George Schmidt, Magdalena, and the Bible Beneath the Pear Tree

George Schmidt, Magdalena, and the Bible Beneath the Pear Tree

When the Moravian missionary George Schmidt left South Africa in 1744, he left behind a few converts, a copy of the Dutch New Testament, and a few trees he had planted, including a pear tree that had grown to provide some shade to his prayer meetings and Bible studies.

            Leaving South Africa was not his choice. He had been sent there in 1737 by Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf, leader of the Herrenhut community of earnest Moravians, in response to the news of the poor conditions of the Khoi Khoi people. There was a Dutch Reformed Church already there but, according to the accounts received by Zinderdorf, its members had made little effort to evangelize or assist the indigenous populations.

            Schmidt was 26 when he arrived in South Africa, a butcher's apprentice by trade. As a Christian, he had suffered much in his native Bohemia, where Protestantism was being persecuted. He had barely survived a six-year imprisonment under the harshest conditions.

Gathering a Local Community

            His arrival was welcome by the authorities at Cape Town. “We trust that his efforts may have the desired result and that people thus brought to the true knowledge of God,” they wrote in the minutes of the Council of Policy. “For which purpose all possible assistance shall be rendered to the aforesaid person for the prosecution of that pious work and the attainment of its good object.”[1]

            Schmidt quickly realized the dreadful plea of the Khoi Khoi (renamed Hottentots by the settlers). Once a prosperous tribe, they had been decimated by smallpox and were struggling to recover. Eager to bring assistance, he enlisted the help of two Khoi Khoi who had learned to speak Dutch: Africo and Kupido. With them, he initially settled by the Sonderend River, gathering a group of interested Khoi Khoi.

After a few months, he moved with his two helpers and an additional nine men, twelve women, and four children to an area known as Baviaanskloof (“Valley of Baboons”), fifty miles east of Cape Town, where other Khoi Khoi resided. This can be considered the first Protestant missionary station in Africa.

            “I pitched my tent until I should be able to build myself a hut,” he wrote in his journal. “Then I grasped my spade and began to mark out the ground for a garden. Every evening I visited the Hottentots; sat down among them, distributed tobacco and began to smoke with them. I told them that, moved by sincere love, I had come to them to make them acquainted with their Saviour and to assist them to work.”[2]

            The Khoi Khoi believed in a supreme being they called Tsui-goam and an evil spirit named Gauna. They also worshiped the moon, hoping that each new moon would bring favors.

            Schmidt continued his work of evangelization, which proceeded slowly but surely. Finding the Khoi Khoi language difficult to learn, he depended largely on the translation work by Africo and Kupido. At the same time, he set up a school to teach the Khoi Khois to speak, read, and write Dutch, so they could read the New Testament he had brought with him. Leaning on his western experience, he taught them to farm and planted several fruit trees – although the Khoi Khoi preferred their traditional hunting. After five years, he had about fifty followers, with five ready to be baptized. He administered the sacrament on April 4, 1742.

Opposition

            This is where he began to receive strong opposition by the local churches. Some members of the Dutch community had already been wary of his efforts, but his administration of a sacrament without ordination by a recognized church could not be tolerated.

            In answer to a letter of protest by the Dutch Reformed Church, the governor of the area forbade Schmidt to perform any sacrament. A letter from Zinzendorf stating that Schmidt’s was ordained didn’t help, since Zinzendorf’s community was not a recognized church. In 1744, after two years of fierce hostility, Schmidt decided to return to Europe and pursue a rightful ordination.

            What he didn’t know was that, while he was leaving, the Dutch Reformed Church in Amsterdam sent a reply to the churches in the Cape area, stating that the baptisms performed by Schmidt should be considered null, but his efforts to evangelize should be encouraged and even extended to the European population.

            It was too late, because in the meantime Moravians had been banned from South Africa, so Schmidt continued his evangelical work in Bohemia until his death in 1785. 

A Happy Ending

            This could have been a sad ending to the story of the Khoi Khoi, if 48 years after Schmidt’s departure the ban for Moravians was lifted and three of their missionaries – Hendrik Marsveld, Daniel Schwinn, and Johann Christian Kühnel –arrived to Baviaanskloof in 1792. There, they were surprised to find an 80-year-old Khoi Khoi woman, Magdalena (or Lena), still carefully preserving in a sheepskin bag the New Testament Schmidt had left behind.

            She had first met Schmidt by the Sonderend River. Together with her husband, Africo, Kupido, and another African Schmidt named Willhem, she was one of the five Khoi Khoi Schmidt had baptized in 1742. Magdalena was the Christian name Schmidt had given her (her birth name was Vehettge). She told the missionaries that she had been cooking for Schmidt and the others.

Since his departure, she had kept the tradition of gathering with other Khoi Khoi converts under the pear tree Schmidt had planted, even after the other four original converts had died. Although there had been no more baptisms, their community had continued to grow, and Magdalena had been teaching others to read the Dutch Bible.

            Marsveld, Schwinn, and Kühnel continued Schmidt’s work at Baviaanskloof - which they renamed Genadendal (“Valley of Grace”). Although, due to her age, Magdlena had a hard time walking and reading, she attended every service, prayer meeting, and lecture, and continued to assist the missionaries in any way she could, even entertaining European visitors and keeping in touch with Moravian pastors in Europe. All this in spite of her poverty, which was so severe that she had to depend on others for sustenance.

            “I cannot thank almighty God, my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ enough that he allowed me to live until some teachers have returned who so helped me that I can believe He has forgiven my sins and accepted me as a child of God,” she said. “O, I cannot thank the dear Saviour enough that He has now also given me so many sisters. But one thing I still lack: my children are still running around without Jesus. O, if the merciful Saviour would claim them! This I would dearly like to see.”[3]

She died a few years later, in 1800, trusting in her dear Savior until the end, and the mission God had preserved at Genadendal continued to grow.