The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1917, Page 13

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

13

A Missionary Farmer in Sarawak,
: Borneo.

About fifteen years ago a certain Mr. Wong
fiom Fouchow, China, emigrated to Borneo with
several hundred of his compatriots and settled on
a grant of land made to them by the white rajah
of Sarawak, Sir Carles Brooks, formerly an officer
of the British navy. ‘Che colonists were all city-
bred, and the life and work in the dense jungle
soon discouraged them, and filled their hearts with
longing for the old city life, poor and miserable
though it had been. At the end of several years,
during which the colonists had largely lived on

vation with rubber, pepper, rice, potatoes, and
other crops.

The colony*is to-day flourishing and getting
along so well that countrymen of the first settlers
are coming in from year to year. Last year, for
instance, seven hundred new immigrants arrived.
The colony is at present made up of about three
thousand Fouchows, one hundred fifty Hinghuaese,
a small number of Cantonese, and some Malays. It
is estimated that the colonists are sending $12,000
every year to China. A rice-mill, installed in the
colony about eight years ago, last year hulled

20,000 bushels. Work is finely progressing all
along the line. From a financial point of view

A Village Mission School in India.

the liberal bounty of Sir Brooks, they were prac-
tically all upon the verge of despair.

The rajah, ‘seeing their despair, convinced of
the incapacity of the good Mr. Wong, and sin-
cerely sympathizing with them in their plight,
asked James M. Hoover, an American missionary,
fo accept the superintendency of the colony. Mis-
sionary Hooyer and his wife had already founded
and organized a number of mission churches and
schools hefore they were asked to take oyer the
work which Mr. Wong had begun. Mr. Hoover at

once applicd himself to the task of clearing the
dense jungle and making it ready for the plow.
It was a hard task, but after several years’ work
he, with his colonists, had succeeded in clearing
five thousand acres and bringing it under culti-

ee es

Rajah Brooks has good reasons to congratulate him-
self upon the outcome of his colonizing project.
Missionary Hooyer and his wife are the final
judges in all business, domestic, and religious
matters. ‘They are molding a new civilization for
Borneo and a new race of people. And, best of
all, the Hoovers are not forgetting that they are,
first and last, Christian missionaries, called to
spread the glad tidings of Jesus and His ‘grace
among the benighted people around’ them. Whier-
ever they go, they are spreading the Gospel of
Christ, and their testimony has already borne glo-
rious fruit; for two-thirds of the Chinese members”
of the colony have embraced the Christian religion.
And Mr. and Mrs. Hoover can testify to the fact
that their new converts are consistent in their pro-