The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 89

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER. 89

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healing for their diseased bodies as another evidence
that God loved them. ‘They were compelled to
believe the testimonials they heard, and they entered
into this love of God for them. Oh, what a wonder-
ful light and peace came into their hearts! It
was glory! é

The Pipers were joined by the Brintons and Miss
Jensen, all of them with the same good news of
Jesus and His love. Chimbu worked for and with
them all, beginning as a goat herd for Dr. Piper.
He learned English rapidly while helping them to
learn the Luunda. He became Mr. Brinton’s. teacher
in the vernacular and assisted him during the next
five years to translate the four gospels and the Acts
of the Apostles and to write many hymns in his
native tongue.

But a dark shadow hung over Chimbu’s life.
Four years before we arrived as the first mission-
aries at Mwata Yamvo’s, he had evidence that he
was a leper.— The natives have discovered some
herb that is very potent, if not in effecting a cure,
at least in staying this dread disease. He had been
taking his fourth of the five annual treatments at
the very time that he had heard that strange
“Ovanyi, ovanyi.”

After the treatment, the year that Mr. Heinkel
was building the missionary residence, Chimbu was
pronounced permanently cured. He did not men-
tion the subject of his leprosy to any of the mis-
sionaries and went on with his work, the joys of
salvation flooding his life.

When, thirteen years after our first visit, we
came to Mwata Yamvo’s in 1925, Chimbu and his
friend, who is also a pastor-teacher, told us that the
beginning of their spiritual life began at the time of
our first visit, as then the Gospel seed first found
lodgment in their hearts. But they also recognized
the very necessary part played by others in their
spiritual life and development. When the Pipers
were leaving for their first furlough in 1919,
Chimbu accompanied them for some miles and then
said, “Now I must turn back, but first I want to
thank you with all my heart; for you were the ones
who nourished my new life by the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.” Without that follow-up work by these
other missionaries and workers the tender plant that
sprang from that seed sowed in 1912 would surely
have been choked to death.

One wonders how many souls there are or have
been in the villages of Africa and elsewhere who
have died soon after coming into spiritual birth,
without attaining youth and maturity, because there

was no missionary or other Christian at hand to
give the help needed.

Early in 1923 Chimbu realized that his cure
from leprosy had not been permanent. His friends
and his family urged him to go again to the nganga,
or witch doctor, who had some knowledge of herbs
and yet used much witchcraft in the process.. He
considered the matter seriously and decided that,
let the consequences be what they would, he could
not now as a Christian subject himself to the evil
practises of the exorcism of demons, etc., that -ac-
companied the native treatment. But he began
treatment with Dr. Piper, who had only a small
amount of the crudest form of the chaulmoogra oil,
which was almost worse than death to take, for it
kept him fearfully nauseated, whether he took it
by mouth or injections.

The doctor had no funds to buy the more ex-
pensive kind, and so it was a time of deep testing.
Here were all his friends on the one side urging him °
to go to the nganga and the horrible medicine on
the other. He had made greater advance than any
other pupil that had attended the school, and now
he was the native pastor of the church at the main
station, the largest one in the district. He was also
the most beloved and esteemed of all the pastor-
teachers.

But he came out of the temptation with his face
aglow, facing the Cross. He voiced the faith of the
tried and tested man of’old who said, “Though He
slay me, yet will I trust Him.” He committed him-
self, soul and body, to his Maker and walked in the
valley of blessing with Him. And on his face was
the “light that ne’er was on land or sea.”

We shall never forget that shining countenance
as we saw him in 1925 when he made that prayer
we can never forget, “Lord, give us a passion for
Jesus Christ.” That was the whole of his prayer at
that meeting, just that one sentence; but how much
it does mean! And he exemplifies that same pas-
sion for which he prayed by his faithful steward-
ship of all of life, service, prayer, and tithing of
his income, small and inadequate as his stipend is.

After reaching the United States, as we have had
sums of money handed to us that we could use for
that purpose, we have sent out medicine such as our
Government has used most successfully for leprosy -
in the Philippines, and I wrote to him and asked
him to take it faithfully and with prayer to the
Lord that He would bless it; and he has done s0.

A few weeks ago a woman asked us if it were
possible for these raw savages to understand and
receive the Gospel. Did we not need to educate