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Evangelical News Service Germany (epd)
July 17th, 2007:
The
Missionaries of Yesteryear are kept alive - New attraction for Gerlingen Missionary House Translated into English from the German text of Mr. HANS-DIETER FRAUER (epd) Gerlingen/Germany (epd). Wilhelm Maisch
(1878 - 1924) was the head of the Basel China-Mission.
The skilled cabinetmaker, carpenter and joiner enlisted - affected
by his religious parent's house and the evangelical youth work of his
hometown Gerlingen (nowadays: county Ludwigburg) -
in 1897 for the training in the house of Basel Mission (Switzerland).
He left in 1904 for Hoschuwan in the south of China. There he soon
turned out to be the leader of the Basel China-Mission. He managed
to involve more and more Chinese in (at this time from Europeans
affected) mission work and so to get through to more and more Chinese.
Because of his prosperities Maisch was elected in 1911 for District Praeses.
He continued his work up to his first homeward journey in 1920;
during his outward voyage he died in the age of 46 years on the 2nd of
July 1924 because of cardiac insufficiency. Johannes Rebmann House in
Gerlingen depicts the work of missionaries from this town. The
house is named after the famous pioneer missionary Johannes Rebmann,
who discovered in 1848 the snow covered Kilimanjaro in East Africa. Rebmann
also was born in
Gerlingen. No other comparable community in Württemberg emerged in
18th and 19th century a similar high number of missionaries than the at
that time pietistic characterized farmer's and vine dresser's village. The
presently known 23 missionaries from Gerlingen were busy in Africa,
India and China. They didn't work as preachers, but also as teachers,
linguists, translators and discoverers. Besides that they were often -
ahead of the times - also development workers: So Johannes Zimmermann
had agriculturally equipment with him when he traveled to nowadays Ghana;
Rebmann operated as bricklayer, and the India missionary Rudolf Höhn
founded a Brick yard factory to give work and living to the because of
their Christianity ejected Hindus. In their hometown Gerlingen's
missionaries were often forgotten soon after their departure -
except for
Johannes Rebmann. But at the places where they had acted they nowadays
are still present. Eg. in Odumnase, Zimmermann's former area of
activities, you find since
1972 a church that is named after him. The reminding first name
"Zimmermann" is to date popular, and according to statements
from Odumnase every other is proud of his name. Gerlingen's
activities according "its" missionaries were at least pushed
from Zimmermann's places of activities: Requests from Ghana in the late
70th of last century were the initiative for a Gerlingen "Research
group for Homeland history" to go on a search for their traces.
You can marvel at the impressive results of their efforts in Johannes
Rebmann House. |
Imprint | Contact: info@johannes-rebmann-stiftung.de |