Wonderful Career of a Woman Missionary.

Northland Age, Volume 2, Issue 25, 24 March 1933, Page 6

Wonderful Career of a Woman Missionary.

When Marion Stevenson first wanted to be a missionary she was a little girl living at the manse at Forfar, where her father was minister. Some stories she heard of missionary work fired her imagination, and as she grew up her purpose never changed. Thirty years passed before Marion Stevenson’s wish came true. During a long and disappointing period of illhealth she prepared herself at home for mission service. Then in 1906 her chance came. She heard of the great need for help in the work among women and girls at the Kikuyu Mission in what is now Kenya. She offered her services, and by the following spring was on her way to Africa. Difficulties at Kikuyu Many were Miss Stevenson’s difficulties when she arrived at Kikuyu. The people, a branch of the Bantus, semed dour, secretive, sulky and suspicious. But she learned to like them. She saw many kind and intelligent faces about her in the villages and realised that these dark-skinned people were “bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, just ourselves in different garb. Making Friends Many were the battles Miss Stevenson had to fight before she was able to work up the small mission school, and she almost gave up hope of ever reaching the girls and women, who were elusive and independent. At last she made friends with them, visiting them in their huts in the evenings when their long day’s work was over. Gradually she persuaded the people to give up bad old tribal customs. As the years pased she did wonderful work for education. In another district she saw the little school at Tutumutu grow into a big centre, ! with over 40 branch schools, where nearly 4000 scholars were taught reading, writing and arithmetic. Wild Life in the Moonlight

Three times a year she visited these schools, making hazardous journeys and trampng across the difficult hilly country under a fierce sun. She met buffaloes and rhinoceroses, and more

than once she saw a splendid leopard strolling about in the moonlight outside her sleeping quarters. Once she came upon a hyena’s dancing ground, where some forty of these creatures gathered after dark and gambolled about before setting out on their nightly expeditions. The ground was trampled hard ; no villagers dared to go there at night. Native lookers-on were puzzled when, on striking camp, she collected the litter and burned it in the camp fire, but her houseboy explained to them that this was the European way of tidying up. Young Webster A little boy, having his music lesson, was asked by his teacher, “What are pauses?” The quick response was : “Things that grow on pussy-cats.” * * * * Never open the door to a little vice lest a great one enter wth it. CAN YOU PUZZLE THEM OUT ? Adding and Taking Add Y to a youth to change his sex. Add T to comfort and then it will vex. Take S from a twirl to fasten it down. Add Cto remainder to make a crown. .. Add G to a tear to take firm hold. Take C from a smash to make him bold. Add R to vapour to make small river. Add S to a fish to make you quiver. Take T from a blow to make a swelling. Add U to a tube to make a dwelling. Beheaded Word Come, guess me in a trice ; I’m worth any price ; Behead—l’m eaten as rice ; Behead—l’m slippery as ice ; Come, tell me my vvalue, You’ll not be long, shall you. [Answers published next week] Answers to Last Week’s Puzzles What Does This Mean?—Your reflection in a looking-glass. A Watch Problem. Twenty-one times. From 12 midnight to 11 a.m. the minute hand overtakes and passes the hour hand ten times. From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. it overtakes and passes it once. From 1 p.m. to midnight it overtakes and passes it 10 times.