Newsletters from a Salvation Army woman officer in Southern Rhodesia (2): 1957-1958
Box 33,
SINOIA.
May, 1957.
It is time I wrote to all my friends again to let them know
how we are getting on.
We have much to be thankful for in the progress there has
been in our Division since the beginning of the year. …
…
…
Easter weekend was a thrill. Keith’s Mother and Father [Rev. William W. and Sheila Anderson] were
with us for Good Friday and we took them with us for united meetings in the
Magonde Reserve, and had a very good meeting under a large tree. … In the
afternoon [of Easter Sunday] we went
to the other end of Sipolilo Reserve along one of the worst roads (even for
Rhodesia) that I have ever been on. Fortunately it was dry so we got through
quite all right. That meeting I will always remember with over 500 sitting on a
hillside by a river with the sound of the music of 500 full-throated Africans
singing lustily “He lives” the echo of this wonderful message reverberating
over the hills. There were many seekers at the end of the meeting.
…
My European Sunday School at Allan’s school is still growing
and on Decision Sunday I was most moved to see over 30 of the older ones come
forward to accept the Lord. When one thinks that most of them come from homes
where religion is delegated to the background I can only hope and pray that I
may be guided to help these young folk to become good Christians.
We are all well. Allan is doing very well at school having
come 2nd in his class last term and only today has been promoted to
a higher class. Last Sunday when we were in the Reserve doing meetings he had
seen an African man with a terrible eye so on the homeward way suddenly said
“Mummy, I am going to be a Salvation Army Doctor then I can help Africans like
that man” to which Carol added “And I’m going to be a lady Doctor”.
P.O. Box 33, Sinoia.
29th May, 1958.
I must get my half yearly letter off to all my friends,
realising that D.V. we shall be arriving in good old England on furlough this
time next year, so I hope to see you.
We are all very well and very happy in the work. Keith is
away from home more than ever, having two new schools, as well as several farm
schools he has to supervise. I find plenty to keep me occupied here. This year
I have started teaching English in our African school in Sinoia, owing to a
large enrolment so every morning I am down there for an hour and a half. I
enjoy this very much and the children are responding well. This of course means
a lot of extra time taken up with preparation and correcting etc. but it is all
done with the end in view of winning them for the Lord. Carol has started
school which leaves me free in the mornings to do this.
Our Sunday School at the European school continues to grow,
and because I am so short of adult helpers I have devised a scheme whereby four
of the older children take the little ones with Sandtray and expression work.
This means I must have a preparation class with these four on Thursday
afternoons, but I am praying that it will have its effect upon them in the
years to come. They are very keen and do well.
The Women’s World Day of Prayer meetings this year were very
blessed. I first conducted a Children’s Service in the school, with some of my
Sunday School children taking part, then a packed African meeting in the
Location[1]
with many seekers. The meeting that I was most thankful about was the European
one which I held in the Women’s Institute hall, where we had over 70 ladies
present, most of them non-church goers. We had to bring in more chairs before
we commenced the service, which is a real victory amongst these hardboiled
Europeans!
We spent a very happy Easter weekend, in Sipolilo on Good
Friday and Magondi on Easter Sunday. … I was much moved as I saw an old,
decrepit man, a typical picture of the old Africa, get up from under a tree
where he was sitting alone, push his way through the crowd and kneel down by
the side of a clean fine boy – a picture of the old and the new Africa seeking
the Lord. …
… In a wonderful way opportunities come our way. Last week
when conducting meetings… on a European farm we met the wife of the Farm
Assistant who was coming to Sinoia to have her first baby. They are both from
Holland. She was very anxious about being so far away from the hospital so I
offered to have her at our house until her baby arrived. She arrived this week
and now has a lovely baby girl. Her husband stayed with us while she was in
hospital until after the baby arrived, and we discovered his Father and
Grandfather were ministers in Holland. He has had some mental trouble, felt he
was beyond hope … She was afraid that he would do himself some harm while she
was away so we kept him at our home. I sat with him for three hours while his
wife was in the Labour Ward with a difficult birth, and he gave me a marvellous
opportunity of speaking about spiritual things. Just after the baby was born we
were allowed in… in that Labour Ward I put their hands together and thanked God
for the lovely baby He had given to them. … He said to me “When I heard you at
your Family Prayers and saw how happy you all were, I felt outside of it all,
and wanted to know Jesus Christ like that”. …
So you will see that there is no
lack of variety in our life out here, and there is a real sense of adventure in
the work.
P.O. Box 33,
Sinoia.
November, 1958.
I can hardly realise that Christmas has come again, and I
must get our newsletter off to all our friends, the last one before we come
home on Homeland Furlough next May, D.V.
The highlight of the Rhodesian news for us has been the visit
of The General[2]
and Mrs. Kitching, and it has truly been a memorable visit. There were frantic
preparations for such an important visit… So far as we were concerned the visit
started with the opening of the S. Rhodesia Christian Conference which we
attended for the first time since coming to Rhodesia. Missionaries and African
ministers and teachers of all denominations met at Goromonzi Sec. School, about
20 miles out of Salisbury for a Conference lasting four days. The General opened
the Conference on the Friday morning and really challenged everyone. Keith’s
sister and her husband are on the staff of this Government school so we were
able to stay with them during the Conference. Keith’s Father and Mother were
also at this Conference and I know were thrilled to have one of their sons with
them at this Missionary Conference they had attended for over 40 years. The
Conference itself was marred for me personally because Carol decided to go down
with Chicken Pox the day after we arrived, so I could not attend many of the meetings
(the joys of Motherhood!). She was so disappointed that she could not see The
General.
…
On the Thursday afternoon Mrs. General Kitching gave a
lecture to European ladies over which Lady Tredgold presided.[3] … There
were a good number of European ladies there, and everything was so daintily set
out that it was a real treat for we D.O.’s wives who are used to roughing it
out in the Bush. It seemed a very different world from the one we usually move
in, but it was a lovely change.
The final weekend was the united Congress at Mabvuku, an
African township about 9 miles out of Salisbury, and that is something I shall
never forget. … The General and Mrs. Kitching gave very inspiring messages and
our African were thrilled with their friendliness and concern for them. Allan
came with us that morning and helped with refreshments while we were in the
meeting, and he was thrilled to bits when he was introduced to The General and
Mrs. Kitching. He was absolutely awe struck and tongue-tied when The General shook
hands with him, and even more so when Mrs. Kitching said she hoped he was going
to grow up to be as good a man as his Grandpa Starbuck.[4]
…
Sunday morning was the grand climax of the Congress with a
grand March Past The General before the Holiness meeting.[5] My
husband was made Marshal for the March Past, and had to get them all organised
and marched off in Divisions, a colossal task to organise about 15 thousand
people. The march was over a mile long, in close formation, marching 4 abreast,
all in smart cream uniforms. Unfortunately I had to march alone at the head of
the Lomagundi Division… but Allan marched with me for company. We took Carol
with us, as by then she was recovering, on condition that she stayed in the car
and did not go near anyone. It seemed terrible to miss seeing everything because
of Chicken Pox, so she and her cousins sat on the top of our Landrover and had
a marvellous view of everything. … That morning meeting will never be forgotten
– to see 15,000 Salvationists packed
into that enclosure, with flags and Home League banners waving, to hear their
singing was so was so moving that one could hardly sing oneself. The response
at the end of the meeting was so spontaneous and they came forward so
deliberately that I am sure something of untold value has been done for the
Kingdom of Christ in Rhodesia. It made us so thrilled with the opportunity of
working with such people, yet at the same time so humble when one realises the
tremendous challenges.
…
Before The General’s Congress we had also held our Divisional
one in the Magondi Reserve conducted by Colonel & Mrs. Thompson. This was
held in a very beautiful setting among the hills. The T.C. [Territorial Commander] and Mrs. Thompson slept in the Headmaster’s
office, Allan and Carol in the truck, and Keith and I in a grass shelter. They
had built a very nice grass hut, the larger part was our Dining Room cum
kitchen, the smaller part our bedroom. … It was an unusually cold spell, and we
were chilled through when we came back from the night meeting which of course
is held outdoors, so Keith lit a wood fire, and Colonel & Mrs. Thompson,
Keith & I sat drinking hot tea by our fire, while on the hills opposite we
could see hundreds of little fires lit by our African people, and we could hear
their full-throated singing and their drums beating. The whole weekend was
filled with many blessings and many sought the Lord for the first time.
This last term of the school year, we are both very busy.
Keith is away from home most of the time, I am still teaching English every
morning at our Location school, as well as all the other work I find to do. Allan
and Carol have now both got over Chicken Pox. Allan had his ninth birthday in
bed with Chicken Pox so he could not have his party, poor lad! It doesn’t seem
possible that he is 9 and Carol is nearly 6 now. We are all looking forward to
sailing home to England on May 15th next year, but in the meantime
there is a lot of work to do before then.
We do pray that you will have a
very happy Christmas and a very blessed New Year in 1959.
NOTES
[1] This word refers to an urban African
residential area usually next to a “European” town. Segregated residential
areas were kept in colonial Africa.
[2]
The General is the head of the entire international Salvation Army, which has a
hierarchical structure. Throughout this account he is “The General” rather than
“the General”! Before she married, my mother was secretary/PA to the second in
charge of the Salvation Army, the Chief of the Staff, Commissioner John J.
Allan, an American after whom I was named.
[3] The
wife of Sir Robert Tredgold, a Rhodesian judge and grandson of the famous LMS
missionary John Moffatt, and was formerly acting Governor General of the Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
[4] Colonel
Tom Starbuck, my maternal grandfather, died in 1950 at the age of 60, months after
I was born.
[5] Sunday morning services were always called “Holiness” meetings, whereas the evening service was called the “Salvation” meeting.
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