast, Senegal and Spanish' Guinea. (West Africa), Kashmir and on the Nepal border (India); on the frontier of Arabi’a; and in the Canary Islands. Three New Zealand missionaries were sent out "recently, after having been trained at Auckland —Mr Sydney Jones. Mr Da.vidson and Miss Byers. Miss Rees hails from Cheshire, England, although she is of Welsh parentage. Concluding, Miss Rees remarked with a smile: “If I were not a missionary I think I’d lie a New Zealand farmer.” She is. delighted with this country, which she has found to he as it was described to her before her visit—“the must British spot in the Empire.” ,