Kijabe B.E.A. March 13, 1904                                                                                                 Index

Miss Florence Minch
Naperville, Ill.

My dear Florence.

        Your letter came some time ago so I will now answer. I also received the pictures which you sent. I think they are fine. I was puzzled however to make out who that fat, little Dutch looking girl in the center of the one picture is. You never told me that you had four sisters. I have the pictures hung on the wall and of course there is continually a crowd of natives round about admiring. I am afraid I shall have to remove them. I have been looking for a letter from you in the last mail in which I hope to find out what the Board has done. None came however. Of course these are anxious days for me. Poor old bachelor that I am, living out here in the wilderness all alone. If you dont hurry up and come out here you may hear from me some of these days. They say however that patience is a virtue so I suppose I will have to wait. But oh its hard.

        Miss Compton just gave me some clippings from a news paper telling of the Baltimore fire. Aren’t you people able to take care of yourselves any more. I sometimes think that perhaps after all they need me at home, and it is perhaps best that I come back.

        Well I am still in good health and enjoying my self immensely. You were bragging about getting fat. Now you just stand back and be quiet. What do you think of your old man. He weighed last week and tipped the balance at 184. Oh the tortures of this awful African heat. How it does run me down. And in spite of this I have worked harder here the last six months than ever in my life before. Just now I have 25 men digging a garden for the Orphan boys. They will work perhaps two months. It does take an awful lot of potatoes and beans to feed these little heathen. I have also been doing a lot of brain work. Tomorrow is Sunday and I am planning to go out to a Masai village and try my first sermon in the Masai language. Of course I am far from having the language perfect yet I have enough at least to tell the people that Jesus loves them. I dont think God will despise even the biggest blunders, in an attempt to preach his word. My boys have been a great help to me. One of them however has played truant. One evening two of them Noya and Naguldu came to my room, and said they wanted their money to go to Naivasha to buy sheep. I thought nothing about it and gave them their money. Afterwards Mulungit (the ever faithful one) told me that Noya was very bad and that he influenced Naguldu to go with him and find work as soldiers. I mistrusted Noya for some time and even some from the beginning. He was so different from the rest of the boys. I left the matter with the Lord however and asked him to send back Naguldu if it was his will. I felt sure that Naguldu wanted to do right. The next Sunday sure enough in comes “old professor” (Naguldu) and said he was sorry that he went. I offered to take him back again but sent word to Noya that I did not want him any more. So now I have only two. Mulungit however says that later on he will bring his mother and little brother. Also the rest of his father’s people (his father is dead). He says besides his mother and brother there are two other women two little girls and one boy. I should be very glad to have them here. I wish you could see Mulungit once. I really believe that the spirit is working in his heart and that he is very anxious to know God. I am asking God to make him a helper for me in visiting the Masai. I think he will be very valuable to us. I got him and Naguldu each a nice new suit of clothes and now they look quite like men. Think of it. Only four months ago these boys came up here with no clothing but a little dirty greasy cloth hung over their shoulders. Their bodies were so covered with grease and dirt that you really could’nt tell what their color was. They knew absolutely nothing about God and thought it no worse to kill a man than to kill a beef. Today they are as neat and clean as we are, dressed in good clothes. In their hearts with unresistable force is working the Holy Spirit gradually changing their savage nature in to gentleness so that today Mulungit is one of the kindest and most tender of all the men at the station. He was gone away for a few days and when he came back he put his arms around me and hugged me as though he had been my brother and had not seen me for years. When I was at the college some one said the native really has no soul. If you hear of it again tell them about this. Oh Florence you cannot know the joy such things give one. Its true there is loneliness and heart aches. The devil comes upon one with awful trials. There may be darkness and gloom, yet through it all the glorious light of Christ shines steadily on, and hours of sorrow and gloom, are only followed by hours of indescribable joy and gladness. When you come out expect this. If you get homesick once in a while in America dont think that the devil wont take advantage of it here and make you so sick that you wont know what to do with your self. Dont ever think that he is letting me alone entirely. Just last week I experienced something I never knew of before. I believe it was altogether the devils work. Somehow or other with no apparent reason for several days I hardly knew my self. One night I woke up about midnight and there came upon me with an awful horror the thought that my strength was all gone, and I should be obliged to go home at once. I fell asleep again, and an hour later woke up and thought that some awful being had his arms around me and was crushing the life out of me. It seemed so real that I cried out Oh Lord Jesus deliver me. The next morning I got up and went out and dug up stumps and cut trees all day and felt as strong in the evening as I did in the morning. I hope you will not call me foolish if I say that I really believe the devil was present with me that night. People at home may give their theories about the devil. Some may laugh and say it is only an evil influence but enter once in to the devils land where truth is unknown, and if you are filled with the Spirit so that the light begins to shine in dark places, then the devil in his anger will no longer fill your mind with theories, but you have him himself to deal with. He will not let us possess this land without terrifying us with awful horrors. He has tried me with awful temptations. I believe he has been baffled. Now he may try to terrify me, but oh how blessed it is to look up and see the smiling face of Jesus ever present, never changing tenderly and gently leading on, until we believe he will lead us on to a glorious victory. When you come to Africa expect to meet some awful things, but expect just as much to see the ever loving face of the Father. God is mighty and able to overthrow every attempt of the devil. I think it is well for us to sit down again and again, in deeper meditation over the thought that the battle is not our own, that even the strength we have is not ours. It is God’s work entirely. He works as long as we are faithful. Each time we are faithful he enlarges his work in us. Our usefulness only depends on how we let him work through us. Oh for a larger life in him, a life that is able to grasp all his plans in its details. But I must close for this time. Let your remaining days of preparation be not so much the time you spend at your lessons, that wont count for very much when you get here, but let your time be spent in getting near to the heart of Jesus. I sometimes think there must be many shadows hovering over us which prevents the light from shining into our lives. Its true of all of us. Then our preparation must be to drive those shadows away so that we shall be able to see Jesus in all his fullness. Then only can we do his full will. That it may be thus in our lives is the prayer of one who loves you John.