Mysterious ways of God (june 2010

Mysterious ways of God
- Excerpts from missionary Work in the Western Cape

Content

1. A missionary Blow to Slavery
2. The World’s first Female indigenous Church Planter
3. A City Minister with Vision
4. Opposition to missionary Work
5. Evangelical Zeal confronts Mission Policy
6. Practical Christianity
7. Apartheid Precedents in the Church
8. Pioneering Women
9. A Teacher for the Nations
10. Jewish-Christian Interaction at the Cape
11. Twentieth Century Outreach to Muslims
12. Mission Initiatives at the End of the twentieth Century











Abbreviations
AE - Africa Enterprise
ACVV - Afrikaanse Christelike Vrouevereniging (Afrikaans Women’s Guild)
AEF - Africa Evangelical Fellowship
CCFM - Cape Community FM (radio)
CCM - Christian Concern for Muslims
CMS – Church Mission Society
CSV - Christelike Studentevereniging
DEIC - Dutch East India Company
DRC - Dutch Reformed Church (NG Kerk)
Ds – Dominee (equivalent of Reverend)
LMS - London Missionary Society
PAGAD - People against Gangsterism and Drugs
SAMS - South African Missionary Society
SIM - Society of International Ministries
SPG - Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
UCT - University of Cape Town
UNISA - University of South Africa
UWC - University of the Western Cape
V.O.C - Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagne = United East India Company
WEC -Worldwide Evangelization for Christ
YMCA -Young Men’s Christian Association
YWAM - Youth with a Mission
Z.A. Gesticht - Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht (South African Foundation)



Preface

Born in Bo-Kaap in 1945 and raised in District Six and Tiervlei (later the ‘Coloured’ section of this suburb was called Ravensmead), I returned to Cape Town, the city of my birth in January I992. At that time I had been overseas for almost twenty years as an (in)voluntary exile because of the prohibition of my marriage according the laws of the country.
Assignments for a post graduate course in missions at the Bible Institute of South Africa (BI) caused me to be ‘bitten’ by a bug – historical research. In due course this became my hobby. Many a manuscript ensued over the years. Having been raised in the Moravian tradition, attending their schools as well as being trained and ordained as a minister of that denomination, there developed in me over the years an even stronger interest in its Moravian Church history (History was one the major subjects of my B.A. degree studies and Church History was one of my favourite subjects at the Moravian Seminary in District Six any way). I was sometimes challenged, but more often I was blessed when I experienced and researched exciting epochs in the history of the Mother City of South Africa. Time and again I also discovered with much excitement how the Cape had actually impacted world history.
Having been involved in missionary work with WEC (Worldwide Evangelization for Christ) International and in the prayer movement here at the Cape for the last seventeen years, I jotted down personal experiences. Many of them have been included in the latter chapters of this book.
I spent my first nine years in the bubbling cosmopolitan District Six where Christians, Muslims and Jews were still rubbing shoulders harmoniously. I am sure many Capetonians will be surprised to read how the citizens from there - and others from the disadvantaged communities of the apartheid society - have been influencing the rest of the Cape Peninsula and even regions much further afield.
Throughout this book, I speak about 'Coloured' people. In a country as ours where racial classifications has caused such damage, I am aware that the designation coloured has given offence to the group into which I am classified. For this reason, I put ‘Coloured’ consistently between inverted commas and as capitals when I refer to the racial group. To the other races I refer respectively as Black and White with capitals, to denote that it is not normal colours that are being described.

I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to my wife for the encouragement to get my material published. The latest one is this format, with the idea to put it on to the Internet. First and foremost however, I wish to give to God all the glory for his enabling!!

The bulk of the material has been taken from hitherto unpublished manuscripts, namely Spiritual Dynamics at the Cape, Some Things wrought by Prayer. and The Road to the global Day of Prayer. The sources of all quotes can be found in these manuscripts.

I hope and pray that you will be blessed and challenged by the reading, just as I have been in the course of the research and the collating of the material.

Ashley D.I. Cloete

Cape Town, April 2009

1. A missionary Blow to Slavery

It is no co-incidence that a meta-historical battle of unseen things was revolving around slaves at the Cape from the outset. Slavery as such was already in existence in biblical days. It has been a major tragedy within Christianity that an important element of the teaching of Paul was completely ignored, namely that Christian slaves were to be regarded as brothers and sisters (Compare Philemon, verse 16). Slavery seems to have been part of the ideological battleground of the forces in the unseen world.

Slavery as an integral part of the spiritual battlefield of the Cape
The vast majority of the slaves, who came to the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th century, originally seemed to have been open to the Gospel. However, sinful attitudes - including materialism on the part of the Dutch colonists and the authoritarian denominationalism of the church - played into the hands of evil forces at the Cape.
During the 15th to 18th centuries, very few people in Europe and North America had ethical problems with slavery. The inhuman practices linked to slavery were regarded as reconcilable with Christian norms in spite of the views of early critics, such as the Spanish priest Alfonso de Sandoval in 1627. Furthermore, high-ranking people with great influence like Queen Isabella of Spain and Queen Elisabeth I of England had their reservations about the trade in human beings.
On the other hand, a Dutchman, the Reverend Godfried Udemans, wrote a theological justification, receiving payment from the West Indian slave trading company. This enabled the merchants to ride roughshod over the concerns about the negatives of the slave trade. The demonic teaching was so pervasive that a Black minister, Jacobus Capitein (1717-47), who had been abducted as a slave from West Africa and who thereafter studied at the renowned University of Leiden, defended slavery. Slavery also found other intellectual support. Thus Hugo de Groot declared in 1625 that, under certain conditions, the slave trade was not contrary to common law and human rights.
Due to the lack of international communications, the sensitivity to the inhumanity of slavery broke through only relatively slowly. The system of slavery at the Cape was similar to that practised in other colonial societies. It was part of the contemporary mercantile system, driven by forces outside the Colony. The slaves played a significant role in the internal economic development of the small refreshment station which became a relatively established economy by 1795, when Britain became the colonial power.

Slaves and Religious Persecution
The early history of Cape Islam runs parallel to the Dutch extension of their commercial interests in the East. The first known Muslims were brought to the Cape as slaves in 1658, i.e. only six years after Jan van Riebeeck had landed here. These Muslims were called Mardyckers,1 indicating that they had been free people, i.e. not slaves. Even before they left their home soil, many of them had turned to Islam in solidarity with their fellow Ambonese - in opposition to the oppressive Reformed (Dutch) colonizers. The Cape Mardyckers, who came from the island of Ambon predominantly, were immediately discriminated against. As part of Dutch colonial policy, their religious practices and activities were severely restricted. The threat of a death sentence hung over their head if they tried to convert anybody to Islam. Thus they worshipped with a very low profile.
The Dutch East India (trade) Company - backed by their rulers in Holland - fought Islam in the East with military means. When rebellious Muslim religious leaders offered stiff resistance in the Indonesian Archipelago, the developing refreshment post at the Southern tip of Africa provided a handy place for the banishment of political convicts. The first religious prisoners came with the batch of slaves from the East that arrived on the Polsbroek from Batavia on 13 May 1668. These Muslim leaders like Sayyid Mahmud and Sayyid Abdurahman Matebe Shah were not prepared to take the religious repression passively like the Mardyckers before them. They immediately befriended the slave population at Constantia, teaching them the religion of Islam. Thereafter they held secret meetings in the Constantia forest and on the mountain slopes.

Supernatural Powers of Sufism at Work
The repression of Islam soon turned out to be counter-productive at the Cape, especially because the staunch Muslims from the Indonesian Archipelago brought special practices with them. Supernatural powers were at work through Sufism. This is a form of spiritism, during which prayers to the Muslim saints at the Kramats (shrines) became part and parcel of this variation of the religion. The Sufi leaders and doekums (witch-doctors) had spiritual occult powers at their disposal. While the churches were not even aware of the presence of these unseen occult forces, Islam gained ground. The mystical Islamic Sufism could expand unchecked and was hardly detected. The cold nominal Dutch Reformed brand of Christianity was no match in the battle for the hearts of the many slaves who were still open to the Gospel. The spiritually dead colonial church had no credible reply.
The graves of some Islamic saints later developed into shrines and were called Kramats. A plaque at the Constantia Kramat reminds visitors that the leading men were Orang Cayen, i.e. ‘men of power and influence who were viewed as particularly dangerous to the interests of the Company.’ Shaykh Yusuf, an Islamic Sufi resistance leader whose real name was Abidin Tadia Tjoessoep, came to the Cape on the Voetboog in 1694. He was interned with his 49 followers on the farm Zandvliet that belonged to Petrus Kalden, the Dutch Reformed dominee (minister) of the Groote Kerk, the first Cape church. After his noble resistance against the Dutch, the devout Tjoessoep was widely regarded as a Muslim ‘wali’ - a saint. It has been reported that an early imam at the Cape foresaw prophetically - soon after Shaykh Yusuf’s death in 1699 - that a ‘holy circle’ of shrines would come about. The prophecy stated that ‘all Muslims who live within the Holy Circle of tombs will be free of fire, famine, plague, earthquake and tidal wave.’

Early evangelistic beginnings in the Mother City
In different parts of the world Christian missionaries played a major role not only in the fight against ideologies and barbarism, but also in protecting the indigenous people against colonial exploitation and of course, in the spread of the Gospel. South Africa was no exception.
The first serious effort of swimming against the stream of racial and religious prejudice in the 18th century by evangelizing the Cape slaves – many of them Muslims - was said to have been made by the Dutch Reformed Ds. Henricus Beck, a Groote Kerk minister, after his retirement in 1731. A group of evangelical Christians gathered around Ds Beck. His pioneering labour provided the foundation for the ministry of the first missionary to South Africa, the dynamic German Moravian Georg Schmidt, who started lively Christian groups. The prayerful Schmidt was scoffed at by the colonists for attempting to reach out to the Wilden, the indigenous Khoi, whom they disparagingly called Hottentotten. The Moravian missionary was the first Christian cleric outside of the Reformed ranks to operate at the Cape. Georg Schmidt was exemplary in so many ways, networking with the local church and starting a missionary movement in which indigenous believers were to play a big role. Worldwide, the ‘Moravian brotherhood … ever sought and found ways and means of comity and co-operation’.
Schmidt initially experienced nothing but kindness from the government at the Cape. The ridicule of the colonists turned into enmity when word got around that the Khoi had actually learnt reading. However, he was seriously handicapped after Ds. G.Kulenkamp, an Amsterdam minister, issued a pastoral letter of warning in 1738 against the ‘extreme views’ expressed by the Count Zinzendorf, the leader of the Moravian movement at the time. Under the guise of pure simplicity, the letter branded the Moravians a mystical society, that was spreading dangerous opinions detrimental to the pure doctrine (Kulenkamp was possibly referring to the ‘Blut und Wunden’ [blood and wounds] theology of Zinzendorf’s son Christian Renatus. Yet, the warning was now understood to be against the Moravians as such). Later on there was also a basic clash with Reformed teaching. The Moravians embraced the doctrine of universal atonement, believing that in coming to faith in Jesus Christ, the individual accepted the salvation. They believed that this has been achieved for everyone by Christ’s death on the Cross. This teaching was condemned by the Reformed Synod of Dort in 1618-19, flying in the face of the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination. Furthermore, the free attitude of the Moravians towards the various confessions caused offence. Count Zinzendorf endeavoured to form a fellowship of all who accepted salvation through Christ as the main point of their faith.
Georg Schmidt soon had a small congregation of 47 and he also had contact with 39 colonists. The evangelical group in the Mother City laid the foundation for what was meant to become a sanctuary for the slaves, the Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht on the corner of Long and Hout Streets. Contemporary Cape residents were greatly impressed by the impact of Schmidt’s ministry.
The widow Aaltje van den Heyden, one of Ds. Beck’s church members, played an important part in the missionary outreach to the slaves after the death of her husband in 1740. She supplied the bulk of the funds for a Gesticht, an institution for the uplifting and religious teaching of slaves. This would decisively influence religious life at the Cape for the decades to come.

Against all odds
A basic objection to the German missionary was that he had no relationship to the Dutch Reformed Church. Gerdener highlighted Schmidt’s reactions to these ‘whisperings’ that were intended to halt his work, a response that was so typical of that generation of Moravians: ‘More than ever Schmidt sought the guidance of the Lord of the harvest and declared that this guidance demanded that he should not only continue but renew his efforts with even greater vigour.’
Schmidt however refused to be side-tracked through conversions among the colonists, preferring to go to those people who had not heard the Gospel at all. He toiled hard among the resistant Khoi, initially without success. Schmidt gradually overcame the ‘apathy of his flock’ with ‘labour of love and patience of hope’. It was however no cakewalk in the light of the growing opposition to his work. In the beginning of 1742 Schmidt was very frustrated and despondent after the years of toil with so little to show for it. He wrote to Zinzendorf that he intended to return to Europe, partly because of the indolence of his folk, and partly because he did not receive helpers.
But then the fruit came in the form of the first converts. Schmidt came to the Mother City to greet his friend and benefactor, the German Captain Johannes Rhenius, who was about to leave the country for his retirement. On his arrival, he heard that his compatriots David Nitschmann and the medical practitioner Dr Eller, two Moravian missionaries were on the ship ‘Marquetta’, which was expected shortly en route from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), from where they had been deported. In their assessment of his work the local colonists told Nitschmann and Eller that Schmidt had accomplished in three and a half years ‘what others would not have affected in thirty years’.
The visit to the Mother City with Willem, a convert, resulted in an unprecedented interest among colonists and officials. During this visit to the Cape, Schmidt picked up a letter of ordination from Count Zinzendorf. The Count encouraged him in the letter to baptize his converts ‘where you shot the rhino’, that is at the river. In March 1742 he thus at last had the authority to baptise suitable candidates. On his way back to the Overberg, he baptized his convert in or at the Sergeant’s River, giving him the name Josua. Four more followed soon thereafter, including two females.
Among the five to be baptised in running water there was a strong-willed female convert, Vehettge Tikkuie, who got the name Magdalena at her baptism.

A huge problem at the baptism of Khoi believers
When Schmidt mentioned the baptisms in passing to the new commander of the military post of their region, a chain reaction followed The baptism of the five Khoi believers caused a huge problem among the Reformed clergymen at the Cape. Schmidt was harassed and asked to leave because he was not properly ordained. The three Dutch Reformed dominees at the Cape, Le Seur (Groote Kerk), Van Gendt (Stellenbosch) and Van Echten (Drakenstein), referred to Schmidt rather scathingly in a letter to their church authorities as ‘deeze zoogenaamde hottentots-bekeerder’ (this so-called Khoi converter), who pretended to convert ‘de blinde Hottentotten’. They complained that the converts were not sufficiently instructed and that Schmidt was not ordained properly. The clergymen objected that Count Zinzendorf had no authority in the territory of the DEIC, to ordain by post and not with the laying on of hands. They referred to Zinzendorf’s letter of ordination in very disparaging terms. Their real problem comes through in the sentence ‘ook mogen geen bejaarden worden gedoopt, dan in de kerken voor de gantsche gemeente’. They could not accept that Schmidt had baptized in a river and not in a church. Schmidt was hereafter regarded as a threat to the colonial church. He felt obliged to leave, hoping to get a Dutch Reformed ordination in Holland, which would have enabled him to return to the small flock he had to leave behind in the Overberg. Pressure was thus successfully exerted by the three ministers to get Schmidt sent back to Germany. The clergymen’s letter of September 1742 arrived too late in Amsterdam for a reply, which might have changed the situation.
Nevertheless, the Cape ministers were reprimanded by the Amsterdam classis: ‘men had niet mogen aandringen op Schmidt’s vertrek doch eerst met hem te confereren.’2 When this letter, dated 5 December 1743, was still on the sailing-vessel to the Cape, Schmidt was already waiting in the Mother City for transport to take him back to Europe. It looked as if Schmidt’s work in Baviaanskloof was doomed, a complete failure.
Schmidt’s position had become extremely unpleasant ‘if not untenable’. But even as he was waiting for a ship to take him to Europe, Schmidt evangelised among the colonists at the Cape. Schmidt died before he could hear of the resumption of the missionary work in Baviaanskloof. He continued to pray for his flock in Africa until old age in the East German village of Niesky where he died in 1785.

Racial Prejudice entrenched
As a rule, European colonists came to the Cape with racial arrogance. The prowess of Western civilization served to entrench racism, which had already been prevalent for centuries. The Greek classification of ‘Hellenes and barbarians’ - which was fairly neutral with hardly any racial connotation - was replaced by ‘Christians and heathens.’ The former were Europeans and the latter the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa and all new areas that were discovered. It required a ruling from Pope Paul III, with his edict of 1537, to decide that Indians were human! And yet, ‘Bushmen’, ‘Hottentotten’ and slaves at the Cape remained sub-human in the eyes of Westerners.3 On the other hand, the Dutch colonists were always fearful of a riotous uprising of the indigenous people, some of whom they enserfed as farm labourers.
Cape Colonists were indoctrinated with a theology in which racism was rationalized and defended. Thus dark-skinned people were ‘distinguished from Whites because they were said to have been created with the animals on the sixth day. Hence they were excluded from the Garden of Eden, which was a white paradise!’ It has been suggested that ‘racism as a racial ideology owes its origin - in our Western cultural history - to attempts at a moral justification of slavery as a social institution’. From this basis it easily developed in South Africa to a defence mechanism and justification for racial prejudice and apartheid, namely ‘the preservation and safeguarding of vested (in this case ‘white’) interests.’
That Georg Schmidt baptised Khoi brought a new dimension of resentment towards missionaries. The German pioneer had initially been scorned and mocked for daring to attempt to civilize Khoi. Now he was resented because of his moralising around their drinking and immoral life-style. That he actually succeeded not only in baptising the ‘Wilden’, but also in teaching them to read the New Testament called forth massive hatred. So many of them were still illiterate!!!

2. The World’s first indigenous female Church Planter4

Two of Georg Schmidt’s converts in Baviaanskloof were God’s special instruments to impact Cape church history. Much to his surprise an intelligent, strong-willed woman wanted to become a follower of Jesus. Schmidt had to overcome his own sexist prejudices.
Schmidt initially only attended to males. At first he found only three men suitable for baptism and thereafter two more persons. In the conversion and baptism of the strong-willed female convert, Vehettge Tikkuie, there was a clear supernatural element. Schmidt only proceeded to test her Bible knowledge on 4 April 1742. Quite prejudiced against females, he did not expect much, but Schmidt was very surprised by her answers. He had little choice than to baptize the intelligent Khoi woman as well, giving her the name Magdalena,5 surely hoping that she would spread the news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ like her biblical namesake. She had been exceptional, progressing quickly from the Dutch ABC manual, to read the New Testament in that language.

Germination of Gospel Seed
The seed that Schmidt sowed at the Cape during his stint of not even seven years germinated, both in the Mother City and in Baviaanskloof, the later Genadendal. Schmidt was said to have been a man of strong faith and very prayerful. Apparently his prayerful example rubbed off on his converts. In fact, colonists told his two colleagues Nitchmann and Eller admiringly during their stay in Cape Town en route from Ceylon, how Schmidt succeeded ‘to teach a Hottentot to pray as he has done. They actually retire from time to time to pray in solitude’. Many years later, Khoi Christians shared that Magdalena was often found on her knees in prayer.
Andreas Sparrman, a Swedish traveller in the Cape Colony during 1775 to 1776, reported how he had heard of an aged Khoi lady, who was building on the foundations laid by a German missionary. On Sundays ‘de oude Lena’ would walk to the pear tree where the pioneer missionary had preached, to read the New Testament and pray with her folk. Almost 50 years after Schmidt had left, Khoi witnesses said that they came together at her home every evening where she prayed with them. In addition to this, she taught the believers from her New Testament.
At the deathbed of another believer who had been baptized by Schmidt, Ds. van Lier, the new young evangelical minister of the Groote Kerk, was deeply moved. He saw how this Khoi believer died ‘in volkome rus en vrede van sy siel en in vertroue op die Here.’6
At the arrival of three new Moravian missionaries, Christian Kühnel, Hendrik Marsveld and Daniel Schwinn on Christmas Eve 1792, Baviaanskloof Khoi had the New Testament ready that ‘de oude Lena’ received from Georg Schmidt. Magdalena herself could no longer read, due to failing eyesight, but the woman whom she had taught ‘opened the sacred volume and read the second chapter of Matthew’s Gospel with considerable fluency’. Even though Magdalena could not remember anything Georg Schmidt had taught her personally, her example and teaching was evidently still in operation.
When the missionaries came to the region where Georg Schmidt had baptized his five converts 50 years prior to their arrival, they found a fellowship that had been held together by the prayerful Magdalena. The mission station, which was established there, was later called Genadendal. If we take the finance minister of Ethiopia mentioned in Acts 8 as the absolute first indigenous evangelist, we can still say that our very own Magdalena was definitely the first one in Sub Saharan Africa. She definitely was the first indigenous female church planter of all time.
The Council of Seventeen in Amsterdam dreaded Schmidt’s possible return, ‘lest another Church than the Reformed should be established at the Cape’. How powerfully Schmidt had evangelized, is further evidenced by the actions of Hendrik Cloete, the owner of Groot Constantia, who had been impacted as a juvenile under Schmidt’s ministry in 1738. When the new Moravian missionaries arrived in 1792, Cloete supported them against the Cape church people when they used flimsy reasons to attack the missionary endeavour. Thus Ds Meent Borcherds and his Church Council was to have asserted - probably initially in jest –that the bell of the church in Genadendal was being heard in Stellenbosch, more than 50 kilometres away.

Dynamic Teaching and its results
After the pristine resumption of the work bythe three new missionaries in Baviaanskloof, they succeeded in special ways to tap into the giftings of the indigenous Khoi. One of these special gifts was song. A contemporary believer reported: ‘I enjoyed somewhat of heavenly rapture during their songs of thanksgiving … singing together, or responsively, with such melody, that I could not but feel a taste of celestial bliss.’
In old age ‘de oude Lena’ (Magdalena) impacted Machteld Smit(h) when the committed missionary helper accompanied Ds Vos to Baviaanskloof in 1797. Machteld Smith reported her special devotion to the Lord as follows: ‘… her heart evidently overflowed with grateful affection towards a crucified Redeemer, whilst confessing his grace with her aged lips’.
The aged Lena obviously was one of Schmidt’s very special pupils. Although probably only semi-literate, she became the driving force towards a culture of learning in a sea of ignorance, a time when many Cape colonists were still illiterate.

Change of Attitudes
The January 1797 visit to Baviaanskloof by Ds. Vos with Machteld Smith, Jan Jacob van Zulch and other mission friends for a few days caused a marked changed of public opinion. A few weeks later, farmers told the missionaries of a revival among them, caused by this visit. The colonist farmers who a few years prior to this event had been ready to attack and destroy the mission institution now asked for permission to attend the worship at Baviaanskloof. They even requested that one of the missionaries should come and live among them. Twenty-five years later this request was fulfilled, leading to the establishment of the mission station Elim, which became the southern-most village of the continent in due course. Some farmers introduced family prayers for the whole community on their farms, which caused the Khoi to prefer them to other employers. The attitude and stance of Ds. Meent Borcherds, once a fierce opponent of the Moravian brethren, changed after his study of their Bishop Spangenberg’s doctrinal exposition Idea Fidei Fratrum, even to the extent that he apologized to a visiting Moravian brother for his earlier behaviour.
The Governor granted permission to cut 20 wagon loads of timber in the State forests for the building of a church at Baviaanskloof. The feelings between colonists and missionaries became so harmonious that 100 Whites from the neighbourhood were present in the church on Christmas Day 1799, many of them together with their slaves. On 8 January 1800 the sanctuary was formally opened. Soon large numbers of colonists were attending services there habitually.

A Breakthrough: indigenous Teachers
De Oude Lena provided the basis for sound teaching at Genadendal in general. The town
owes its first school building to Sir John Cradock, the successor of Earl John Caledon as Cape Governor. Being an educationalist himself, Cradock endeavoured to increase and improve the schools in the colony. He supplied the Moravians with a booklet An Account of the Progress of Joseph Lancaster’s Plan for the Education of poor Children. The system devised by Lancaster to instruct a great number of children inexpensively, remained the basis of the Moravian mission schools for a long time.
The Swede Hans-Peter Hallbeck became the Genadendal superintendent in 1817. He was to become the first Moravian bishop based in Africa. The contribution of Hallbeck in the field of education was completely revolutionary, as he made use of intelligent learners to assist him. Thus he used Maria Koopman, the wife of the local Khoi captain and a young girl who unfortunately later drowned in the Sondereind River.
Also ordained as a Bishop, Hallbeck initiated the creation of an indigenous mission church by the establishment of a training school at Genadendal. He not only adopted a local orphan, Ezekiel Pfeiffer, but he also decided to train him and another indigenous boy, Wilhelm Pleizier. The two did so well that Hallbeck decided to train them to become teachers to their own people. In September 1831, an infant school started in Genadendal with Hallbeck, Pfeiffer, Pleizier and a German female as teachers.
The gifted Ezekiel Pfeiffer was soon transferred to the primary school which at that stage had been manned only by missionaries. Hallbeck raved about Pfeiffer in 1834, praising his ‘grote getrouwheid as onderwyser… asof hy hom by vernuwing aan die Here toegewy het’.7 Hallbeck was so impressed at the quality of the teaching at the school that he suggested that the children of missionaries should not be sent to Germany in future. Some of the neighbouring farmers applied for the admission of their children to the school.
Hallbeck’s vision received a major push when a German mission friend from the nobility, Prince Victor von Schönburg-Waldenburg, granted 20,000 thaler (guilders) for a training school. Prince Victor maintained a healthy interest in the training institution.8 The Kweekschool at Genadendal was the first of its kind, even before there was one for Whites and the first training institution for teachers on the African continent. Ezekiel Pfeiffer was among the first to be appointed to train new teachers when the Moravians started the Kweekskool in 1838.

Theological and Teacher Training
The other two German-based mission agencies (the Rhenish and Berlin Societies) were soon also sending their converts for training in Genadendal. Theological training was an integral part of the programme. The emphasis was on church planting rather than church building. The protégées from the training institution left for places all over the colony, even to the Eastern Cape. Thus one finds Genadendal-trained Johannes Nakin, starting with Samuel Mazwi at the school in Shiloh in 1854 where once the dynamic Wilhelmina Stompjes and Johann Adolph Bonatz had pioneered. Naturally, the Moravians would have been expected to produce the first indigenous minister. Instead, Johannes Nakin for example, was ordained only in 1883 - almost thirty years after leaving Genadendal!9 All over the world the Moravians concentrated on establishing committed believers instead of establishing new congregations.10
The link of the Kweekskool to the church would influence the Cape for more than a century as teachers trained at Genadendal led ‘Coloured’ society in all walks of life.11
3. A City minister with vision

At the end of the nineteenth century the Mother City did not compare badly in relation to what was happening in other parts of the world. This was mainly due to the efforts of a major role player in the evangelization at the Cape, Dr Helperus Ritzema van Lier, who arrived at the Cape in 1786. He was onlly 22 years old at the time. The conversion of Van Lier was the result of the faithful prayers of his mother. In Holland he had narrowly escaped death after breaking through ice. After the sudden death of his fiancée, Van Lier sensed a call of God on his life, hereafter enrolling for theological training.
Van Lier was one of the first persons of his era to regard indigenous believers and Christian slaves as potential missionaries.

Influences on Van Lier
Officially Dr van Lier was appointed as the third minister of the Groote Kerk. He found fertile ground among a group of Christians at the Cape, including a group of pietistic Lutherans, the spiritual descendants of those believers who had been impacted by the short stint of Georg Schmidt, more than 40 years before Van Lier’s arrival. Quite soon after his arrival at the Cape, the legacy of Schmidt worked through into Van Lier’s life powerfully when he was present at the deathbed of one of the missionary pioneer’s converts. This expereience made such a deep impression on Van Lier that he mentioned it in one of his letters to his uncle, Professor Petrus Hofstede, an influential academic in Rotterdam, who at that stage was still an opponent of the Moravian brethren. (Initially Van Lier had been unsuccessful in convincing his learned uncle to use his influence to have the Moravians resume their missionary work in Baviaanskloof.)
Van Lier was encouraged and inspired by Moravians in yet another way. In 1787 the boat carrying their Bishop J.F. Reichel en route to Germany from India, made a stop at the Cape. It would have been natural for Reichel to share something of the Moravians’ passion for the lost. Van Lier was already deeply moved that so many ‘heathens fell victim to the Muslims’, the consequence of a 1770 decree. Many colonists actively encouraged slaves to become Muslims as a direct result of this ‘placaat’, which prohibited the sale of baptized slaves. Reichel’s visit spurred Van Lier and all his followers on to do something about the spiritual welfare of the Khoi and the slaves. Conversely, Reichel took the challenge of a possible resumption of the missionary work in the Cape Colony back to Herrnhut.

Local Impact of the prayerful Van Lier
That he was only the third pastor (in rank) at the Groote Kerk gave Van Lier opportunity to do the spadework for what later became known as the South African Mission Society (SAMS), the first missions’ agency outside of Europe. The Lord used Van Lier to bring about a revolution in the attitude of many White believers towards slaves and other people of colour. Slaves were initially not allowed near the entrance of the church after the closing of services, and they were punished if they dared to attend the funeral of one of the colonists. The prejudice against missionaries was still prevalent when Van Lier arrived, but the youthful minister boldly challenged the church through his fiery sermons and personal example. The young dominee literally rocked the lethargic church at the Cape, shortening the duration of sermons and prayers during church services. He also increased house visitation, and believers were encouraged to become involved with the spreading of the Gospel. The historian Theal reports that when Van Lier was preaching, people hardly dared to sleep in church because ‘at times it seemed as if he would jump from the pulpit’. His preaching was furthermore ‘full of earnest appeals’ and ‘…women were often moved to tears, and sometimes fell into hysterics’. Van Lier was very zealous, spending much of his time visiting people from door to door, holding prayer meetings and encouraging charity.
As early as 1788 various people in Cape Town and its surroundings set aside one day in the week for the religious teaching of ‘the heathen’. Cape Town evangelicals were among the worldwide leaders of missions awareness - not far behind the Moravians of Herrnhut in Germany and Bethlehem (Pennsylvania, USA). A local newspaper, the Zuid-Afrikaansche Tijdschrift, wrote that ‘while people in many parts of Europe were still discussing whether slaves and heathen should believe and whether they could be taught, they had already started with that work in this Colony.’ Church members met on certain days of the week for prayer and mutual edification, also giving religious teaching to the slaves and Khoi in their service.
Dr van Lier was a world Christian. When he heard in 1790 that the Dutch East India Company contemplated to ‘christianize the various races in their vast possessions’, he immediately wrote once more to his uncle, Petrus Hofstede, offering to collect 50,000 guilders in South Africa towards the capital required. That says a lot for Van Lier’s confidence in the sacrificial giving potential of the Cape Christians of his era.
Quite a few believers, who later became prominent in evangelistic outreach, received their training under Van Lier. There was, for instance, Jan Jakob van Zulch, who later laboured among slaves and other ‘heathen’ in Wagenmakersvallei (later called Wellington). Then there was Machteld Smit(h), the pioneer of the first Sunday School for slave children and later co-worker of Ds.M.C. Vos in Tulbagh.
The education of the youth was dear to Van Lier’s heart. He started classes in Latin and French in 1791 to prepare young men for theological studies in Holland. Jan Christoffel Berrange had already left in 1788 for Leiden to be trained as minister. Others followed him, including Jacobus Henricus Beck, who became the first pastor of the Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht.
Van Lier was a great visionary, discerning the need for learning the heart language of the people to be reached with the Gospel. He was one of the first Dutchmen to start learning Malayu, the trade language, with the object of reaching out to the Cape Muslim slaves.

The international Influence of Van Lier
The young preacher Van Lier almost single-handedly set the evangelical world ablaze. His letters from the Cape to Europe were very influential indeed. His testimony - in the form of six letters to Rev. John Newton - was originally written in Latin and translated by the well-known poet William Cowper. The title of the booklet in English is The Power of Grace, illustrated in six letters from a Minister of the Reformed church to the Rev. John Newton. Van Lier’s story of the influence of divine grace in his life seems to have made a lasting impression on Newton who belonged to the inner circle of (slave) abolitionists.12 Van Lier’s humility led him to insist that a pseudonym Christodoulus (slave of Christ), and not his own name, should be used at the publication of his letters to Rev. Newton.
Various Van Lier letters had the goal of getting Moravian missionaries back to the Cape. After initially failing to sway his uncle, the Rotterdam clergyman and academic Petrus Hofstede (1716-1803) into action on this score, Van Lier wrote to Ds. Hubert in Amsterdam.
It is only natural that the prayer chain – twenty four hours a day, seven days a week - at Herrnhut, would have included intercession for their Bishop Reichel on his trip to the East. But no one could probably have envisaged that this would lead so soon to the resumption of their missionary at Baviaanskloof. This was partly due to the mission-minded new dominee whom Reichel had met at the Cape.
Van Lier’s correspondence continued to have an impact in Europe. Through his evangelical zeal he definitely laid the foundations for the founding of a Cape missionary society.
Tragically, Van Lier was not around to see the actual founding of the South African Mission Society (SAMS) in April 1799. He had died of tuberculosis in March 1793 at the age of only twenty- eight. Ds. Vos, who was later to become the first foreign missionary of South African origin, took over where the missions-minded Dr van Lier had left off. 13

Further results of Van Lier’s Ministry
A major result of Van Lier’s ministry was that local Christians became involved in missionary outreach. At different homes and further afield, the Gospel was spread by people who were impacted by Van Lier, long after he had passed away. In an annual report on missionary work in 1799 we read of three houses in the city where slaves were taught in the Scriptures. It also mentions work in Stellenbosch, Wagenmakersvallei (later Wellington) and Land van Waveren, i.e. the region which had the present-day Tulbagh as its centre.
James Read, a missionary of the London Missionary Society (LMS), wrote soon after his arrival at the Cape in a letter from ‘Wagonmaker’s Valley’ on 3 November 1800 about the beginnings of the work there by J.J. van Zulch, one of those led to the Lord by Van Lier. Van Zulch was a colonist who had been advised by a doctor in 1796 that the countryside would be beneficial to his health. Read narrated how the area was spiritually dead when Van Zulch arrived there. ‘It resembled the valley of Ezechiel, full of dead bones: both white and black, both Christians and heathens …’ But being a man ‘full of the Holy Ghost and faith’, Van Zulch surely did not labour in vain. In 1800 Read reported on three hundred people meeting there, predominantly slaves and Khoi, some of whom ‘are even well-established in their faith.’
Machteld Smith, a widow, was to have a big influence in the lives of many. She bought a plot in Tulbagh on which she had a meeting+ house erected for outreach to the less privileged. On Sunday afternoons she soon had 150 to 180 people gathered there. Ds. Vos would preach, while she undertook the further instruction of those who had been touched by the Gospel.
The German Martin Melck and Dr Jan Morel were two evangelicals at Stellenbosch with a direct link to Dr van Lier. Melck had already been instrumental in the beginnings of the Lutheran Church in Strand Street in the Mother City, when he started with secret services in a ‘warehouse’ in 1774. (Although there were many Germans at the Cape by 1700, they were not permitted to have their own church. It took the Lutherans almost 40 years of petitioning until they were finally allowed to bring their own minister to the Cape and to have their own worship in 1779.) Meuwes Janse Bakker settled in Stellenbosch after he miraculously survived a shipwreck off the coast of South America. He decided to devote his life to missionary work among the ‘heathen’ at the Cape, buying a house in Dorp Street in
1798. Bakker immediately taught a few slave children there. When the SAMS started at the ZA Gesticht in the Mother City, he and the deacon, J.N. Desch, became the correspondents in Stellenbosch. Desch conducted, at his own cost, a school for slave children - after the Church Council adopted the resolution that ‘slave children also shall be instructed in reading and in the elements of the Christian religion.’ In spite of the reluctance of Meent Borcherds, their dominee, Bakker was supported by the Church Council, becoming in no time the SAMS missionary in Stellenbosch. Slaves attended the afternoon services in his home, which soon became too small. Bakker left for further training in missionary work in Holland the next year, returning in 1801 with one special goal: that his property would be used for the extension of the Kingdom. That became the beginning of the Rhenish Mission, where P.D. Lückhoff was a prominent missionary. In the same year the Stellenbosch Mission Society was started, only two years after the SAMS and the Tulbagh Mission Society.

The crown of Van Lier’s ministry
The crown of Van Lier’s ministry has surely been the result that many South Africans started to go into the mission fields themselves. Ds. Vos, who went to Ceylon, cannot be added to Van Lier’s ‘scalps’. He had been called by God independently as a juvenile. His ‘heart was grieved at the neglect of the immortal souls’ of the Cape slaves. Cornelis Kramer was the first Cape Christian to offer his services for missionary service. Originally he wanted to proceed to Holland to study for the ministry, but the call to accompany the missionaries who were proceeding northward seemed so clear, that he dropped his original intentions, joining the British missionary William Anderson. Kramer helped to start the mission station Klaarwater, which became the focus of the missionary work amongst the Griquas.
Jan M. Kok was the next Cape missionary of the Van Lier era and the first Coloured. He had to fight against racial prejudice because he was the son of a German colonist and a slave woman.14 He had to overcome many obstacles before he could be sent to the Briquas (or Bechuanas as they were subsequently called), was the next. Kok’s heart was ‘aglow for Jesus’ in the Ceder Mountains and he took up missionary work on his own initiative. The mixed-bred missionary displayed tenacity and perseverance. It would seem that he had decided to embark on the mission any way, without waiting any longer for authorisation from the SAMS or for official permission to cross the colonial boundary. Yet, after several attempts, Kok obtained permission to accompany the British missionary Edward Edwards. Mr Truter, a DRC church elder for many years, admired Kok’s ‘extempore expounding of the Gospel in the desert from an illiterate man.’ Kok became the first known ‘martyr’ of Southern Africa, murdered by two of the workers, apparently because of a dispute over remuneration.
In 1794 Dominee Vos returned from Holland. There he had been touched by the Holy Spirit, to return to his home country and minister to the slaves and the Khoi. Although he soon moved to Roodezand (Tulbagh), his influence was felt all over the Western Cape. In the Mother City itself, Machteld Smith, a widow that had been discipled by Van Lier, was performing a similar role to that of Magdalena Tikkuie in Genadendal. God used her - along with Ds.Vos as the main role players - to advance the evangelical cause until the SAMS was formally constituted in 1799. The first missionaries of the SAMS at the Cape were significantly not ordained in the Groote Kerk, or even Stellenbosch but in Roodezand (Tulbagh), where Vos was the minister. It therefore comes as no surprise to find that a second missionary was initiated on 3 October 1799 in Tulbagh, in the home of Machteld Smith in the presence of forty-seven church members.
There is clear evidence that some Christians at the Cape comprehended the biblical implications that the Gospel had to be brought to the uttermost parts of the earth. As early as 1804 to 1809, Rev. M.C. Vos - born and raised in the Western Cape - operated as a missionary both in India and Ceylon.
4. Opposition to missionary work

The respective colonial governments at the Cape had one thing in common – their opposition to missionary work. In the opinion of the authorities missionaries were meant to serve the state, full stop. And Christian outreach was to be done as far away as possible from any colonial settlement. Initially the colonists likewise opposed all missionary work, feeling themselves morally condemned. They were also envious because of the education given to people they had regarded as inferior by miles.
With labour at a premium, the farmers were of course quite concerned to see a steady drift of Khoi towards Baviaanskloof after the resumption of ministry there by the three new Moravian missionaries, Christian Kühnel, Hendrik Marsveld and Daniel Schwinn in 1792. The prejudice was easily fed that the mission station ‘was fast becoming a refuge for the idle, the discontented and the thieving’. At the same time it appears that the missionaries did very little to remove the distrust they encountered. It should also be mentioned however that the missionaries had ‘a host of well-wishers’ in Cape Town. There was for instance Hendrik Cloete from the farm Constantia, who travelled all the way to Baviaanskloof ‘and by his kind mediation procured some relief for the Brethren from obnoxious Government regulations.’

Dutch Opposition to Missionary Work
An interesting feature was the involvement of a few Stellenbosch believers, in spite of resistance to the missionary work of Ds.Meent Borcherds. After the arrival of the three Moravian missionaries, the Kerkeraad petitioned the government ‘that the further extension of this sect (Moravians) might be opposed…and the (three) missionaries directed to withdraw to a district in which no Christian congregation was yet established.’ Two members of the Church Council, the elder Groenewald and the deacon Desch, took exception to the petition. They put their protest to paper, noting that Baviaanskloof is ‘sufficiently distant from the church of Stellenbosch.’

Abraham Sluysken, who tried to keep together a very fragile government at the Cape, continued in the same vein of opposing the Moravians, by refusing permission to build a church. This was followed by a petition of racist colonists of the Overberg region who called themselves Nationalists, to prohibit the Moravian missionaries from further instruction to the Khoi. Because many colonists were ‘van onderwijs... verstoken’ (had been debarred from education, thus more or less illiterate), it was regarded as ‘...niet billijk dat de Hottentotten wijzer werden gemaakt dan zij’.15
The conscription of the indigenous pandoere, who fought in the battle of Muizenberg against the British in 1795, cannot be described as a deliberate attempt to hinder the missionary work. However, the threat of expropriation of Baviaanskloof sent Moravian missionary Hendrik Marsveld scurrying to the Mother City. The reply to him surely led to much prayer in Baviaanskloof : ‘The Company in the Fatherland (wanted the missionaries) to go to the Bosjesmans to make peace’.16 This was a typical practice of the colonial governments, to abuse missionaries as go-betweens to subdue the indigenous peoples.
Marsveld returned to Baviaanskloof far from reassured. The authorities would not even enter into negotiations so that the mission could buy the land. God sovereignly over-ruled, when the Moravians were allowed to keep their property - and even more important - they could continue their missionary work there.

British Opposition to Missionary Work
At that time the mission station was threatened from another side. While the Baviaanskloof pandoere were absent - and engaged in the military defence of the colony at Muizenberg - envious colonists of the area, the Overberg, were conspiring to invade and destroy the mission station. By 18 July 1795, by which time Baviaanskloof started to resemble a European village, the situation had become very tense. Because of rumours of an imminent raid, the missionaries were ‘seriously contemplating to abandon the station’.
A. Pisani, one of the colonists, put force to their petition, giving the missionaries three days to vacate Baviaanskloof. On 3 August 1795 they fled to Cape Town. The missionaries returned when it seemed as if the danger had abated, but in February 1796 there was another threat of an attack and a rumour that the Khoi would be driven from Baviaanskloof. Firm reassurances from Major-General James Craig, the British military Commander, who appeared unafraid to use force, kept the racist colonists at bay.
The mission-minded Ds.Michiel Christiaan Vos, who became the minister for Swartberg (Caledon) after a stint in Holland and Ceylon, brought about some change in the views and attitudes of the colonists of the vicinity. Yet, it is sad to read that under the first British occupation (1795 to 1803), the Fiscal refused permission to the SAM Directors to take a collection in aid of their work at the weekly prayer meeting. Mr Willem van Ryneveld, the Fiscal, had previously promised the first four missionaries of the LMS ‘all possible aid and protection.’ Furthermore, when leave was asked to send Jan M. Kok as a missionary to the ‘Bushmen’, as the San were called, the reply of the Fiscal was that it was against the law to proceed beyond the boundaries of the Colony.
We are aware that the issue of slavery was very much intertwined with the secular history of the time. Maart, a slave from Mozambique, was blessed ‘with strong intellectual endowments’. He responded so well to the five years of Christian teaching under Ds. M. C. Vos that the London Missionary Society (LMS) considered educating him ‘... to qualify him to accompany some other missionaries to ... introduce into his native country ... that gospel… ’ The missionary Henricus Maanenberg was forced, however, to suspend instruction to Maart because of a ban on teaching reading and writing to ‘heathen’. The blame for the ban should possibly not be laid solely at the feet of the secular authorities. It is reported that Ds.Christiaan Fleck, one of the Groote Kerk ministers, complained that Maanenberg wanted to teach slaves: ‘for this we do not need special missionaries ... because the church council has appointed persons for that purpose’.17 Furthermore, Maanenberg and some of his Cape missionary colleagues were not blameless either. The respected colonist Daniel Krynauw, who ostensibly had difficulties with writing, took the trouble to put thoughts on paper. In the vein of Paul’s letter to the first century Christians, Krynauw made it clear that he did not intend ‘om de Broeders te bedroeven … alleen ten uwer leeringen’, not to sadden them but to teach them. He singled out the missionaries Smit, Tromp and Maanenberg, contrasting them to Kicherer, although he felt it necessary to point out that there was not enough work for three missionaries at the Zak River, where Kicherer was labouring.

The subtle Opposition of the ‘Batavians’
One suspects sour grapes on the part of the Dutch authorities because of Maanenberg’s success. Jacob Abraham De Mist arrived in February 1803 as Governor of the ‘Batavian Republic’. He clearly saw a threat in the expanding missionary activities. De Mist’s reaction to a memorandum handed to him by the directors of the South African Missionary Society (SAMS) may have influenced Maanenberg to resign. He went to live outside the city. De Mist’s opposition to missionary work turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because directors of the SAMS started opening their homes for the teaching of slaves. Some of them, like Pieter Le Roux, became involved personally and finally they started training slaves for missionary work. Maart, the slave of Ds.Vos, was one of the most capable ones to be used.
Yet, De Mist and Janssens, the Batavian Governors, appeared quite ‘tolerant’ in religious matters. In fact, De Mist jotted down some progressive notions in his Memorie over de Caab, 1802 before he took office. Thus he suggested that the ‘aborigines’ of the Cape should be employed on a voluntary basis and paid a good wage. But being a Grand Master of the Freemasons, it is not surprising that he simultaneously opposed evangelistic activity in the city. In a special paragraph on the Herrnhutters (the Moravians) his ‘vision’ comes through of how religion had to be (ab)used. First of all the Khoi must be kept happy. Then they must be taught to be dutiful. Yet, De Mist was still a child of his time. The Khoi were expected to become ‘gehoorzaam aan het Gouverment’ (loyal to the government). De Mist wanted the Moravian missionaries to subdue the Khoi, to make them docile, subservient citizens.
Sadly, there was no attempt to baptize Maart or to set the gifted slave free, neither by Ds.Vos nor the LMS in whose service Maart worked as an associate evangelist for a further seven years. He was only baptized after the intervention of the missionary Dr Johannes van der Kemp. Or were Vos and the LMS dictated to by the force of the general custom, an earlier version of the South African way of life? Hendrik Marsveld, a Moravian missionary who arrived in 1792, referred to an ‘atmosphere of mutual distrust’ between missionaries and colonists.
The SAMS directors, however, were nevertheless eager to get the Gospel to the slaves. They appointed Aart Antonij van der Lingen on 6 April 1803 for that purpose in the town. He was however promptly forbidden by De Mist to preach or teach slaves. Van der Lingen was only allowed to give support to missionaries who operated three dagreizen (days of travelling) from existing churches and congregations. At this time Stellenbosch, Drakenstein (Paarl), Zwartland (Malmesbury), Wagenmagersvallei (Wellington) and Roodezand (Tulbagh) were already flourishing congregations. Three days of travelling from all these places would have taken Van der Lingen quite deep into the interior.
While De Mist was absent on an official journey, the SAMS directors approached his colleague Jan Willem Janssens about the consecration of the new sanctuary that had been built for the slaves. The Z.A. Gesticht, the inter-denominational church in Long Street, was formally taken into use on 15 March 1804. It is said that when De Mist heard of the ZA Gesticht building erected in his absence, he cried in fury: ‘May fire from heaven consume it!’ A colonist responded in 1824 in the Nederlandsch-Zuid Afrikaansche Tijdschrift: ‘But what he wished as an evil has come upon us for good. The fire of God has indeed descended and (as we trust) has melted many sinners’ hearts.’

Resumed British Opposition to Missionary Work
The Earl of Caledon, the first Governor of the Cape in 1806, appeared quite concerned that the ignorance of the slaves could leave them a ‘prey... to the missionary zeal of the Mohammedan priests’. But hardly anything was done to counter this in a loving way.
Allowing for the luxury of criticizing people who lived in a completely different era, the real concern of Caledon, however, has to be questioned. When the South African Missionary Society (SAMS) requested permission to instruct the slaves at the Cape, Caledon replied that the SAMS would be better advised to put its strength into mission undertakings at a distance from Cape Town. What was his logic?
Caledon did seem to redeem himself quite substantially on this score though, because already in 1807 he offered the Moravians the government farm Groene Kloof, a mere 50 kilometres away. The missionaries however doubted his motives, suspecting that the government intended to harness them before its own carriage. The conference at Genadendal submitted a number of conditions before accepting the offer. Amongst other things, it asked for freedom of worship and the right to eject people who were unwilling to submit to their discipline.
Lord Charles Somerset, the Cape Governor from 1814, became known to be an adversary of Dr Philip, the LMS superintendent. However, the strong-willed Dr Philip would probably have clashed with any other ruler. Somerset attempted to counter the Dutch influence in the church by bringing in British Presbyterian clergymen. The likes of the prayerful Andrew Murray, father of the famous namesake, effectively curtailed Somerset’s well-meant but bigoted nationalism. Due to this influence, the Cape became possibly the first truly bilingual society outside of Europe.
The Unity Elders Conference in Germany, which governed the Moravian missionary work internationally, decided to send Christian Ignatius La Trobe, the Secretary of the Moravians in Great Britain, to inspect the work at the Cape. Among his friends were Rowland Hill of the London Missionary Society, and the evangelical parliamentarian William Wilberforce. After La Trobe had interceded in London, Somerset was censured and instructed to grant the necessary security for Groene Kloof. In his reply however, the despotic Governor suggested that the Khoi inhabitants should be transferred to Genadendal.
La Trobe was a cheerful Christian and full of enthusiasm for the missionary work. He could ‘negotiate with people like Lord Charles Somerset on the same level, but also converse with an illiterate Hottentot in a simple and brotherly fashion’. When he was visiting Lord Charles Somerset, La Trobe won his favour at once, turning his unfriendly attitude towards the Moravians into emphatic support.
The difficulties with Groene Kloof were solved and permission was granted to build a church. La Trobe’s recommendation to the Mission leaders in Herrnhut that an English-speaking brother be sent to the Cape, was to have massive positive implications. Bishop Hans-Peter Hallbeck, a Swede who had been working in England, revolutionised work in South Africa, taking Genadendal and Moravian missionary work to another level.
Somerset also prohibited a missionary - the Methodist Barnabas Shaw - from preaching to slaves at the Cape. He had similarly refused the Methodist missionary John McKenny, Shaw’s predecessor, permission to exercise the duties of a Christian minister to the slaves.18 After waiting in vain for such permission for 18 months, McKenny finally left for Ceylon - the present-day Sri Lanka. Barnabas Shaw courageously defied the order - ‘determined to commence preaching’ even without Somerset’s permission (Mears, 1973:15). It is not clear whether Shaw actually preached to slaves. He did preach to soldiers ‘with the knowledge of the Governor’, but Somerset probably decided not to make an issue out of that. In his zeal for preaching, Shaw had no match. On a typical Sunday he preached six times in English or Dutch. Through his endeavours three Methodist Church circuits evolved, namelyCape Town, Wynberg and Simonstown.

Colonist Opposition
As we have seen, the slaves were perceived as property at the Cape. Even otherwise exemplary missionaries/clergymen like Michiel C. Vos not only owned slaves, but these Christians were also subtly influenced by their prejudicial upbringing. Dr Johannes van der Kemp, the leader of the first London Missionary Society (LMS) missionaries, directed new missionaries to a certain Mr Krynauw rather than to Ds.M.C. Vos, since he considered the dominee ‘to be not altogether free from the common … (colonist) prejudices against the heathen nations.’
The Moravian missionaries stayed clear of public debate over slavery and oppressive laws, cleverly theologising around it. Thus their Bishop Hans Peter Hallbeck, called slavery the blackest of evils, which must certainly lead to the destruction of any country. But the brethren did not feel themselves called to fight it. ‘To become slaves to the slaves and free men to the free, in order to win some for Christ’, was their attitude. This was an ingenious application of 1 Corinthians 3:19ff). Furthermore, Hallbeck regarded oppressive laws as great evils. He did not remain quiet about the pass laws, but only refrained from publicly opposing them in the newspapers. In press polemics - during which Marthinus Theunissen, a neighbouring farmer, attacked the Moravians under a pseudonym - Hallbeck restrained himself, refraining from takinglegal steps. In official correspondence he preserved Theunissen’s anonymity.
The pastors at the Cape lacked the courage to challenge the colonists with the Pauline teaching that they had to see the believers among the slaves as family in Christ. Instead, the slaves were conveniently pointed to their duties in subordination and obedience. This sad fact represents a major factor of debt towards the Cape Muslims, so that vital tenets of the Gospel have thus been withheld from them.

The compassionate Ministry of the LMS
The compassionate work of London Missionary Society (LMS) missionaries like Rev. James Read and Dr Johannes van der Kemp on behalf of the underdog slaves had the moral power of biblical truth on their side. They were however often opposed by their missionary colleagues. The battle that raged at the Cape around the Khoi and the slaves – in which Dr van der Kemp and Dr Philip, who arrived in 1819 to be the superintendent of the work of the LMS, had a big hand - had worldwide ramifications. It aided the worthy cause of the abolition of slavery. (Dr John Philip discerned that the abolition of the slave trade in 1808 caused the price of slaves to rise, leading to the enserfment of the Khoisan. Between 1808 and 1826 the price of slaves rose by 400%.)
During Dr Philip’s visit to England in 1826, he met the evangelical parliamentarian Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton. The latter had close links to William Wilberforce, the staunch fighter for the complete emancipation of slaves. In his subsequent correspondence with Buxton, Dr Philip already linked the slave issue to the situation of the Khoisan in the Cape Colony in his first comprehensive report on the LMS stations. However, he did make a distinction between the problems experienced with the Khoisan and those pertaining to slaves. The publication of Philip’s biased two-volume Researches in South Africa was an important factor in the run-up not only to the Great Trek of colonists to the interior, but also to the final emancipation of slaves worldwide.19
Dr Philip’s role in the proclamation of Ordinance 50 of 1828 has sometimes been exaggerated. John Philip however definitely played a crucial role in the run-up to this document, and he became a prime mover both in the eventual formal abolition of slavery in 1834 and in its implementation at the Cape in 1838. Ordinance 50 dramatically changed the legal standing of the Khoisan, putting them on an equal footing with the colonists. It is doubtful that William Wilberforce would have been able to die with satisfaction after his half a century of pioneering the battle against slavery, if he had not received the support from the Cape.

Negative Legacies of LMS work
Dr Philip caused much of the strain missionaries later had to experience. He had barely been in Cape Town when he made rash assertions, which rubbed colonists and the authorities up the wrong way. Complaints mentioned by him in a letter to the Acting Governor, Sir Rufane Donkin, proved to be unfounded.
Dr Philip furthermore undermined his own efforts by the unloving manner in which he presented his case. His writing - painting the picture at the Cape in a distorted way, exaggerating things here and there - became one of the causes of the Great Trek, as expounded by the Voortrekker leader Piet Retief in his manifesto. All LMS emissaries of the Gospel were hereafter suspect in the eyes of the colonists, while the Moravian mission at Genadendal became the model. This diabolic situation was a direct result of Dr Philip’s harsh criticism of the colonists. Not so long before him the Moravian missionaries had also been villains in the eyes of colonists - accused of ‘corrupting the Khoisan and encouraging laziness’. The absolute distancing of themselves from politics was a tradition of the Moravians. This was not always helpful, making it difficult for the LMS missionaries to make a clear prophetic stand on ethical and racial issues. Because of their a-political role the Moravian missionary work suddenly became the role model. The precedent was set for the unbiblical notion ‘not to mix politics with religion.’
The manner in which Dr Johannes van der Kemp and Dr John Philip presented their case exacerbated negative feelings towards missionaries. They somehow failed to translate the biblical message of the brotherhood of all believers. Had they done this, it might have made Ordinance 50, which made Khoi and slaves equal to the colonists before the law - more palatable. In the view of the colonists the financial losses incurred due to the emancipation of slaves was the result of the lies and distortions of Dr Philip and his LMS cronies.
The other side of the coin was that the LMS missionaries regarded the civilization of the ‘primitive’ indigenous peoples as a significant motive in the spreading of the Gospel. White domination seemed to be primary, and colonial expansion an important part of their ministry.

Tension and Rivalry between Mission Agencies
As deplorable as it was that Dr Philip gave ‘partial and mutilated extracts from official documents’, it has to be regarded as unfortunate in historical hindsight that Rev. William Shaw deemed it fit to publish the correspondence between him and the LMS superintendent in the heat of the battle. It cannot be defended that Philip refused his injurious statements, but the issues at hand were definitely not worthy to be fought about in public. It merely tarnished the image of two great missionaries. The missionary strategy of Dr Philip - to identify with the underprivileged, defending their rights of the indigenous peoples in the face of an advancing land-grabbing colonial power - is surely in line with the teachings and example of the Master himself. Shaw’s vision of a chain of mission stations inspired many believers in that era to come and assist the missionary cause in Southern Africa. It is appalling to read how the editor of a church magazine ‘exerted his utmost ingenuity to excite the indignation of British Christians against the Wesleyan Missionaries’. Shaw and his Methodist colleagues would, however, have done better to leave the defence over to people from outside their fold.20 The missions cause undoubtedly suffered because of the tensions as a result of the polemics fought out in the public arena.

Lord Somerset’s autocratic anglicising policies widened the rift between the British and the Dutch. Whether the colonists either conveniently forgot or whether they were ignorant of the way in which Dutch authorities had discriminated against German and French speakers in earlier decades, was actually immaterial. More factors which added to the Great Trek arose out of a desire for freedom from British domination and the grudges they bore from the effects of the emancipation of the slaves. Close to this desire was the Trekker vision of a Calvinist republic in which neither White ‘aliens’ like the British – they regarded themselves as Afrikaners, to whom African soil was dear – nor people of colour would be eligible for a meaningful role in the life of the community. (Of course, they were still completely blinded to regard the native Blacks and Khoi as Africans).
5. Evangelical Zeal confronts Mission Policy

The work of the Moravians at Baviaanskloof continued to impact the Cape. The critical De Mist appears to have gradually become a quiet supporter of that missionary work after his visit to the Overberg. After seeing the orderly village with over 200 houses, he spontaneously renamed it Genadendal.21 It was much more acceptable to be known as a valley of grace than as a glen for baboons.22 The Moravians were asked to send a chaplain to work among the Khoi corps at Wynberg. Johan Philipp Kohrhammer,23 a milliner from Schwabia and the new leader at Genadendal, was appointed to this task. At the military post he improvised in one of the very early versions of contextualising the Gospel on African soil. Drums were used to call the congregants for the first open-air service. The soldiers marched behind Kohrhammer to the chosen spot, where three drums under a tent served as a pulpit. He worked in the army camp for eight months, not as a chaplain but as a missionary.
Kohrhammer was thereafter placed at Groene Kloof, the later Mamre. Eva Dorothea Lundberg, born Lehmann, was allotted to accompany him to the Cape as wife. She had become a widow after 10 years of Moravian missionary service in the West Indies. She served at the Cape without interruption for fourteen years at the side of her husband and another twenty-eight years as a widow. The political independence of the Moravians – with submission to biblical and moral injunctions – was demonstrated when two slaves were offered to them after the prohibition of the slave trade in 1807. They refused to have someone among them who might be unwilling to become a Christian. Their aim was to ‘gather a congregation of voluntary followers of the Saviour, not to make a profit out of slaves’. What a powerful testimony this must have been in those days.

The spiritual 'Death' of the Cape Church
It is reported that John Kendrick, a lay preacher who was evangelising at the Cape at this time, could not find a real believer after hunting around among 1,000 English-speaking soldiers in the space of four years. Operating with George Middlemiss, he could not find a single prayer meeting. One wonders how this was possible when only half a generation earlier the result of the work of Dr van Lier was referred to as little short of a revival. It is hard to believe that the two were merely searching at the wrong places.
Other spiritual forces possibly also influenced this situation. The pastors neglected to challenge the colonists with the Pauline teaching that they should see believers among the slaves as family in Christ. In fact, the slaves experienced rejection also at the church. Conversion to Islam was greatly encouraged by their almost entire exclusion from Christianity. By 1800, those benches in the back corner of the Groote Kerk (the major Capetonian church at that time), which had been reserved traditionally for the use of slaves, were empty Sunday after Sunday. The saying soon went around ‘De zwarte kerk is de slamse kerk.’
As a prominent Freemason, De Mist also laid the foundation stone of the Cape Lodge, which served as House of Parliament until the 1870s when the present building was built over the lodge. The link between the lodges and the Cape churches at this time was laying a dubious foundation. (The links of Freemasonry to Satanism has become known in recent years, and it has also been reported that Tuan Guru revived the Islamic prayers at the holy circle of shrines.) The ruling in the Church Order which De Mist introduced in 1804 was quite progressive, requiring the church doors to be open for all races, slave and free alike. But he went too far, introducing the spiritual death of the Church at the Cape. A humanist liberal spirit was prevalent, with the name of God not even being mentioned in the Church Order of 25 July 1804.Simultaneously, the witness of the church in South Africa was effectively blunted through this link to secretive societies.

A missionary Diamond formed
Dr Helperus van Lier, the mission-minded minister of the Groote Kerk, suggested three forays of missionary endeavour. One of these was outreach to the Eastern Cape. Dr van der Kemp, leader of the first four LMS pioneers, led this attempt, as he in no time mastered the difficult Xhosa language, ministering to the Ngika (Gaika) tribe. From this tribe a missionary diamond was to be formed out of the black coal of oppressive colonial history.
A new group of people became inhabitants of Genadendal during this period - Xhosa-speakers from the Eastern Cape. In 1809 Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Collins, was given authority to stamp British authority on the region. In order to achieve this, he thought that Blacks should be pushed back across the Fish River. Those Blacks who wanted to remain in the Cape Colony, should be directed to a Moravian settlement. The callous Collins even recommended that the mission station Bethelsdorp should be broken up since it was ‘designed for the benefit of the Hottentots rather than that of the Colony’.
A Gaika woman, whose husband had deserted her,24 was among the first Blacks to be settled in Genadendal in this way. There this woman, who later received the name Wilhelmina, became a follower of Jesus. In Genadendal the missionary spirit took hold of Wilhelmina. Soon she urged the Genadendal Moravians to start independent work among her own people. She was appointed as nursemaid to the children of the missionaries. She also assisted with the teaching of the little ones at the ‘Kindergarten’ of Genadendal, setting out to teach the missionaries’ children the fundamentals of her language, so that they could later bring the gospel to her people. Johann Adolph, the son of Johann Gottlieb Bonatz, one of her pupils, later became one of the pioneers among the red-blanketed pagan Xhosa in the Ciskei.

Misguided Compassion
An ambivalent tradition of compassion developed at the Cape. The indiscriminate emancipation of slaves and the lack of guidance thereafter, have unfortunately to be labelled as misguided compassion.
The relaxed natural life-style of the indigenous Khoi clashed diametrically with the industrious European colonists, who had sayings like arbeid adelt (work makes one an aristocrat). What was natural to the Khoi, was regarded as ‘a careless and idle existence’ in the view of the North-West Europeans.
The killings during war and the stealing of cattle hardened the Dutch colonists at the Cape. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the Khoi tribes were clearly in decline. In 1713 the settlement was rocked by a terrible epidemic of small-pox, causing the deaths of many Khoi. This epidemic decimated the Khoi tribes of the Western Cape – already diminished by the wars against the early Dutch settlers - to small numbers.
In this situation many moving stories have been recorded, as both communities at the Cape were affected. Thus there was ‘not a single European at Drakenstein who had not been attacked by the awful disease’. After change for the better set in, the wife of the colonist Francois du Toit - while convalescing - resolved to visit the Khoi in order to help. On arrival at their kraal she found the unfortunate inhabitants all dead, and lying unburied in and around the huts – ‘all but one child, who crawled moaning from hut to hut, crying for food and water. She took the child and trained it as her own’. There were more cases of pious colonists who adopted neglected children, educating them in the Christian tradition.

A sad Saga with a happy Ending
The Stellenbosch church historian Johannes Du Plessis recorded the sad saga of a Khoi tribe, the Afrikaners, that was driven from their indigenous grazing fields between Table Bay and the Berg River to the Northern Cape by the advancing Dutch colonists. He became Chief of the Afrikaner-Oorlams25 Khoi tribe in 1795. They had become impoverished by the end of the 18th century. Apparently the clan lost their independence in 1793. Jager Afrikaner, their chief, was finally compelled by circumstances to work for the field cornet Petrus Pienaar. The latter also employed Jager Afrikaner in commandoes against the San (the so-called Bushmen).
When tension increased between Whites and Khoi, the Afrikaner-Oorlams also started resisting the Pienaar’s master-servant attitude towards them. After a dispute between Pienaar and Jager Afrikaner over wages (or Pienaar’s alleged seduction of women), a tussle ensued during which the Field Cornet was killed. Fearing retribution, the Afrikaner clan fled to an island on the Orange River, from where the Afrikaners ‘embarked on a career of depradation and marauding which made their name a terror to the farmers and to the tribes dwelling along the course of the Orange River’ (Du Plessis, 1911:116).
The Government declared Jager Afrikaner an outlaw and setting a price on his head. As he was an intelligent man, he attempted from time to time to secure a truce with the authorities, but with so much blood on his hands, the Government could not even contemplate negotiation with him.. The Khoi chief became notorious as an outlaw in secular history. There were however quite a few extenuating circumstances. In recent years the New Dictionary of S.A. Biography contributed much to the restoration of the negative image of indigenous leaders like Jager Afrikaner..
The Khoi chief was feared by friend and foe because of the atrocities perpetrated by him. Probably because of a combination of factors like Jager Afrikaner’s military expertise, the unwillingness of the cattle farmers to take part in punitive expeditions, and his elusiveness, he was left unpunished. Hereafter Jager Afrikaner tried to secure a truce with the government of the Cape Colony from his hide-out.
The Albrecht brothers of the Berlin Missionary Society moved into Jager Afrikaner’s territory in January 1806. Jager was envious at this time of the respectability which other indigenous leaders like the Koks of the Griquas enjoyed. These all had missionaries staying with them. He therefore permitted the Albrecht brothers to minister to him and his folk. When the missionaries, the Albrechts went to Warmbad in October 1806, he followed them with his clan. The Bondelswarts, who resided there, did not trust the Afrikaners, requesting them to leave. They settled at Afrikanerkraal, just east of Warmbad.
In retaliation for the illegal sale of some of his cattle, Jager attacked and plundered the mission station of the LMS at Pella. He also threatened to attack Warmbad.26 By the middle of 1811 Jager had resumed his previous way of life – raiding and plundering. This lasted till the arrival of another German missionary, Johannes Ebner at Afrikanerkraal on 10 June 1815. Shortly afterwards, on 23 July 1815, Jager and his brothers Hendrik and Andreas were among the first eight people to be baptized.
A biblical act of compassion transpired when the early missionaries and the new addition to the team, Robert Moffat, ministered lovingly to the notorious Khoi chief. Under the labours of LMS missionaries, Jager Afrikaner became an exemplary follower of Jesus. Prior to Moffat’s arrival at the mission station in January 1818, Ebner had left a trail of problems. Known as ‘a man of little patience and tact’, quarrels with the natives were a daily occurrence at the station, which became known as Steinkopf. The old chief Jager Afrikaner soon became an ‘unswerving friend’ to Moffat. The latter was radical enough to take his notorious friend along to Cape Town in 1819 for his wedding, a thought ‘which was fraught with consequences of the utmost importance for his future life’. One needs little imagination to appreciate the sensation caused when the missionary arrived in the city with the man who had once been the terror of farmers and natives alike. Moffat introduced him to Lord Charles Somerset, who was duly impressed, presenting Jager Afrikaner with a wagon valued at £80.
In June 1920 Jager assisted to take Moffat’s cattle and possessions to Lattakoo (Dithakong). This meant that the Afrikaner-Oorlams clan were without a missionary for the first time since their conversion. Jager had to act as political and church leader, as well as teacher.

Supernatural Intervention
When the church and the colonists at the Cape started becoming disinterested in reaching out to the slaves yet again, God intervened - surely due to the intercession of the faithful few elsewhere, notably those evangelicals in England, Germany and the USA.
God sometimes appears to supernaturally use natural disasters to shake people out of their indifference and lethargy. An earthquake on 4 December 1809 at the Cape caused not only an eight-day revival and a significant increase of evangelicals, but it also imparted a new urge towards missionary work among the slaves. It is interesting that an earthquake had this effect. In the Islamic prophecies referring to the protection given by the ‘holy circle’ of shrines, earthquakes were mentioned by name. The Cape was not supposed to be experiencing an earthquake!
The 1809 earthquake impacted the SAMS in different ways. Jacobus Henricus Beck, a Cape colonist who had joined the SAMS, was deeply touched. Before long he was on his way to the Netherlands, Scotland and England for theological training. (Later he became the first pastor of the congregation formed at the ZA Gesticht.)

Moravian unwitting Connivance with Injustice
In the same year of the earthquake, the Earl of Caledon’s 1809 proclamation on behalf of the Khoisan made a deep impact on society. William Wilberforce Bird, a colonial official, called the decree the ‘Magna Carta of the Hottentots’. This document had some problematic clauses from a modern point of view, but it was nevertheless in a sense a precursor to Ordinance 50 of 1828. The latter ordinance equated all races, also repealing the restricting pass laws that the ‘Magna Carta’ had introduced. ‘Gelykstelling’ of all races was very difficult to swallow, especially for Dutch colonists, running parallel with the anglicizing policy of Lord Charles Somerset. The bulk of the farmers were themselves ‘in a state of mental and spiritual neglect’. Understandably, they resented the establishment of a school at which the children of those whom they despised, now received an education which was denied to their own children.
The Moravians became an unwitting partner to the enserfment of the Khoi, because the farm labour around Baviaanskloof was mostly done by Khoi who could be hired for limited periods. At the same time the land passed more and more into the possession of the colonists. Existing land rights of the Khoi were generally disregarded. The Baviaanskloof neighbours came to hire labourers for the season every summer. The Khoi labourers received food and, four times a day, wine!

Indigenous Helpers used
Bishop Hallbeck came to Genadendal in response. He was quick to act on the suggestion and the encouragement of the British visitor La Trobe to sending a party of missionaries to the Eastern Cape. This happened in 1818. The party included Genadendal-trained artisans and the Xhosa woman Wilhelmina, apart from four German missionaries. Schmitt, their leader, appealed for people to come and help with the missionary effort at Witte River, where elephants, rhinoceros, buffaloes and other beasts abounded in the surrounding hills. The missionary spirit of Herrnhut prevailed at Genadendal where there were now some outstanding Khoi and Xhosa believers. At the end of that year (1818) sixty-eight people had moved to the Witte River. The Moravian mission station started there was called Enon. Wilhelmina married Carl Stompjes, a Khoi believer, in Enon.
A decade later Richard Bourke, the acting Governor, was visiting Hemel en Aarde, an asylum for lepers in the Overberg between present-day Caledon and Hermanus, calling Hallbeck to Caledon. There he requested the Moravians to instruct the Tembu’s in the Eastern Cape. This resulted in a personal visit to Enon. From there he took along another missionary and three men to explore the region. In Somerset East they were encouraged by the intercession of Rev. George Morgan27 for the success of their venture. Hallbeck could not resist the temptation to remark ‘on the change in the attitude of the official church since the time when the brethren were forbidden to ring the bell at Baviaanskloof.’
At the visit to Bawana, the Amahlala chief (Bawana reigned over about one thousand families) Hallbeck was aware that Bawana had no longing for the Gospel at all and that the Government supported the project mainly for political reasons. He argued that the persecutions which the Amahlala had experienced, might give the missionaries access to other Tembu tribes. It was decided that missionaries from Enon could take a few artisans with them to assist in the erection of a mission station. This happened at short notice. Among the pioneering group to be sent was Wilhelmina Stompjes, who regarded it as a call from the Lord. She would have preferred to bring the Gospel to her own people, the Xhosa’s, but even so it was for her the fulfillment of a long-standing desire. Also in the group there was as second interpreter Daniel Kaffer, the first Black to be baptized at Genadendal in 1808. He was a Tembu, who had been enslaved by the Portuguese in his youth. After the slave-ship on which he was travelling had been captured by the British, he was set free in Cape Town from where he proceeded to Genadendal, and from there to Enon.
More inhabitants of the Moravian stations later followed the first party, responding to the call to spread the Gospel. At the end of the first year, thirty people from the western settlements formed the nucleus of the new station, which was named Shiloh.

A Blessing in Disguise
Another Cape colonist who was impacted deeply by the earthquake of 1809 was Martinus Casparus Petrus Vogelgezang. He was a teacher who also went for missionary training. In 1837 he applied to be ordained, but he did not find favour with the Dutch Reformed Church authorities. He was turned down because he had not obtained the required university theological training (in Holland). He was referred to the ruling for missionaries. This condescending attitude was indicative of the general view by the Cape church with regard to missionary work.
In the spiritual realms the dubious church practice was to influence the Cape in no uncertain way, a blessing in disguise. On 17 October 1838 Vogelgezang resigned from the Dutch Reformed Church to start the first denominationally independent fellowship. The indifference to missionary work is still rife in the great majority of churches. It is definitely no compliment that many of them see only competition for the funds of the church behind all missionary endeavour.
After the formal abolition of slavery in 1838, there was a rush of freed slaves to the city. Many deserted their former owners in the agricultural areas. The bulk of these newly urbanised freed slaves turned to Islam. Support from the colonists for missionary work was not forthcoming at all. It does not credit the churches at the Cape that hardly any effort was made to reach Cape slaves with the Gospel up to 1838, apart from what was done at the Z.A. Gesticht. A lack of perseverance was prevalent, combined with a tendency to go for softer targets than the resistant Muslims. And not much changed thereafter. All the more the stalwart work of individuals like Vogelgezang has to be admired, even though his initial approach to the Muslims was quite offensive.

Evangelistic Zeal
Undeterred by the rebuff from the church of his day, Vogelgezang preached the Gospel among the slaves in Bo-Kaap and Onderkaap (the later Kanaaldorp28 and District Six) with unprecedented zeal. Vogelgezang used a version of ‘tent-making’, working in some vocation while doing missionary work. He initially operated from his shoemaker’s shop in Rose Street, which is part of present-day Bo-Kaap. That Vogelgezang gained the respect of his ecumenical contemporaries is demonstrated by the fact that various ministers of other denominations were present at his ordination in February 1839 at the Union Chapel, which included Dr John Philip and Rev. Robert Moffat of the London Missionary Society. In due course the zealous Vogelgezang planted a few churches, bringing the Gospel to the Muslims with much authority and conviction. In criticism by the local newspaper De Zuid-Afrikaan, with its links to the established church, an element of jealousy is noted after Vogelgezang’s success in Bo-Kaap.
6. Practical Christianity

A field of usefulness was opened in 1823 from an unexpected area. The lepers in South Africa were a community for whom no one cared initially, until Lord Charles Somerset initiated a Leper Asylum at a place called Hemel-en-Aarde, between present-day Caledon and Hermanus. Initially their religious needs were seen to by the DRC clergyman at Caledon, who asked for relief. J.M. Peter Leitner left Genadendal to take care of this outreach. The ministry was taken to Robben Island under the missionary Johan Lehmann in 1844. A country known for wickedness thus fortunately also has deep roots of biblical compassion.
In the second half of the nineteenth Century all sorts of ministries of compassion emanated from the churches at the Cape, some of which were linked to missions agencies.

The Gospel made practical
The Genadendal Moravians succeeded in making the Gospel very practical. J.S. Marais, a well-known historian, noted how ‘the Hottentots were making the difficult transition from a nomadic to a more settled life’ under the missionaries’ influence. Every inhabitant of the nineteenth century Genadendal had a vegetable garden adjoining his dwelling. The brethren encouraged simplicity, urging the Khoi to spend their meagre earnings on proper clothing instead of on wine and tobacco. Furthermore, a forest was planted west of the grave-yard, and when new missionaries arrived with other skills, new branches of industry were started like a joinery and a forge. Some inhabitants practised their own trade. There was a cartwright and blacksmith, a cooper, a transport-rider and the owner of a hand-mill. Others were competent masons. Midwives from Genadendal (and Groene Kloof, later called Mamre) had a good reputation, and were called by the wives of the farmers. When the postal service was improved in 1806, two men from Genadendal were appointed to carry the mail across the country. At Genadendal the economy flourished during this period. The mill, the smithy, the cutlery, the garden, the vineyard and the shop contributed to income.
The work expanded significantly under the brilliant Swedish superintendent Hans Peter Hallbeck. He tried new branches of economic activity, in order to create opportunities of employment for the inhabitants. Whenever possible, he passed responsibilities to the indigenous congregants, in order to release the missionaries for their spiritual duties. Thus an inhabitant of Groene Kloof succeeded J.M Peter Leitner in the joinery when he was required to start up the work among the lepers at Hemel en Aarde. The management of the guest house at Genadendal was entrusted to a married couple from the settlement.
Under the supervision of Hans Peter Hallbeck and a Khoi captain, trees were planted. It was laid down that the timber would be sold at half-price to the residents. The profit would go to poverty relief.
A spiritual revival in the Overberg started in Genadendal among married church members in 1828. They asked each other for forgiveness, committing themselves to live in submission to the Lord.

An extraordinary country library
The teaching at Genadendal was dynamic. Already in 1832, six years before the start of a teachers’ training school there, the Cape of Good Hope Literary Gazette reported that the village had ‘the best country library, perhaps, that may be in the colony’, with a section apiece for German, English and Dutch. The library did not only possess a reading room, but it also had loan facilities. As a result of the dynamic teaching in Genadendal almost the whole population was literate and ‘leesgierig’ (eager to read). In 1838 the missionaries recorded: ‘Our lending library is in a brisk circulation … for as soon as one book is brought in, it is immediately issued to fresh applicants’. The thorough prayerful pioneering of Georg Schmidt was thus still bearing fruit a century later.
A direct result of the library and the desire for learning was that the inhabitants picked up that they had civil rights. In The Cape Standard it was argued that the missionaries exploited the inhabitants. In August 1850 one of the inhabitants, Titus Vergele, wrote from the Mother City in beautiful handwriting29 that he had done some research in the City Library. Vergele came to the conclusion that the mission station belonged to the Khoi. He requested his friend Johannes Jass to call the inhabitants together so that they could stand up for their rights. On 19 September of that year a four-man delegation from Genadendal went to Cape Town with a memorandum to the Department of the Interior, complaining that the Mission was not prepared to protect them against the neighbouring farmers who once again wanted to take their property. In the same year, the missionaries wrote to Sir Harry Smith, the Governor, requesting that the authorities inquire into legislation to protect the inhabitants. This was probably the first instance on the African continent (even worldwide?) where the indigenous population started their own protest in the form of a written memorandum. This resulted in a commission of inquiry in 1851. A proposal was made that the mission station would be given in trust to the Superintendent of the Moravian church for the inhabitants. This indeed happened on 15 February, 1858.

The demise of the Moravians checked
Two very talented missionaries operated at Genadendal at that time. Both of them came from the educational field. Carl Kölbing had been teaching at the Moravian Secondary School in Niesky (Germany) before he started in Genadendal. Disturbances and rebellion at the mission stations could have developed into ugly situations. Kölbing took a broad view, not regarding this as ‘retrogression of the spiritual life’. He discerned that many people who had formerly obeyed the European missionaries without contradiction, were now more outspoken. Kölbing realized that the political changes had released forces which possessed not only negative, but also positive potential. He probably underestimated the negative forces, which were not counterbalanced by spiritual vigour and prayers from around the Moravian world as enjoyed by his predecessors. In Herrnhut the twenty four-hour prayer chain was petering out. A new revival in 1841 in the ‘Knabenanstalt’, the boys’ hostel for the children of missionaries at Niesky, where Georg Schmidt had died in 1785, was much too localised to make a significant impact.
The second dynamic personality at Genadendal was Benno Marx, who became the principal of the training school and the organist in 1855. Indigenous teachers operated in all Moravian schools by 1859, with the exception of the girls’ departments at Genadendal and Mamre. Subsidies were gradually granted for the existing schools. Both Marx and his assistant Andreas G. Hettasch studied at the institutions of Lancaster in England – the world leaders in education at the time - before coming to South Africa.
Benno Marx brought with him the Bohemian-Moravian tradition which combined music and printing, to add a few more firsts to Genadendal.30 Apart from the first training school in the country, of which he was an integral part, Marx discovered an old unused printing press. With further upgrading, the Genadendal press became the first in the country where music was printed. Music played a big role at the training school. Teachers taught at Genadendal, left the institution also as organists and choir masters. They not only enabled the Moravian Church in due course to be among the leaders of church music in the country, but they blessed many other churches and missions. Even the White Dutch Reformed Church was impacted when in 1887 Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Jannasch became the organist in Stellenbosch. Jannasch was born at the mission station Mamre from a German-Danish Moravian couple. He went to study in Stockholm under the great Norwegian composer, Eduard Grieg. Thereafter he became organist and music teacher at Gnadenfrei. Professor N.J. Hofmeyr brought him to Stellenbosch where Jannasch taught music at the Rhenish school, and at Bloemhof Seminary. He was also the co-founder of the conservatorium through which he brought a new dimension not only to organ music in the congregation at Stellenbosch, but from where Jannasch also exerted a decisive and lasting influence on church singing in the DRC country-wide.

A slave inherits a farm
The Moravians became involved in another remarkable piece of Cape history when six ex-slaves inherited a farm. Pastor Georg Wilhelm Stegmann of the Lutheran Church told Christian Ludwig Teutsch, a Moravian missionary from Genadendal, about a settlement near Piquetberg where a considerable number of ex-slaves dwelled together, and that they longed to get a missionary. Hendrik Schalk Burger, who bought Goedverwacht as a cattle farm in 1809 or 1810, had also bought a slave woman, Maniesa with her two children. Burger did not permit his slaves to go to school, but a slave of a neighbouring farm read the New Testament behind Burger’s back to some of those who were receptive, while doing their washing in the Berg River. Another slave even held prayer meetings on the farm until Burger detected it and gave him a thorough hiding.
After his wife’s death, Burger lived amongst the slaves. After the liberation of slaves in 1838, he very surprisingly bequeathed Goedverwacht to the children and the son-in-law of Maniesa, on condition that they would not desert him as long as he lived.
Teutsch was sent from Genadendal to investigate the possibility of starting a mission station there. He preached in one of the dwellings of the former slaves, but found Goedverwacht unsuitable. Teutsch thought that the property rights were too complicated. He promised the former slaves however, that the missionaries of Groene Kloof would visit them from time to time. (The name of the latter station was changed to Mamre in 1849). When Teutsch got back to Genadendal, it happened that one of the students of the training school, Jozef Hardenberg, became available for appointment. The inhabitants of Goedverwacht bade their teacher a hearty welcome. That became the beginnings of the Moravian mission station there, the first to start without the direct involvement of a German missionary.

Gray and Grey at the Cape
The education and training of indigenous people was being advanced from the 1850s by two influential men whose surname sounded the same – the Governor Sir George Grey and Bishop Robert Gray. Robert Gray became the dynamic first Anglican bishop of St George’s Cathedral, arriving in 1848. Sir George Grey came to the Cape as Governor a few years later, in 1854.
Bishop Robert Gray visited Genadendal shortly after his arrival. He was especially interested in the training school, considering soon hereafter whether Anglican students could be trained there. He planned to establish mission stations among the Blacks, with a missionary, a teacher, an artisan and an agriculturist for every station, combining spiritual and temporal education such as the Moravians were involved with. Bishop Robert Gray started the mission station Abbotsdale near Malmesbury in 1870.
Prince Victor, the German ruler who did so much for the indigenous people through his generous gifts to the training school and who offered to finance the extension of the institution to double the intake, died. With that the opportunity to develop a large non-denominational training centre at Genadendal, had passed. Bishop Robert Gray made his own arrangements, establishing Zonnebloem College at Cape Town for the sons of Black chiefs.

Xhosa chiefs get VIP treatment
Sandile, the paramount chief of the amaNgika, had fought the British in 1848 and 1850. Sir George Grey, the Governor, pardoned him on the promise of obedience. He was subsequently divested of all real authority and much of his land was confiscated. Grey hereafter traversed a path that was later successfully practised by the apartheid regime to subdue the Blacks. The Governor used the chief function purely as a figurehead, but effectively stripping him of his power.
During a visit to England in 1850, Sir Grey persuaded Queen Victoria that a visit by a member of the Royal Family to South Africa might be a good diplomatic move to subdue the Xhosas in this context. She agreed to send her second son, Prince Alfred. After his arrival on 24 July 1860 in Simon’s Town on board the Euryalus, Sir George Grey escorted him around the country inspiring fervent displays of loyalty everywhere they went. In the Eastern Cape the Governor spontaneously invited Sandile to join them on the voyage back to the Cape. The amaNgika chief was hesitant at first, because other Xhosa chiefs including his relative Maqoma, were in confinement on Robben Island at this time. Eventually he consented on condition that Rev. Tiyo Soga, the country’s first ordained Xhosa, and Mr Charles Brownlee, the Ngika commissioner, would accompany them. Soga summed up Grey’s motives: ‘It was to give Sandile confidence in himself and in the kindness of the English people. It was also designed to give Sandili an opportunity of seeing to some extent the greatness and power of Great Britain; so that from what he would see in Cape Town …, he might learn something for the future good and peace of his people…’
Soon hereafter Cape Town had the rare experience of Whites clamouring to get a seat in church to listen to a Black preacher. The occasion was the visit of Rev. Tiyo Soga, who accompanied Prince Alfred. Arriving on Saturday, 15 September 1860, the Presbyterian pastor preached at Caledon Square in the morning the very next day, and in the evening at St Andrew’s to overflowing congregations. Rev. George Morgan was the minister at St Andrew’s in Green Point. Soga had made a deep impression everywhere he came. Rev. W. Thomas, his host during his stay, was the minister of the church at Caledon Square. Twice Rev. Soga occupied the pulpit there. ‘The chapel was crowded to excess, and great numbers were not able to gain admission’. Soga preached at different other venues, for example at the Dutch Reformed Church in Wynberg. Rev. Thomas gave the following glowing testimonial: ‘I know not how it was, but the presence of our friend ever suggested to me the names of Cyprian, Tertullian and Augustine and others of North Africa., embalmed in the memory as among the noblest men of the primitive Church, and as the first-fruits unto God of the rich harvest which this continent has yet to produce’.
Sandile and his party were made much of in Cape Town. The idea of African royalty making a state visit to the city appealed to the local White population, temporarily forgetting the hostile Xhosa on the Eastern Frontier. Sandile was treated as an ally and not as a threat like his countrymen, who were still imprisoned on Robben Island. The Breakwater Ceremony on September 17 was the most impressive of all the functions. Sir George Grey had the courage at this occasion to suggest to Prince Alfred in his speech ‘if only he would marry Emma Sandile, he would have the merit of ending Kafir wars for ever’. His suggestion was not completely void of a vested interest, the investment of the education in her only one of two girls at Zonnebloem. Grey feared that ‘if this eligible daughter of a chief was allowed to return to her people she would probably married off to some heathen husband without her having any say in the matter.’

Work among the poor, prostitutes and ‘fallen women’
Between 1845 and 1873 several state-aided schemes brought British settlers to the Cape. Women were especially valued, ‘both as domestic servants and for their reproductive capacity’. The English Fund for Promoting Female Emigration brought a category of British females to the Cape, which created new problems. This was partly due to an administrative failure as there were no facilities available for the women while they looked for employment. The Gentoo, the boat on which these women sailed to the Mother City in 1851, in due course gave a nick-name to prostitutes – ‘gentoo’s’.
Bishop Gray distinguished himself through various ministries of compassion. Thus he brought out a party of ladies to work among prostitutes and ‘fallen women’ in 1868. ‘Georgie’ Handlye assisted Rev. Lightfoot, who moved to St Paul’s in Bo-Kaap in 1880, to care for the urban poor. Harriet Humphreys and Alice Pocklington went to stay at the Bishop’s cottage at Kalk Bay, to work among the local fishing community. Mary Anderson-Morshead, the youngest of the group, helped to start the first Refuge for Penitents which began with three girls. In 1870 ‘St George’s Home’ moved to an old Dutch homestead in Keerom Street. The Refuge, a renovated outbuilding opposite the Mission House, contained beds for 20 former prostitutes, including pregnant girls. The inmates were expected to learn skills and contribute to their living expenses by working as laundresses. Destitute girls also found their way to the Home.
Among the first was a little girl who had been ‘thrown away’ by her mother. Here her motherly ways caused her to be called Mammatjie. If ever a child was hurt or wanted comforting, they found Mammatjie ready to administer comfort.
7. Apartheid precedents in the Church


At their first synod in 1824 the Duitch Reformed Church (DRC) decided to introduce a separate and inferior ministry, that of a missionary. This was to lead to separate churches for non-whites on the long run. However, at the 1829 Cape DRC synod it was still decided – upon a question to that effect from the circuit of Zwartland (Malmesbury) - that all members would be admitted to Holy Communion ‘zonder onderscheid van kleur of afkomst’.31 At the synod it was also stressed that this issue was not even to become a subject for deliberation again. Instead, it had to be seen as ‘een onwrikbaar stelregel, op het onfeilbaar woord van God gegrond...’.32 The churches at Somerset West and Swartland were far from happy with this decision. The missionary paper of 1834 provided for ‘gemeenten der naturellen’ (congregations for natives) but it was accepted that converts could join the White churches in the meantime. The watershed decision of 1829 of the DRC was watered down much too soon. In 1837 the DRC synod mentions that there should be enough (separate?) seats for ‘heidenen die zich tot de openbare godsdienst begeven.’33
After the abolition of slavery in 1834, the London Mission Society established a separate suburb isolated from the town Algoa Bay (later Port Elizabeth) for its converts. It is ironic that the establishment of the mission stations, with the rationale to be a haven of protection for the Khoi people, set a precedent for the ‘locations’. These inferior residential areas would be established in future for people of colour.
In 1847 the Cape Colonial Government issued regulations for establishing ‘locations’ close to ‘White’ towns where the Khoi people and other non-whites or ‘Coloured’ people were required to live if they did not own property or were not housed by their employers. Subsequently many subsidiary residential settlements were established throughout the Cape Colony. There were no legally imposed racial restrictions on ‘non-white’ ownership or occupation of land in the Cape Colony until the late nineteenth century. Few members in these communities however had the means to avail themselves of these legal opportunities.

The Emancipation of the Slaves: an Albatross removed
There was some sense of relief among colonists in spite of the financial losses experienced through the emancipation of the slaves. Petrus Borcherds, the son of Ds.Meent Borcherds of Stellenbosch, verbalised the ambivalence to which Whites during the apartheid era easily relate. On the one hand the younger Borcherds tried to justify slavery at the Cape: ‘I think ... slavery existed (here at the Cape) in its mildest form’. But Borcherds also said about slavery that there was ‘something so repulsive in that state of bondage and so contrary to the principles of justice... that slave emancipation ...was a great blessing... a tribute of infinite value to humanity.’ (In the apartheid era many Whites had feelings of guilt while defending the wicked system, sometimes even abusing the Bible for that reason. A sense of relief and pride followed when the new State President Nelson Mandela was acclaimed worldwide as an exceptional statesman after 1994).

Cape Churches working together
A lone exception to the racial arrogance of the time was the Zuid-Afrikaanse Gesticht. Lutherans, Reformed believers and other Christians were worshipping together with the common goal to reach the spiritually lost with the Gospel.
The Presbyterian Dr James Adamson and the Lutheran Rev. Georg Wilhelm Stegmann engaged in combined endeavours. Soon after his ordination as minister, Stegmann not only felt the need to do something for the slaves, but he also started with a ministry in Plein Street. He subsequently became the pastor of the Lutheran church in Strand Street. He was asked by Adamson to join him in the outreach to the ‘Coloureds’. Hereafter Stegmann became a regular preacher at the St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Green Point. (He played a significant role in networking with the Moravian missionaries in the founding of the mission station Goedverwacht.)
At St Andrew’s, Adamson would preach in English in the morning and Stegmann in Dutch at the late afternoon service. A special event to highlight the actual emancipation of the slaves was organized at the Scottish Church - as St Andrew’s was generally known (hence the name Schotse Kloof was given to the area where the ministers were residing). Dreyer wrote in the Christmas edition of the Koningsbode, 1936 that the organized mission to the slaves started on 1 December 1838 - the date of the official emancipation.
At this time colonists were still very much looking down condescendingly upon slaves at the first churches, but in Onderkaap (the later District Six) mixed congregations started. The Methodists had a congregation in Sydney Street as early as 1837, which had 200 Whites and 150 ‘Coloureds’ on its roll in 1854. That this racial breakdown is specifically mentioned, suggests that the formal apartheid spirit could have crept in somewhere between 1837 and 1854. Of course, there had been separate seating in all the first churches and there had been outright rejection of slaves before 1800. Already in 1829 the DRC congregation of Swartland called for segregated communion services. It has also been reported that a church was specially built for slaves in Wynberg so that the slave owners would not have to share the same cup at Holy Communion. However, a new element filtered through after 1841. The slaves were now emancipated and clearly more outspoken.
The church situation at the Cape was however far from being a bed of roses. Yet, quite a few Muslims turned to Christ in the period after 1842, a result of possibly the most fruitful church/mission co-operation and outreach at the Cape for centuries. Adamson summarised the impact of the work in his Memorial to his Excellency, the Governor in regard to the Scottish church, Cape Town (p.6).: ‘... in conjunction with like undertakings on the part of others, (the work) resulted in the establishment of a steadfast and almost unexpected barrier to the prevalence of Mohammedanism among the emancipated slaves’.

Church Apartheid consolidated
It is sad that church authorities at the Cape were apparently the instigators of formal apartheid. Dr Philip, as a convinced segregationist, was opposed to indiscriminate mixing of races. His motive was solid, rather to be regarded as a precursor of Black Consciousness. His viewpoint was that the Khoi would never become civilized until they had equal legal status.
It seems that the attitude of Dr James Adamson of St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Green Point and the Lutheran Rev. George Wilhelm Stegmann towards people of colour was different from contemporary clergymen. They were completely accepted by slaves and the like. The Centenary Record of St Andrew’s mentions ‘the unsatisfactory arrangement’ as a reason for rebellion after Rev. George Morgan, the successor of Dr Adamson, joined the mission to the slaves. The concrete reason for the discontent was that the slaves were not happy with Rev. Morgan. The split that occurred at St Andrew’s in 1842 was possibly the result of personal rivalry between Stegmann/Adamson and Rev. Morgan. At a time when the missionary work flourished, there was division in St Andrew’s Church.

Carnality affects Church Unity and Revival
It all started when Adamson was overseas. In his absence Stegmann was acting minister for both the Lutheran and Presbyterian churches. Rev. George Morgan was appointed as the successor of Dr Adamson in 1841. He was proficient in the Dutch language and consequently took a more active part in the teaching and preaching activities at St Andrew’s mission. Morgan, as the new minister, wanted to preach every alternate Sunday at the much-better attended evening services, but Stegmann was not willing to share the pulpit with him. The German appears to have been unreasonable, insisting to officiate at all the services of St Andrews as he had done during the absence of Dr Adamson. Morgan promptly refused Stegmann ‘toegang tot die kansel’ (permission to preach). After Adamson’s return from overseas, he sided with Stegmann. He was thereafter ‘as’t ware verplig’, more or less forced to leave the church.

By this time meetings and school classes for slave children were being held in the old theatre, the Komediehuis in Bree Street. On 20 April 1842 a ‘vergadering van ontevredenheid’ (a meeting of dissatisfaction) took place at this venue. Stegmann implored the big audience – almost all of them former slaves - to return to the Scottish Church but only one person did. The rest refused. That the building was now to be used as a separate church for freed slaves, called forth the anger of the colonists. That slave children were now taught in their former theatre complex, terribly enraged them. Possibly one of the first protest marches at the Cape ensued. Hereafter, the church was pelted with stones - hence the name St Stephen’s - after the first Christian martyr, who was stoned to death.
In Stegmann’s ministry his heart for the lost shone through, especially for the Muslims. He was described as fiery in spirit, powerful in the Word and a hero in prayer. He was furthermore typified as a man ‘met sy gebedsworsteling en herlewingsgees.34 This is illustrated by words from Stegmann’s diary, cited in the same article: ‘Oh, how heavy does the case of the poor deluded Mohammedans hang on my mind ... Oh Lord, how long, how long will they continue in darkness ... open the door, send out Thy servants!’
Apparently the German pastor had some notion of spiritual warfare. It is reported that the conversion of souls was the primary goal of his ministry, and that he was a ‘warrior of God and an attacker of the strongholds of Satan.’ The Lord used Stegmann’s powerful preaching to convict the congregation on 5 November 1843 in such a way that a church member, evidently overpowered by the Holy Spirit, exclaimed aloud towards the end of the sermon ‘Lord, have mercy!’ and fainted. A hush fell over the church and thereafter the whole congregation burst into tears in a typical revival scenario.
Stegmann was self-critical enough when the near-revival appeared to have been stifled a few months later. He took part of the blame when he conceded in August 1844, with regard to spiritual warfare: ‘What a havoc Satan has been making in poor St Stephen’s lately, so that with my own inward corruption and the perverse walk of many... I am ready to sink down’. It seems that Stegmann did not discern the need for confession on behalf of the churches for the deception that led to the beginnings of Islam or for the treatment meted out to slaves in the decades immediately prior to and coinciding with the start of his ministry. However, even now in the 21st century it remains a battle to get churches to discern the feasibility and need for collective expression of regret, and for restitution of these failures.
8. Pioneering Women

The Elders’ Conference of the Moravian Unitas Fratrum suggested that the brethren should make greater use of indigenous helpers. Rather surprisingly, after the headstart given by the indigenous female evangelists, the Khoi Magdalena Tikkuie and the Dutch-speaking Afrikaner Machteld Smith, along with theXhosa Wilhelmina, who married a Khoi believer, Carl Stompjes, the use of female missionaries in South Africa took a long time to take off.35 In this chapter we narrate a little more about Wilhelmina Stompjes and other female missionary pioneers. (Worldwide single women started serving overseas in large numbers from the 1860s.)
A rare feature of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century is that women spearheaded missionary work in South Africa for which men had no vision. The use of Dr Pellat as a missionary doctor (1897-1902) was the first use of a woman in her own right as a missionary to Muslims in Cape Town. Thus far the only women involved in missionary work were wives or daughters of the male missionaries. Women started working as doctors, nurses and social workers among the Muslims, as well as being Christian missionaries.

A Xhosa female missionary pioneer
Wilhelmina Stompjes can be regarded as the equivalent of Magdalena Tikkuie of Genadendal. Many newcomers came to Shiloh from different backgrounds. This included a Sotho, Nakin, who had fled the Mfecane and a number of San (‘Bushmen’). 36 Nakin and his wife were the first candidates for baptism in Shiloh.
Wilhelmina Stompjes was an enterprising lady, who succeeded in gaining the confidence of the newcomers, more so than the missionaries. She soon more or less ran the school for their children at the new mission station. The settlement which was started in 1828 received the name Shiloh (derived from Shalom, implying peace), but the Blacks called it Ebede, meaning place of prayer. Carl and Wilhelmina Stompjes were among the group who started this venture, operating as translators. Daniel Kaffer became backslidden, leaving Wilhelmina Stompjes as the sole translator.
Johann Adolph Bonatz, her protégée, had exceptional educational talent. When he took over the leadership of the school at Shiloh, the institution prospered. He himself went on to become the missionary par excellence among the Blacks, making various translations into Xhosa. Increasingly, Wilhelmina became ‘the advisor and support of the missionaries, besides having to act as the sole interpreter.’ Her translations were of a special order. She would not simply render the German words of the missionary in the corresponding Xhosa. Instead, she regarded his thoughts and words rather as being in the nature of an epigram, ‘which she then expanded to include what she considered would be suitable for the listeners and easily understood’.
The security situation at Shiloh became so dangerous at some stage that Bishop Hallbeck seriously considered abandoning the mission enterprise there. In fact, an instance is told of how the missionaries would have been killed if Wilhelmina Stompjes did not resolutely intervene: ‘She then violently berated Maphasa, who was so dumbfounded that he quietly retreated with his men’.
Wilhelmina Stompjes ploughed the ground for equality of women by doing work for which females would normally not have qualified. As female translator of missionaries she was perhaps one of the first worldwide.

Harbingers of Charity
The wives and daughters of evangelical reformers were the harbingers of charity in nineteenth century Cape society. They were allowed to play a more prominent role in public life than other women, where prejudice against the ‘weaker sex’ abounded. It is quite surprising to find that even in the family of the liberal fighter for the rights of Khoi and slaves, the missionary Dr John Philip, the same prejudice prevailed. His daughter Eliza (who later married the well-known pioneer of press freedom John Fairbairn) was forced by her father to give up her ambition to become a teacher ‘since she would fail to gain the social virtues desirable in a young woman’. Nevertheless, many missionary wives and daughters worked as teachers or ran the business of the mission, albeit generally unacknowledged and usually unpaid.
In yet another way, Jane Philip broke ground for the liberation of women. The wife of the superintendent was paid for the bookkeeping that she did for the London Missionary Society. This work was customarily done by men.
Worldwide the Cape came up with a novum: nationalistic compassion. In 1820 the St Andrew’s Friendly Society was set up to provide relief and medical aid for the Scottish community and in 1829 St Patrick’s Society was founded to accomplish the same thing for the Irish. In 1843 St Stephen’s members started a system by which members contributed 6 pence to 1 shilling (sterling)37 a month to cover the cost of medicines in the event of sickness or the need of burial. To modern ears it may sound strange to read that the aim of the Ladies’ Benevolent Society, which was initiated by Jane Philip, was ‘to alleviate the sufferings of deserving persons’. However, to the missionaries and evangelicals ‘the strongest philanthropic impetus’ must be attributed. In their view, care of the soul was closely linked to the relief of suffering. The Good Samaritan became the paradigm of border-crossing benevolence. The Somerset Hospital was founded on this premise by Dr Samuel Bailey who was also inspired by reports of the work of Florence Nightingale in the Crimean war. He built the hospital on the fringes of the town on the road to Green Point. It was intended for the outcasts of society, for merchant seamen and slaves, paupers and ‘lunatics’. Jane Philip also founded the Bible and Tract Society, distributing religious literature to the poor, as well as being prominent in establishing mission schools in Cape Town.

Female Pioneers of Cape-based Mission Agencies
Two Cape-based missionary agencies and a few other organisations actually owe their existence to pioneering women. Mrs Martha Osborne was forced to leave India due to illness. In England she was thoroughly impacted by the Holy Spirit after conversion during a meeting of D.L. Moody, the well-known American evangelist. Osborne’s husband became seriously ill soon after his retirement, and eventually died. A newspaper reported negatively about conditions among British soldiers in Cape Town. The presence of ‘dens of the lowest description’ gripped her. This became Martha Osborne’s call to missions. She sailed in 1879, devoting herself to work among the Cape soldiers.
In South Africa the go-getter Martha Osborne initiated evangelistic missionary work in Cape Town, Natal and Zululand. She founded a Sailors’ Home, a Ladies Christian Workers Union, the Railway Mission and the South African YWCA. In 1890, she married George Howe, who had been working alongside her with a similar vision. During the South African War the couple established no less than 27 Soldiers’ Homes. The Osborne Mission went through a number of changes and mergers.
During a visit to England Martha Osborne challenged Spencer Walton, an evangelical member of the Church of England, to come and join the outreach at the Cape. Walton was the first director of the Cape General Mission that later - after a merger - became known as the South Africa General Mission, finally becoming the Africa Evangelical Fellowship (AEF).
May, Emma and Helena Garratt, three sisters from Ireland, accepted an invitation to visit the various stations of the South Africa General Mission. May Garratt responded positively to that invitation. Bible readings among the police led to the establishment of a Christian organization and other outreach forms. The other two sisters also became involved in various outreaches in the country. Thus the Africa Evangelistic Band (AEB) came into being through the evangelistic activity of Emma and Helena Garratt. The Pilgrims, as their workers were called, evangelized in same-sex pairs, discipling new believers as they criss-crossed the country, bringing life to many a spiritually dead church.

St Monica’s Home established
The 1914 Anglican Diocesan Mission Board Report to their synod mentioned the establishment of a ‘temporary shelter for women and girls returning to the Christian faith, or who desire to become Christians but are without Christian friends and relations with whom to take shelter’. Rev. Garabedian hoped that by accepting these girls into a Christian shelter, they would not resort to marrying into Muslim families. The shelter was at 56 Bryant Street under Miss Stollard and was opened in January 1914. In 1915 the house next door was acquired so that up to ten women could be accommodated at one time. Miss Stollard, the Rev. Stephen Garabedian and a new assistant also performed pastoral visits in the surrounding districts to investigate cases of lapsed Christians who had been absorbed into the Muslim community.
In January 1917 Miss Frances Edwina Shepherd suggested to the Muslim Mission Committee of the Diocesan Mission Board (DMB) that she begin training suitable ‘Coloured’ women as midwives. She had already instructed several women who had accompanied her to deliveries. She approached Dr Murray, the Secretary of the Western Cape branch of the Medical Association, in order to get this instruction recognised. He stressed that training should really take place in a Maternity Home. Miss Shepherd realised that such a home could serve three purposes. Firstly, it could train ‘Coloured’ women to be midwives. Secondly, it could offer a service to the entire community in the area of the Bo-Kaap and thirdly, the trained midwives could be useful as evangelists.
A committee was formed by the DMB under the chairmanship of the Rev. Canon S W Lavis with the Rev. S. Garabedian, Mrs Garabedian, Mrs Herford (secretary) and Miss Shepherd. They recommended the establishment of a training institution for ‘Coloured’ midwives. This was approved by the DMB and Garth House, 108 Buitengracht Street was opened on 1 April 1917.

Female Pioneers of Muslim Outreach
From 1920 onwards women were treated on a more equal footing with the priests in the Anglican Church. During the 1950s the entire work of the mission was done by two women, Miss Leslie and Miss Manning. Women were nevertheless seen as stop-gap workers until fulltime priests could be afforded. Yet, they still played an important role in changing the missions’ policy. These women workers came into direct contact with Muslim women and girls. They offered social assistance rather than being bent on conversion. These workers were instrumental in the gradual change of the policy of the Anglican Mission from theological confrontation to caring, Christian witnessing.
A fulltime worker in Claremont Miss Hilda Adams became the new Diocesan correspondent for the Women’s Missionary Society of the Church of the Province of South Africa. In May 1924 she wrote a short report on the mission’s work. She described how in the previous five years she had done house-to-house visitations in the southern suburbs of Cape Town, where the door had been closed in her face only about four times. Miss Adam’s home visits marked a change from the previous policy which had concentrated on preventing marriages between Christians and Muslims. Miss Adams found that she was generally welcomed into Muslim homes, and her visits were appreciated. She felt that most Muslim girls were starting to question their faith but, because of cultural attitudes, were kept in ignorance about Islam. She did, however, feel that few would convert because they were fearful of being ‘Malay- tricked’. The so-called ‘Malay-tricks’ were witchcraft which many believed that Muslims, and in particular black Muslims from Zanzibar, practised. Such tricks were also greatly feared by ‘Coloured’ Christians. This disquiet was aggravated by the dismissive attitude the White community workers had towards them. They failed to understand a real fear which existed among the Christian neighbours of Muslims.
In 1930 Miss Mary Attlee replaced Miss Hilda Adams as full-time worker at Claremont. Previously she had worked at an institution for Black women, St Clare’s Hostel in Zonnebloem. Her work included four areas: Sunday School work, social work, clubs for young women, boys and girls, and evangelistic work among the Muslims. Miss Attlee stated that ‘there are few listeners now on Sunday out in the open’. Thus presumably she had previously run some open-air evangelism events. The number of Muslim listeners had dropped because the local Imam had told them not to listen as he considered it ‘dangerous’. The tradition and practice among Cape Muslims – women especially - was already firmly in place to spy on each other. Fear of ostracism by co-religionists kept them subservient to the Imam’s orders.
Miss Attlee reported that over the ten years from 1930 to 1940, she had brought only six Muslims to baptism. Although she was now retired she was still in close contact with all six, and one in particular played a major role in encouraging enquirers and bringing back to Church ‘several careless Christians’. Miss Attlee used the sewing class for Muslim girls as an opportunity for friendship and instruction.
It was Miss Attlee who, during one of her visits to England, managed to convince Father
Albert Hampson to come to this country as priest-in-charge of the Mission to the Muslims. Through her guidance, her influence and some financial support, Hampson was able to do a special course in England, before coming to this country.
Miss Attlee brought to the mission to Muslims a programme of social upliftment. The direct confrontational attacks between Christians and Muslims, which her predecessors seemed to encourage, were being avoided. In her obituary in the South African Outlook it stated ‘Her concern for the coloured people led her to inspire the formation of Christian Unity, a society the aim of which is to work for closer understanding among people of different colours and creeds.’ Miss Attlee worked to establish ‘a real community centre for the coloured’. After working for the Cape Town Diocese Mission to the Muslims from 1930 to 1940, she remained in Cape Town, founding the Cape Flats Distress Association (CAFDA) in Retreat.

A Slave descendant Pioneer
Through her novels Olive Schreiner put South Africa on the international literary map. She also distinguished herself through her love for Dutch-speaking Afrikaners. Olive Schreiner did much for reconciliation between the two main White people groups of South Africa, a fact which became widely known. However, her change towards intervention on behalf of the new underdogs after the South African War, Indians, Blacks and the Chinese who had been imported by Lord Milner is hardly known. Her contact with Anna Tempo, a daughter of Mozambican slaves, is by and large completely unknown.
Tempo went on to start the Nanniehuis in Bo-Kaap, a ministry of compassion to ‘fallen’ young women and prostitutes. She later became the matron of the Stakesby-Lewis Hostel in Harrington Street, District Six. The Nanniehuis in Bo-Kaap’s Jordaan Street became the model for similar projects in other parts of the country after Ms Tempo had been awarded the King George Coronation Medal for her work in 1937.
By the early 1960s there were 288 welfare agencies in the city, of which less than half were run by religious organizations. The City Mission was by far the best-known of them all. The combination of evangelism and compassionate outreach continued unabatedly.
9. A Teacher for the Nations

Much has been written about Dr Andrew Murray as an author and Bible teacher of the nations. God definitely used his teaching in the Church universal, especially when there was insufficient understanding regarding sensitivity to God’s Spirit. Dr Andrew Murray gave a lead to the church worldwide in the teaching on the work of the Holy Spirit.
We would like to highlight two of his world-impacting contributions in this chapter, namely the importance of prayer in missions and having a Kingdom mind-set, which implies the crossing of denominational boundaries. Sadly, the Church (and he himself) also played a role in compromises with racial prejudice. This would prevent the Cape from having an even bigger impact on world missions, because it eventually brought his Dutch Reformed Church into isolation.

Prayer as the Key to the Missionary Problem
Dr Andrew Murray put into practice what he had taught about ‘waiting on the Lord’ when he was invited to be a speaker at the World Missions conference in New York in 1900. This conference was billed as the biggest ever to be held. (At this time the influence of the Enlightenment and rationalism had significantly diminished belief in unseen forces like the Holy Spirit.) Murray had no inner peace about going to New York, not even after the organizers tried to use his famous friend Dwight Moody to entice him. Moody invited Andrew Murray to join him in outreaches in the USA after the World Missions conference, but Murray was not to be swayed. He felt morally bound to stay with his people because of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). We may safely surmise that Murray was sensitive to the Holy Spirit, only wanting to take instructions from the Lord.
Murray’s subsequent absence at the conference ironically became the biggest indirect cause of missions in the twentieth century. After requesting and receiving the papers and reports of discussions from the conference, Murray wrote down what he thought was lacking at the event in a booklet with the title: The Key to the Missionary Problem. This booklet had an explosive influence on the churches in Europe, America and South Africa. Murray referred prominently to the twenty four-hour prayer watch of the Moravians, calling earnestly for new devotion and intensive prayer for missions. He powerfully stated that missionary work is the primary task of the church, and that the pastor should have that as the main goal of his preaching. These sentiments were repeated in a small booklet he called Foreign Missions and the week of Prayer, January 5-12, 1902. He furthermore suggested ‘to join in united prayer for God’s Spirit to work in home churches a true interest in, and devotion to missions (is) our first and our most pressing need.’
One of Andrew Murray’s classic statements of the early twentieth century is that ‘God is a God of missions.’ He wrote powerfully in his book The Kingdom of God in South Africa (1906): ‘Prayer is the life of missions. Continual, believing prayer is the secret of vitality and fruitfulness in missionary work. The God of missions is the God of prayer.’
Andrew Murray summarized the link between the Holy Spirit and missions as follows: ‘No one can expect to have the Holy Ghost unless he is prepared to be used for missions. Missions are the mission of the Holy Ghost.’ The first of the triennial General Missionary conferences was convened in 1904. It was very much prepared through prayer. These conferences contributed greatly in the run-up to the world event in Edinburgh in 1910. (An interesting fact is that William Carey had proposed holding a missions conference at the Cape of Good Hope a hundred years earlier.)
It is surely no mere co-incidence that revivals broke out in different parts of the world in the years hereafter - in such divergent countries as Wales, Norway, India and Chile. The Cape was used in this way by God to make missionary endeavour a worldwide priority. 38

More blows to the legacy of Murray
The Anglo-Boer War brought estrangement between denominations which had previously worked together closely, although many Afrikaners who had been interned during the war, offered themselves for missions thereafter. This was counteracted by a positive spirit that was fostered by triennial General Missionary conferences, the first of which was chaired by Dr James Stewart of Lovedale fame. This spawned the creation of a feeling of unity among churches and missions agencies. This was previously non-existent. The promotion of missionary comity was thus founded upon a better understanding and appreciation of one another.
Nevertheless, at least one of Andrew Murray’s disciples, Petrus le Roux, did not perpetuate this negative trend. Influenced by Murray to be a missionary to the Zulu’s, he was ordained eerwaarde39 (that is as a Dutch Reformed missionary) in 1893 at Wakkerstrooom in the Eastern Transvaal. Initially, deeply influenced by Andrew Murray on divine healing and holiness theology, Le Roux was impacted by American Zionists from Illinois. Within seven years Le Roux had 2000 members, attributing his success to ‘good, earnest, native preachers’.
In another way Murray’s work was seriously jeopardized. His legacy of interdenominational outreach received a serious blow early in the twentieth Century. The same Petrus le Roux of Wakkerstroom fame had no hesitation on the one hand to mention that the ‘good, earnest, native preachers’ came from the Methodist and Anglican churches. On the other hand however, with the three-fold immersion in the Snake River of Wakkerstroom, they also introduced bickering over the number of immersions during believer’s baptism. Distrust between Pentecostals and believers from ‘mainline’ churches became endemic.
Furthermore, the estrangement between denominations after the Anglo-Boer War became the direct cause for a certain Rev. Pepler to ask at a meeting of the SAMS directors on 17 February 1920, whether the S.A. Gestig should not be linked to the Mission Commission of the DRC. This finally led to the blessed formerly interdenominational outreach from the Long Street fellowship joining the DRC Sendingkerk in 1937.
Murray’s legacy was given a serious blow when Professor Johannes Du Plessis of the University of Stellenbosch was accused of heretic teaching and finally axed to all intents and purposes in 1930. The manner in which the inquest had been conducted was far from fair, and this is sad when one considers that Du Plessis had written the standard biography of Andrew Murray.

Racial Prejudice insufficiently discerned
It seemed that Dr Andrew Murray did not sufficiently discern the danger of racial prejudice. At the very same DRC synod of 1857 where he and three other young dominees recommended that the church should move forward to reach the lost, the synod agreed to racial separation because of the ‘weakness of some.’ This implied a complete about turn of the 1829 decision not to divide the church along racial lines. At the 1829 Cape DRC synod it had not only been decided that all members would be admitted to communion ‘without considering colour or background’, 40 but also that this issue was not even to be a subject for deliberation at a synod. Instead, it had to be seen as ‘een onwrikbaar stelregel, op het onfeilbaar woord van God gegrond ...’41
The participants had no idea what a disaster the 1857 decision would lead to in the long run, even though separation was to be voluntarily. The wrong message was sent out, although Andrew Murray, was reported to have stated his objection. It seems as if there was not a single person of colour among the 145 missionaries that left the Mission Institute in Wellington over the next few decades after 1857. An anomaly was that the (‘Coloured’) St Stephen’s church of Bo-Kaap was accepted as a member church at this same synod. Yet, it should not be forgotten that the motion tabled in 1857 had as its main component a positive statement: ‘The Synod regards it as feasible and Scriptural that our members (coming) from the Heathens, be taken into existing congregations wherever this can happen.’42
In due course the very special mission centre of Andrew Murray at Wellington was diluted into racially segregated institutions. The theological training of the Sendingkerk started there in 1954. Incidentally, nationals of colour were hereafter used more often by God outside of their home country, because many left the Cape shores, for example due to apartheid repression or having received bursaries for overseas studies.

The Crowning of the Andrew Murray Legacy
Dr Andrew Murray was used by God in the run-up to Patrick Johnstone’s Operation World, a book which influenced prayer for missions worldwide in the twentieth century probably more than any other book. In fact, Johnstone acknowledged this in the preface to his magnum opus. At the end of The Key to the Missionary Problem Murray advocated the holding of weeks of prayer for the world. Johnstone wrote in an email to the author: ‘As far as I know this was not taken up earnestly until 1962 when Hans von Staden, the Founder and Director of the Dorothea Mission, inspired the launching of a whole series of Weeks of Prayer for the World in both Southern Africa and also Europe.’ It was these Weeks of Prayer that made the provision of prayer information so important, and led to von Staden’s challenge to Patrick Johnstone to write a booklet of information to help in these prayer weeks. Von Staden also proposed the name ‘Operation World’. Johnstone concludes: ‘So the book was South African-born, but then went global.’ Johnstone’s book brought united prayer into focus like no other before it.
10. Jewish-Christian Interaction at the Cape

Evangelical outreach to Jews and Muslims can be described as the ‘Cinderella’s’ of Christian missionary work in South Africa. In this chapter we look at Jewish Christian interaction and in the next one we shall examine the (lack of) loving efforts to reach Cape Muslims with the Gospel.
Two Jewish converts are recorded to have been baptized at the Cape as early as 1669. It is not clear whether these and other Jews of that era who professed their faith in Jesus as their Messiah openly, did it out of convenience or conviction. Everybody who came to the Cape at that time had to be of the Protestant Christian faith. The constitution of the Dutch East India Company required this from all its employees and from settlers. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, restrictions on Jewish people were relaxed.
On 26 September 1841, seventeen Jewish believers celebrated the Day of Atonement at the home of Benjamin Norden, and a week later the first congregation ‘Tikvath Israel’ (The Hope of Israel), was established at the Cape. Norden arrived with his brothers on the boat Belle Alliance in Simons Bay in May, 1820 - before the ship left for the Eastern Cape with the other British Settlers. He should be regarded as the founder of the first Jewish congregation in Cape Town.
One of the greatest Capetonians of the nineteenth century was Saul Solomon (of Jewish heritage), who came to the Mother City from St. Helena. For decades the Solomon clan was one of the most distinguished families at the Cape. Many of them were involved with the philanthropic movement, in which Christians and Jews worked cordially side by side.

Jewish evangelical Brothers
Because Jesus Christ was a Jew, it should theoretically be natural for Jews to come to faith in him as their Lord and Saviour. However, they have difficulty in recognizing him as their promised Messiah. Almost from the outset the Paul, the great missionary and apostle had a negative view about the Mosaic Law had estranged many Jews from Christianity. One compares e.g. the quite radical words of Jesus in Matthew 5:17-19 I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfil them which nevertheless does not denigrate the Mosaic law. The Pauline Galatians 3:13 on the other hand speaks about’ the curse of the law.’ The side-lining of Jews in the 4th Century by Emperor Constantine caused a deep rift between Judaism and Christianity. The anti-Semitism and persecution over the centuries - predominantly by people who professed to be Christians - were other obstacles for Jews worldwide to become followers of Jesus Christ.
Two Jewish brothers profoundly enriched evangelical Christianity at the Cape - Jan and Frans Lion Cachet. Both had been influenced deeply by the great Dutch poet and theologian Isaac da Costa, who was himself a Jew by birth. I have not been able to find out whether Isaac da Costa was related to (or even a descendent?) of one Da Costa to whom Count Zinzendorf gave his cabin on the trip from the Caribbean in the 1730s. Cachet had a short stint at St Stephen’s after Stegmann had left the post vacant.
Ds. Frans Lion Cachet took over at the Ebenhaezer Church in Rose Street after the sudden death of Rev. Vogelgezang. At that time this parish was linked to the Congregational Church. Ds. Cachet initiated the remarkable innovation of teaching pupils Arabic. This was a display of keen insight since the Arabic script was common among the Muslim slaves at the time. Before coming to the Cape, he served in Syria among Muslims. Cachet also conducted evening classes with the intention of enabling the children and adult pupils to read and understand the Qur’an and to judge for themselves.

A Jewish Debate
In 1873 the Jewish Ds. Frans Lion Cachet pleaded in the Cape DRC Synod for a mission to his people to be started. He found a ‘deep sea of love’ for the Jews among ministers, elders and deacons, even among the most distant congregations. He moved to the Cape village of Villiersdorp in 1876. Cachet’s passionate plea was however also a provocation to the Jews. As a result, opposition came from their Rabbi, Joel Rabinowitz, in a letter to the Cape Argus on 30 October 1876. The letter was definitely not cordial, accusing Cachet of condescension and ‘casting doubts on … his motives.’ But Ds. Cachet’s response was not in the spirit of Christ either. The ‘lively correspondence’ between Christians and Jews – perhaps one should rather say polemics - continued in the Cape Argus for over a month.
The result of the controversy was that by 1876 favourable conditions for Messianic Jews to win their cultural compatriots over to faith in Yeshua had passed somewhat, and it was left to Gentiles to lead such people to faith in Jesus as their Lord and Messiah. Only in 1894 was the synod resolution passed: ‘… the time has come for the Dutch Reformed Church to pay its debt to Israel by commencing its own mission to the Jews’.

Other Accomplishments of Cape Jews
The literary activity of the Cachets was only one of many feats by Jews in the field of publication. Joseph Suasso de Lima, a Jew who came to the Cape in 1816, wrote profusely in different genres, including poetry. From his hand appeared the first manual of Cape history published at the Cape, Geschiedenis van de Kaap de Goede Hoop in 1825. About the same time as John Fairbairn – who was heralded as the ‘Father of the South African Press’ - De Lima started De Verzamelaar, a weekly paper. Rather surprisingly, one reads that he was also responsible for the start of a Lutheran private school (Coetzee, 1975:??). 43 Although possessing a thorough command of Hebrew, De Lima did not practice Judaism. In fact, he taught Christian doctrine to slave children.
Some influential Jews turned to Christianity – without however severing their Jewish roots. Henry Solomon, having learned Hebrew in his youth, went on to study Arabic. He devoted much of his energy to social work among the Cape Muslims, notably together with the Rev. Joel Rabinowitz, another gigantic Jewish personality at the Cape. Henry Solomon became a devout adherent of the Congregational Church, living at Sea Point Cottage for 56 years.
In 1857 Henry and Saul Solomon became the printers of the first Cape daily newspaper, The Cape Argus, which they took over in 1863 as sole owner. Saul influenced public opinion for many years as editor. At this time there was also benevolent compassionate co-operation of Jews with adherents from the two other Cape religions under the leadership of Rabbi Joel Rabinowitz.
Possibly the greatest Cape Jew ever was the physically diminutive Saul Solomon, a product of the Lovedale educational heritage of the Glasgow Mission, who became a prominent politician. He had to stand on a box when addressing Parliament. Having been trained alongside people of colour, ‘his leading characteristic was his desire to champion any section suffering under any disability whatsoever – civil, political, or religious… He was an earnest and powerful protector of the natives, and was frequently referred to as the negrophilist member…’ (of Parliament). Against the background of the traditional legacy of the deceit and lies of politicians, he was known to have ‘less cunning but more foresight.’ Already in 1855 it was said of him: ‘If ever he loses the support of his constituency … it will be in consequence of his being too truthful to his convictions and too uncompromising to expediency’. Saul Solomon was offered the Premiership of the Cape Colony in 1871 when it received responsible Government, but he refused. This Jewish background Christian, who was linked to St George’s Cathedral, was a rare breed indeed.

Early 20th Century Jewish Feats
Xenophobia raised its head on the Reef after Indians, Chinese and ‘Peruvians’ joined the influx of uitlanders (foreigners) in the rush for gold and the expected affluence this would bring. At this time an anti-alien sentiment, already exacerbated by the Jameson Raid at the end of 1895, for which Jews received a very unfair amount of blame, flared up in sections of the general press as well as in the Legislative Assembly of the Cape Colony. Clearly targeting the East European Jews, Yiddish was discriminated against. An Immigration Act was passed in 1902 to keep out those who could not write in European characters. The Jewish community was now divided into two distinct language and cultural groups - the Anglo-German Jews on the one hand and the Yiddish-speaking East European Jews, who were pejoratively called Peruvians. Differences in religious practice and ritual led to a split as early as 1888.
In 1900 the New Hebrew congregation or Roeland Street Synagogue was established by the East European Jews. These Jews settled in District Six, Vredehoek and Gardens, whereas the Anglo-Germans resided in Green Point and Sea Point. The latter group was easily assimilated into the rest of the (White) population.
A challenge to the leadership of Rabbi Bender – who was perceived to be pro- British, gradually emerged in the person of Morris Alexander, who was destined to leave a significant imprint on South African politics after 1910. Alexander contributed a brilliant series of articles on Judaism in The Owl, the weekly which had contained so much anti-Semitism up to that point in time. The tide turned in favour of Jews, however, only when sympathy grew after the Kishinez atrocities in Russia became known. At a mass meeting in the Good Hope Hall in Sea Point, attended by the Anglican Dean of Cape Town, the outrages in Russia were denounced. In a special tribute, Olive Schreiner sent a letter which was read at this occasion: ‘I would welcome the exiled Russian Jew to South Africa not merely with pity, but with a feeling of pride….
According to a prominent Jew, Dr Issy Berelowitz, who grew up in District Six there were ‘no less than nine synagogues.’ There was also a Jewish bookshop in Canterbury Street. That part of Cape Town was seen as the heart of Jewry in the Mother City in the first half of the 20th century. Lithuanians are also known to have lived in the area around Chapel Street. The religious-wise tolerant and multi-racial character of that part of the growing metropolis is demonstrated by the fact that Buitenkant Street had a synagogue, the Tafelberg DRC and the (Coloured) Methodist Church in close proximity to each other, with other churches and mosques nearby.
A Jewish authoress of note was Sarah Gertrud Millin. She influenced literature in the country profoundly especially by highlighting race relations at a time when people of colour were hardly recognized. Her view of people of colour in The South Africans, (1926) was not unproblematic. On the one hand the ‘Coloured’ man is ‘more civilised than the European peasant… or the poor white’ but on the other hand she states quite categorically: ‘in no circumstances however can the coloured man hope to pass the white man’s equal.’
The first Jew to become a mayor of Cape Town was Hyman Liberman, who was in office from 1904-1907. He had a compassionate heart. When he died in 1923, a big sum was donated from his bequest for a reading room and other facilities in District Six. The Liberman Institute in Muir Street became a beacon of light. From there not only a library operated, but UCT students in the Social Sciences also did their practical work there. The building provided a neutral venue for many a meeting in the struggle against apartheid.
Some Jewish individuals maintained relations with their Jewish family. One of them was J.C. Juta,44 whose wife was the brother of Karl Marx, the founder of Communism.45 The name of Juta – along with that of Maskew Miller – became synonymous with school books in due course.
Due to the efforts of David Goldblatt and Morris Alexander, Yiddish was recognised as a European language for the purposes of the Alien Immigration Act. This became part of the run-up to the Jewish Board of Deputies, which was to represent all Jews in the country.
Abe Bloomberg was another mayor of Cape Town raised as a Jew, who was sympathetic to the cause of the poor, the oppressed and the needy. He also served as a ‘Coloured’ Representative in Parliament. However, the latter post occurred not without much controversy. In a sense Bloomberg was possibly elected by default because the Unity Movement called on ‘Coloureds’ to boycott the elections during which he was voted into Parliament.
The legacy of all this was that there was hardly any animosity at the Cape between Cape Muslims and Jews until the end of the 20th century. Christianity, Judaism and Islam co-existed side by side amicably until the advent of apartheid Group Areas legislation, notably in District Six. Even today many Muslims are still working with and for Jews without any feelings of rancour, although isolated radical elements within the Muslim community have been trying to stir up anti-Jewish sentiments from time to time.

Early 20th Century Evangelical Outreach
The Dutch Reformed Church pioneered ministry to Jews in the twentieth century, remaining to this day the only denomination that formally has missionaries set aside to minister to Cape Jews. The Mildmay Mission to the Jews appointed Mr E. Reitmann to work among the Jews. He was approached to work for the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) as their first missionary in Cape Town and left the Mildmay Mission. Due to ill health Mr Reitmann had to leave the ministry. The DRC then corresponded with various mission organisations to find a replacement for Mr Reitmann. As a suitable person could not be found the Synod of the Cape Colony supported the work in the Transvaal that was started in 1903. In 1908 Mr Philip Cohen, who worked in the Transvaal from 1903 to 1917, visited congregations of the DRC in the Western Cape to encourage support for the work in this area. In 1914 the DRC in Transvaal requested transferring Mr Cohen to the DRC in Cape Town for health reasons. This didn't materialize and Mr Cohen passed away in 1917. Rev. E.C. Eltman was appointed in March 1923, but he left for Australia in 1927. In 1929 Rev. Wenzel Salzberg, a converted Jew from Poland, came to the Cape via the Mildmay Mission in London. At the same time his daughter, Miss F Salzberg, also from Mildmay Mission was appointed to help him in reaching Jewish women with the Gospel. After a few years she had to leave the work due to ill health and went back to Europe. Rev. Salzberg died in 1938. His son, Peter, who had just started as a missionary doctor in Angola, came in his place. He was sent to Stellenbosch for theological studies, which was followed by his induction as an eerwaarde, a Dutch Reformed missionary. (At the Cape Synod of 1945 it was reported that Miss H W Sinden was appointed to help him in his work to bring the Gospel to Jewish women. She worked for a few years in this ministry and was stationed in Kimberley. In Cape Town Mr Jacobson helped Dr Salzberg in his ministry.
Dr Salzberg was one of the founder members of the Cape Town branch of the Hebrew Christian Alliance (HCA) with 26 Jewish Christians (as they were called in 1949). The HCA is a worldwide organization of Jewish Christians and Christians as associated members.46 It became a facility where believers from Jewish background encouraged each other. Dr Salzberg worked at the Cape until his retirement in 1973. Peter Salzberg helped a number of Jewish people come to faith in Jesus as their Messiah and Lord.
Later 20th Century Evangelical Outreach
The British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among Jews that was founded in 1849, sent Mr. Julius Katz to this country in 1952(3), where the organization adopted the name South African Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among Jews. The Society was based in Cape Town. Katz died before the work could be properly established. In due course the name of the outreach organisation was shortened to South African Jews Society. Some years later it was changed to Hope of Israel.
In 1959 Rev. Christopher Jack Mundell, a Jewish believer, was sent to the Cape, directing the organization. Louise Newmark was his secretary. Joanna Eglitzky, a Messianic Jew, worked for a short time as the full-time worker. Louise Newmark visited Cape Jewish homes in her spare time for many years. Initially from different offices in the City, she worked together with Rev. Mundell. He relocated to the UK around 1978. In the years prior to this, she and Rev. Mundell were operating out of the Bridge Book Shop in Marine Road, Sea Point. Louise Newmark continued to minister at the Cape until the office was moved to Johannesburg in 1981. The following year Newmark was sent as a fulltime worker to Port Elizabeth. She worked there till the beginning of 1990. Mundell relocated to the UK and Louise Newmark continued to minister at the Cape until she went to Johannesburg where she still continues to work among Jewish people.
Leo Poborze, a Jewish believer, came to know the Lord after he was healed of skin cancer. He was already quite old in the mid-1970s, when he was still ministering together with his friend, Mr A Herbert. Leo Poborze preached at many open-air outreaches in spite of harassment and being pelted with eggs and tomatoes, especially on the Muizenberg promenade! Poborze was something of a legend in his time amongst local believers.
When Dr Salzberg retired, Dr J A Vorster, a minister of the DRC, was employed as a worker for the outreach to Jewish people from 1970 to 1976. Ds. A K Batt served in this ministry from 1976 to 1979 and Ds. M H Coetzee from 1980 to 1983. Dr G Francois Wessels succeeded him in 1983. Cecilia Burger was appointed in 1975 to reach out to Jewish women with the Gospel. Both she and Francois Wessels are also part of the Messianic Congregation Beit Ariel in Sea Point.
The Anglican Church became indirectly involved when Rev. Rodney Mechanic worked under the auspices of Messiah’s People. According to reports, Mechanic led quite a few Jews to see Jesus as their Messiah. The follow-up of the new believers could have been better. Edith Sher, who is a Messianic Jewish believer herself, later joined this group. Doogie St Clair-Laing was her predecessor. Services with Messianic Jewish believers were held in homes until they started with regular services in a restaurant in Sea Point and later the church hall of the Three Anchor Bay Dutch Reformed Church. The group very soon changed its name to Beit Ariel. Unfortunately the numbers of people from Gentile background dwarfed the Messianic Jewish component in due course.
When Bruce Rudnick, a Messianic Jew, became the pastor of the Beit Ariel fellowship, it seemed at some point as if other churches would give him due recognition, but this was very short-lived. Herschel Raysman, who came from a Jewish background, came to believe in Jesus as his Messiah when he linked up with the Jesus People in the 1970s. In later years, he was to lead the Beit Ariel Messianic congregation in Sea Point. In 2003 the group moved to the Sea Point High School, and in 2004 the group relocated to independent premises.

A special Impact on (Cape) Jewry
Various groups had monthly prayer meetings for the Middle East. One started in Vredehoek in the early 1990s, was different, with prayers offered every evening for both Muslims and Jews. The catalyst of the Jewish part of the prayer meeting was Elizabeth Robertson, whom God used in a very special way to stir the Jews of Sea Point in 1990. She had been confronted at that time with a very difficult choice when she was about to convert to Judaism, in preparation for her marriage to an Israeli national. Her autobiography, The Choice, impacted Cape Jewry when it was published in 2003. In the same year it was read on the programme Story Teller via CCFM radio. The unexpected choice of Elizabeth Robertson, forsaking the marriage rather than her Lord, shook Cape Jewry. Surprisingly, she was encouraged by Jews to publish her special story, which is due to be released soon as a movie.
Elizabeth Campbell-Robertson writes in The Choice about the predicament into which the rabbi put her in the final interview of the procedure, before she was to convert to Judaism. She also describes her inner tussle, the choice between the Jewish future husband ‘Aaron’ and her Lord. She described the turmoil with the following words:
I cleared my throat to speak, when unexpectedly an anointing fell upon me, and I found myself asking if I might go on my knees. A holy boldness overtook me and in a loud, firm voice, with an authority that shocked even me, I heard myself saying: “To me Jesus Christ is the Son of God! He is the one who died for me,” then, pointing at the rabbis one by one, “and for you and for you and for you. He is the Messiah. He was born of a virgin, and His blood cleanses all of our sins. This is who I believe Jesus Christ is!” I then collapsed onto the floor in a sobbing heap.
The unexpected choice of Elizabeth Robertson shook Cape Jewry.

Through Elizabeth Robertson, the author and his wife met Renette Marx and Lorraine Fleurs, two Christian workers, who were ministering covertly among the Jews of Cape Town. The two believers concentrated on praying that Cape Jews might see that Jesus is indeed the promised Messiah. For many years the two stuck to this task until Renette Marx left the Cape in the late 1990s. Doogie St Clair-Laing pioneered a weekly radio programme on CCFM, doing it for ten years. John Atkinson and Edith Sher took over more than two years ago, taking the programme in a new direction, focusing on teaching and trying to broaden the listenership. The Radio Tygerberg programme ‘Israel Kaleidoscope’ is the effort of Esther Kruger, with Leigh Telli giving wonderful input after her return to South Africa in 2004 as a missionary of The Messianic Testimony. (This agency was constituted in 1973 as the merger of the Mildmay Mission to the Jews, founded by John Wilkinson in 1876, and the Hebrew Christian Alliance to Israel, founded by David Baron and C.A. Schönberger in 1893.)

An attempt at Reconciliation of Jews and Muslims
Earlier in 1993 we started with a monthly prayer meeting for the Middle East, which evolved from a fortnightly meeting in Bo-Kaap. The vision grew to see Jews and Muslims reconciled in the person of Jesus Christ. This vision received fresh inspiration from September 1998 when we prayed on Signal Hill which is situated just above Tamboerskloof, a ‘Christian’ suburb, and Bo-Kaap, which was still very much a Muslim stronghold at that time. Sea Point, situated just below Signal Hill on the other side is home to the majority of Cape Jews.
For many years the expressions of our love for the Jews were limited to occasional visits to Beth Ariel, a fellowship of Messianic Jewish believers in the suburb of Sea Point, and friendship with their leaders. This was to be stepped up significantly in 2004.
During 2004 our missionary colleague Edith Sher organised a prayer breakfast in Sea Point during which Adiel Adams, a Cape Muslim background believer, shared his testimony. God sent other people to help us in this effort. Lillian James is a long-standing contact and one of our prayer partners until she relocated to Johannesburg. She grew up bilingually in Woodstock among people of different cultures. After she became a committed follower of Jesus, she grew to love Jews and Muslims. She had been one of the believers who attended our prayer meetings for the Middle East where we prayed for both peoples and she introduced us to Leigh Telli and her husband. Leigh loves the Jews and the husband comes from a Muslim background, hailing from North Africa. All this served to confirm our calling of ministering to foreigners and linking our work to Messianic Jews.
The next step was a seminar on reconciliation on February 19, 2005. It was our vision to work towards reconciliation under the banner of Jesus, having Messianic Jews and followers of Jesus – also those from Muslim background – networking and displaying their unity in Christ. In our preparation for the seminar we worked closely with Leigh Telli. Leigh shared on the role of Isaac in the last days, and I did the same for Ishmael. Our co-worker Rochelle Malachowski who had been working in Palestine, reported on the ministry of Musalaha in the Middle East. Subsequently we printed a manual of our papers, in which some of Leigh's paintings also featured.
Soon we were invited to join an open-air service in Camps Bay that was dubbed ‘Shalom Salam’, signifying the intention to reach out to both Jews and Muslims. This became the start of a close friendship between Rosemarie and Leigh Telli, and a strengthening of the ties to Edith Sher who later started a weekly radio programme on Sunday afternoons on CCFM under the auspices of Messiah's People. (Edith Sher became an important additional source of information for my manuscript Pointers to Jesus.)
Hope after the Holocaust During a meeting in Durbanville on 31 May 2008 Rosemarie, my wife, shared the story of her upbringing as a post-World War11 child in Germany. A Polish holocaust survivor was the other speaker at this occasion. Quite a few Jews were apparently moved as she highlighted the fact that she learned to appreciate Jesus as the scapegoat for our sins. In a similar way the Jews were given the blame for the calamities in Germany’s Third Reich. (This was highlighted during the recent xenophobic violence during which the foreign Africans were strangely given the blame in a way things like the escalating food and petrol prices. A Jewish lady wanted Rosemarie to come and speak to her group in Sea Point. This took place at a follow up meeting in August 2008. There she, Leigh Telli and Cecilia Burger , a veteran Dutch Reformed church worker among the Jews, were warmly welcomed. Leigh wrote in her October 2008 newsletter: ‘I believe that R’s message touched many hearts that day.’
The effect of this meeting was however nullified a few weeks later when Rosemarie and Leigh were identified as missionaries to the Jewish people. It looked however as if we would be back to square one with respect to further breakthroughs in Sea Point when out of the blue Rosemarie was invited out of the blue to share her story at a meeting of Jewish business people on the 20th of April 2009, together with a another holocaust survivor. The organiser of these events is a 85-year old energetic Jewish lady, likewise a holocaust survivor.

11. Evangelical Outreach to Cape Muslims

Through the centuries evangelical outreach to Cape Muslims has been characterised by neglect and indifference. Especially due to the dual effect of the materialism of colonists47 and the rejection by the two Cape churches, there was a massive turning to Islam from the side of the slaves between 1790 and 1825 in spite of big missionary involvement at the Cape than ever before, notably by the London Missionary Society the (LMS). Till the 1830s the only direct outreach to Muslims was a three year stint of Rev. William Elliot, who knew Arabic. He came to the Cape via the LMS, after working as a missionary on the island of Johanna, one of the Comores group. Elliot’s arrival followed insensitivities like a missionary school in Dorp Street in which there was also a Muslim Madressah. Nevertheless, he ‘continued to labour with great zeal and devotion, but the soil was barren, the prejudice deep-rooted and the support of Christian friends slack....’ He therefore felt compelled to sever his connection with the mission.
The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) also paid and appointed some clergy at the Cape. The Rev. William Wright was appointed especially to inspect and improve the ‘Public Schools’. By 1827 Wright’s pro-black and anti-slavery attitudes angered both the government and the white population. Rev. Elliot’s work was stopped in 1828 because of the need of funds and ‘the inveterate prejudices of that class against the Christian faith’. On closer inspection, it seems that Elliot was not able to win the trust of the Muslims. Furthermore, financial support for the missionary work dried up, possibly also as a backlash to Dr Philip’s demeanour and the views of Rev. Wright. Church people regarded the LMS superintendent as too political, not behoving a missionary, causing the colonists to lose interest in the LMS.48
Another Anglican clergyman sent to the Cape by the SPG was the Rev. James Willis Sanders. In 1838 Sanders reported to the SPG that the great majority of ‘Coloured’ apprentices (who were former slaves and also fell under Sanders’ charge) ‘showed a decided preference for the Mahometan religion’. The reasons he gave for this were, first and foremost because the Christians showed no zeal for the conversion of the ‘Coloured’ population and they also treated badly their former slaves, who were now apprenticed to them. Sanders furthermore reported that ‘by some of the Masters, the slaves have been looked upon not as human beings, but as a link between man and the brute creation ....slave holders have brutalised and degraded these poor creatures by their treatment and then pointed to that degradation as a divine curse inflicted upon the descendants of Ham according to the inspired predictions.’

The Start of Anglican Work among Cape Muslims
The first Anglican Bishop in South Africa, Robert Gray, came to the Cape in 1848. Almost immediately Bishop Gray implemented his vision to reach out to the indigenous people and to the Muslims with the Gospel. A major evangelistic coup on Bishop Gray’s part with regard to the Muslims was to bring in Rev. Michael Angelo Camilleri, who arrived on 9 December 1848. He was the first missionary sent out by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), scheduled to operate specifically among the Cape Muslims. He was a former Catholic priest who, having married, was seeking employment. Unfortunately he spent only a short time at the Cape (until 1854) and worked not only as a missionary to the Muslims, but he also temporarily occupied other posts such as acting military chaplain. The tone of Bishop Gray’s letters to Camilleri implies that he was not carrying out his missionary task to the satisfaction of the Bishop. After his return to England in 1855 he became an English country parson, remaining in one parish until his death. This might indicates that he was not so strongly motivated for missionary work and that he was perhaps rather seeking secure employment. Quite a few years elapsed before a successor to Camilleri on behalf of the denomination became responsible for Muslim outreach.
Through the ministry of Christian compassion during the smallpox epidemics, many a Muslim heart was softened for the Gospel. The charitable concern of Dean Thomas Fothergill Lightfoot of the St Paul’s Church during the smallpox epidemic of 1858 was e.g. making a deep impact, preparing many a Bo-Kaap Muslim for the Gospel. Lightfoot referred to an increase of ‘catechumens’ (candidates for confirmation) after the epidemic. In this epidemic there were 20 to 30 funerals per day in Cape Town, half of which were ‘Malay’.

Islam at the Crossroads
The Cape Muslim reaction in these epidemics had been to hide their patients. Hence, when the Imams were questioned about the prevalence of smallpox in their community, they denied it. In the period after 1842 significant inroads were made into Islam by the missionary work, especially by Rev. Stegmann at St Stephen’s, by Rev. Vogelgezang in Rose Street and later by the Anglicans at St. Paul’s (Bo-Kaap) and St. Mary’s (Woodstock).
Islamic growth seemed to have slowed down considerably at that point in time. Internal bickering by Muslims and a power struggle by Bo-Kaap imams were not helping their cause either. The religion was all but knocked out in the Bo-Kaap when personality disputes rocked the mosques (The many mosques in the ‘slamse buurt’, the original ‘Malay Quarter’, is a sad legacy of this bitter in-fighting). The doctrinal differences were given a formal tinge already on 27 February, 1844 when the Nurul Islam Mosque in Buitengracht Street became a Shafee congregation. The initial split from the Auwal mosque less than 100 meters away had been factional about leadership issues.

Christians to the Rescue of Islam
The rescue came from outside, in the form of reprieve from Christians in a surprising combination. European Christians unintentionally brought with them the baggage of racial and religious superiority, which did not stop at the church door. This happened literally after the arrival of Archdeacon Nathaniel James Merriman in 1849, who was scheduled to start his ministry as leader of a new diocese Grahamstown. He described how at St George’s Cathedral two or three Muslims ‘with their red handkerchiefs on their heads’ came out of curiosity to see the new Archdeacon, but ‘the attendant official turned them out and shut the door in their faces!!!.
By the mid-nineteenth century ‘racism had become an important ideological pedestal for the Western self-image of superiority’. In this process pseudo-science gave valuable assistance. Charles Darwin’s epoch-making work with the title On the Origin of the species of Natural Selection of 1859 had as sub-title the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.
The resuscitation of Islam was aided by racial prejudice. The hatred and prejudice of rank and file Whites knitted Muslims together to fight for the survival of their religion at the Cape. Various epidemics, e.g. of smallpox, almost brought Islamic numeric growth to a halt, but the opposition to health measures and the carnal responses of the local newspapers made martyrs out of the Cape Muslims. This functioned as the glue which reunited the different factions.
The churches were too occupied with their own internal issues to see the need for bringing the Gospel to the ‘Malays’, who were perceived to be inferior. At this time, the work of the South African Missionary Society (SAMS) was suffering due to a lack of funds. The need for a special mission to the Muslims was nevertheless definitely felt and a sub-commission was specially formed for this purpose. Speaking on behalf of this sub-commission, Rev. G.W. Stegmann insisted on a final decision in 1873. Yet, Muslims were still coming to faith in Christ. In the annual report of the SAMS of 1875 it is mentioned that 7 of the 18 new members to be confirmed were Muslims. It is ironic that Christians have saved Islam from extinction at the Cape again and again, directly and indirectly.
There was genuine compassion practised by Mr Petrus Emanuel de Roubaix - who was a director of the SAMS and a Cape parliamentarian. He brought in Abu Bakr Effendi, an imam from Turkey, to try and stop the doctrinal fighting in the mosques. Effendi however, was nowhere near the final answer as he caused doctrinal disunity himself. The name of the Shafee Mosque in Chiapinni Street that was built in 1876, now reminds one of the Shafee versus Hanafee doctrinal struggle, which was exacerbated by Effendi. His greatest contribution was probably the writing in Afrikaans of the Bayan al-Din, a religious text, written phonetically in Arabic script.

Dr John M. Arnold, an underrated Missionary
Bishop Robert Gray died in September 1872, but the new Bishop, William West Jones49, was also positively inclined to the importance of the work. He recruited the German-born and first missionary of the Swiss Basler Mission, Dr John Mühleissen Arnold. After studies at the University of Basel in Switzerland and training for the Lutheran ministry at the Mission House of the Basler Evangelische Missions Gesellschaft, he does not seem to have been influenced much by the liberal professors Bauer and Strauss of the renowned Tübingen University where he received his doctorate for his book Genuine and Spurious Religions. Arnold published several books during the 1850s including Papist conspiracy against Civil and Religious Liberty of Great Britain (1851) and True and False Religion (1852).
He had worked in Africa, Britain, India and the Middle East before coming to the Cape as a senior missionary age-wise. He had therefore also experienced countries where Islam was in the majority. The situation at the Cape, however, was different. The founder of the Muslim Mission Society struggled to adapt his own theoretical missionary approach to the unique situation where Christianity was in the majority and Islam in the minority.
Arnold’s start at the Cape was unfortunate. His authoritative book Ishmael; A Natural History of Islamism and its relationship with Christianity was reviewed by the local press soon after he arrived. Both the Cape Argus and the Standard and Mail described the book as being biased and one-sided.
Yet, Bishop West Jones wrote about him: ‘He is a fine old man, full of energy and self-denial ... The Church is crowded every Sunday, and his simple earnest preaching is working wonders’. Dr Arnold, an exceptional but completely underrated missionary, operated in Papendorp (later called Woodstock).
Arnold’s one dishonest deed was however to throw a shadow over the ministry of a great scholar. It was destined to sour relationships between Cape Muslims and Christians seventy years after his death. He published in Dutch a sixteen page pamphlet, Twijfel en Gemoedskwelling van een Maleijer in de Kaap-Kolonie, genaamd Abdullah Ben Yusuf door Hemzelven Verhaald. This was subsequently translated into English and appeared as Abdullah Ben Yusuf: or the Story of a Malay as told by himself. Writing to the Muslim Mission Society on 30 July 1877, Arnold himself wrote about the pamphlet: It is supposed to be written by a Malay as a Malay, stating the doubts and perplexities of himself and of other thoughtful Malays, respecting Islam; and it is not to be known who the real author is. ...’ The offensive nature of the pamphlet has continued to draw criticism from both Christian and Muslim historians throughout this century. Achmat Davids described the pamphlet as: ‘A despicable publication, derogatory of Muslims and a distortion of their religion.’
Nevertheless, Arnold would definitely have made a dent on Cape Islam - in tandem with Rev.Lightfoot in Bo-Kaap - if he had not died as early as 1881, after being at the Cape for only 6 years. Other reports show that Arnold significantly impacted Muslims in the short stint in Papendorp. Because he was in charge of Muslim work over the whole Peninsula, it militated against an even bigger impression amongst the adherents of Islam in Woodstock.

More Anglican Outreach to Muslims
A major factor which assisted in creating tolerance in spite of the racial attitudes of white
Christians was the passing of the Voluntary Bill of 1875, which created - at least in legislation - the equality of all religious groupings in the Cape Colony. This Bill encouraged a spirit of religious tolerance between Christians and Muslims in Cape Town.
The work of the Cowley Fathers amongst the Muslims (1884-1904) was relatively insignificant but their positive attitude towards the poor and oppressed led to opposition from the White settlers and clergy. Bishop West Jones requested the replacement of Father Osborne for this reason. Father Osborne was replaced by Father Philip Napier Waggett (1862-1939). He arrived in 1896 at Cape Town with Father Page (the Superior of the Society) as well as a doctor, Miss Edith Pellat.
In an article in the Cowley Evangelist in 1899, Fr Waggett gives an account of the ‘Malay’
people of Cape Town.50 In discussing the origin of the ‘Malays’ in Cape Town, he indicated that ‘Malay’ was a generic name for all Muslims and was often preceded by further description, e.g. ‘Indian Malays’. He also acknowledged that many words of ‘Taal - the Dutch of Africa’ were derived from Malay. However, most of the Asiatic influences were ‘obliterated by influences from Mecca and the Turkish Empire’. Waggett notes that in spite of the Turkish influence, the Muslim women at the Cape did not wear the veil. This he felt was significant as it carried with it ‘the practical abolition of half the social system of Islam’.
Waggett found that the work done by Miss Pellat merely showed how much more was needed to be done. Miss Pellat was ‘getting to know the goodness of the people and their weakness too’. She also reported to Waggett the problem of ‘lapsing’ Christians. She reported in February 1898 that she had seen 89 new ‘Malay’ patients, but of these 51 were either lapsed Christians or had relations who had lapsed. Waggett, sensibly, decided that the excellent work being done by the dispensary should not be jeopardised by more intense evangelistic missionary work. The ‘quiet, loving, constant work which lies thick around the Dispensary’ should rather be maintained as it ‘justified itself as a medical work alone, as a work of mercy and reform, and an exhibition in act of the Divine love’.
The Cowley Fathers had taken on the ‘Malay Mission work’ as part of an agreement to enable an extra worker to come to the Cape. In spite of the vision of Gray and West Jones, it was never the Cowley Fathers’ personal aim to be the primary missionaries to the Muslims in Cape Town. Their interests concentrated on the African work and this continually drew them away from ‘the Malay Work’ and although they received an annual grant, little or no work was done over the twenty odd years they received the grant, the exemptions being the work of the Reverend W U Watkins and Miss Edith Pellat. In the latter’s case, she was forced to run a private practice in order to survive financially.

Muslims hear divergent Versions of the Gospel
The Cowley Fathers’ approach to mission was to live among the people and witness to them by loving kindness. They believed that the African could be converted via English civilised values. Similarly, with the Muslims they believed that by simply living among them, their values would rub off. They thought that Muslims, having been ‘swiftly converted to English values’, would thus not fail to become Christians as well. The ‘Malay Mission Work’ was neglected during the early years of the twentieth century because the Cowley Fathers believed the ‘Native Work’ was more important.
The Anglican Rev. Stephen Garabedian operated at the Cape from 1911 to 1922. As an Armenian, he came from a background of Muslim oppression. He was trained at the evangelical college of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) and worked for the CMS elsewhere in Africa and India. His main concern while he ministered at the Cape was to prevent the loss of Christians to Islam, rather than attempting to see Muslims coming to faith in Christ. His concern was for the social welfare of the poor and especially poor pregnant women. This led to the opening of St Monica’s Home which was an important centre for the Mission’s work. Right until it disbanded, the Anglican Muslim Mission continued to be concerned for social welfare among the poorer Muslims.
From 1907 the missionary work among Muslims fell under the Diocesan Mission Board (DMB).
During the period 1911 to 1932 and especially under the influence of Rev. Garabedian, the whole accent of the mission to Muslim’s policy began to change. More emphasis was placed on the prevention of Christian women converting to Islam.
Garabedian’s main concern was to ensure that the Anglican Church lost no more of its members to Islam and, if possible, to rescue those who had ‘lapsed’. His reports reflect the patronising attitude of the early twentieth century church towards other faiths. The use of the words, ‘rescued’ and ‘lapsed’ demonstrate this exclusiveness which the Christian church assumed. The reason for the ‘leakage’ appears the security offered by the Muslim community. This was particularly the case in the acceptance of pregnant women into Muslim families through polygamous marriages.
The task of rescuing ‘the lapsed’ seemed to be of particular concern to Garabedian because
of his Armenian background. The Armenian people suffered continued persecution from their Muslim rulers. Garabedian probably brought with him some strong anti-Islamic sentiments. Because of this one can understand his concentration on ‘rescuing’ those who had ‘lapsed’. At the 1933 Synod a Muslim Mission Board (MMB) was elected to assume control of the day-to-day running of the mission.
At events with international preachers in the Old Drill Hall in Darling Street one could invariably reckon with some Muslims in the audience. Many from the ranks of Islam were attending Christian schools in Bo-Kaap and District Six anyway. Often enough Wayside and other Sunday schools were attended by some of them, although not always with the permission of the parents.

Racism and denominationalism as Amputations
In the beginning of the twentieth Century the scourge of racism and Boer-Brit rivalry curtailed the interest in evangelism in the bud. Theological conservatives were quite proud that they were not conforming to the prescripts of the Social Gospel, unaware that their advocacy of racial prejudice was far removed from the biblical injunction of neighbourly love and concern. South Africa was on the verge of becoming a world force in missions when the cancerous racism and competitive denominationalism hit the mission movement at the core. The Groote Kerk refused to rent their school building for the use of Muslim outreach by Ds. G. B. A. Gerdener. Luckily a hall could be rented from a certain Mr Lowe, possibly the founder of the Cape Town City Mission.
The blessed work ‘t Uitkomst, a house in District Six started by Rev. G.B.A. Gerdener in 1916 to accommodate converts from Islam, was closed around 1928. By this time it was housing 30 neglected children in its successor in Gabriel Road, Wynberg (Plumstead). The cause of the closure was the lack of support from the church, by both the `Moeder- en Sendingkerk.’
The anointed ministry of the gifted Rev. A.J. Liebenberg in the 1920s - who came to the Cape after a stint in Nyasaland (the present Malawi) - merely camouflaged the real situation in the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC). Apparently Liebenberg knew what he was in for. In December 1935 he described Muslim evangelism in the Koningsbode as ‘die moeilijkste sendingwerk wat enige mens kan onderneem’ and ‘die onvrugbaarste van alle sendingonderneminge’ - the most difficult work anybody can undertake and the least fruitful of missionary endeavours. Had this wise counsel been generally known, it would have saved people much frustration. Muslims in the subsequent decades of the twentieth century Many a missionary and co-worker were still to be honourably wounded in the taxing outreach to Cape.

Anglican Women in the Mission to the Muslims
A major area of Anglican missionary activity was the prevention of marriages between Christian girls and Muslim men. As this change of direction was more particularly concerned with women, it is understandable that women workers would be more successful in this task.
In order to carry out this policy a refuge house was established under Miss Stollard at 56
Bryant Street. She later married a priest, Rev. W A Norton, but she continued voluntary work in the Claremont parish around St Matthew’s Church. In Claremont she worked with Dr Mary Turpie who opened a clinic and dispensary for the poor. She hoped, as Dr Pellat had done earlier, to give Muslim women medical attention as well as an introduction to the Christian faith.
Miss Stollard’s successor at the refuge in Bryant Street was Miss Francis Edwina Shepherd. She was a nursing sister and began to do maternity nursing work in the Cape Town area. It was her vision, and support of that vision by the Mission to the Muslims Board (MMB), which led to the founding of St Monica’s Rescue Home.
In January 1945 Miss J K Leslie was appointed as a fulltime worker. She had been trained by the Church Mission Society for work among Muslims and had had experience of this work in the Middle East. Miss Leslie, a lay worker, was assisted by Miss Manning, a Cape Town-born ‘Coloured’ social worker. This is the first occasion of a ‘Coloured’ person, male or female, being used as a paid official of the Mission.
The Synod report of 1949 also told of the on-going training Miss Leslie was giving to Miss Manning. Miss Manning had easier access to the homes of Muslims on the Cape Flats and brought many cases to Miss Leslie’s attention. At the 1949 Synod Miss Leslie stated that a large portion of her time was spent ‘among Christians who have apostatized, usually through marriage’.
In a memorandum by Miss Leslie in 1951 she stated that ‘the policy of the Mission is to be a Teaching Mission’ and went on to describe her work of teaching through individual contact with possible converts, at parishes and at the Mission Centre (Ivy Street, Observatory), at confirmation classes and guilds, among lapsed Christians as well as parents and others responsible for young Christians. She also emphasised the challenges which the Mission faced over the concept that Islam was a ‘Black Man’s Religion’. She reported that the paternalistic attitude of the mainline church towards Africans had driven many of the sons and daughters of African church workers to become Muslims.
Miss Leslie concluded that too few parishes showed interest in the Mission. This state continued until a priest was appointed as director demonstrating an on-going Anglican attitude of only trusting and supporting work done by a male priest. The lack of interest in Muslim outreach was however a perennial problem across the board in all denominations.

A renewed Anglican Mission to the Muslims
The first male appointment of a person of colour for full-time outreach to Muslims occurred after Rev. (later Bishop) George Swartz had approached Archbishop Joost de Blank in 1959 with a pastoral problem. The Archbishop told him that Miss Leslie, the church’s only remaining missionary to the Muslims, would be retiring soon. De Blank challenged Swartz to get involved with this work.
Schwarz’s calling to Muslim outreach was confirmed at a ministers’ retreat in 1960, after which he was given a special appointment as full-time priest for the ‘Mission to the Muslims’. In order to be better equipped for this work, Swartz was sent to Canterbury in England, where he was trained for a year at St Augustines, Canterbury (UK), by the renowned Bishop Kenneth Cragg. A stint of nine months in Jerusalem to minister among Arab Christians was intended to make him acquainted with the Middle Eastern setting.
Back in Cape Town, Swartz was linked to the St Mark’s parish in Athlone with the full-time charge of ministering to Muslims in the whole diocese of the Mother City. His work revolved around marriage counselling of (or where a marriage was being considered) in which one of the parties was a Muslim. The Archbishop hereafter approached Swartz to move to the parish of St Philip’s in District Six in a caretaker capacity. Rev. Swartz went to St Philip’s in 1963. Here he conducted seminars on Islam and Muslim Evangelism for the whole diocese. For seven years Rev. Swartz laboured in District Six, but increasingly the parochial responsibilities devoured his attention.
By his own admission, 90% of his time was devoted to parish work by 1970. In that year Swartz was called to take charge of the Anglican congregation in Bonteheuwel. To all intents and purposes, this signalled the end of all formal Muslim outreach by the denomination. Swartz attempted to evangelise Muslims in the traditional manner, but many of his fellow black priests like Rev. Clive Mc Bride suggested that apartheid rather than Islam was a greater threat to Christianity in Cape Town. Just like in almost all the mainline churches, the advent of Black Theology and active opposition to apartheid, interest in evangelism waned and in many cases was completely stifled.

Ambivalent Church Politics
The teaching in Cape churches at large seemed to have lacked with regard to sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, e.g. the challenge that men of God should be at the right place at the right time. This happened despite Dr Andrew Murray having given a lead to the church worldwide in the teaching on the work of the Holy Spirit. Too often the enemy succeeded in luring gifted people to less effective ministry. Thus it might have looked strategic that the prodigious Ds Gerdener - who had been set aside especially for Muslim outreach - became a theology professor. Looking back, it is easy to see that Gerdener’s move to the Kweekskool at Stellenbosch, the theological seminary, was not wise.
Pressures on society during the twentieth century, such as the two world wars, the threat of
nuclear destruction and, in South Africa, the oppression of Apartheid, forced people to seek
relief in religion. This led to a worldwide resurgence of all faiths including Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism as well as Christianity.
The official name of the Anglican ‘Mission to the Muslims’ was changed after a visit by Bishop Kenneth Cragg to the Mother City, and a less aggressive tag had been suggested. It became the Board of Muslim Relationships. In 1973 Father Swartz was elected Suffragan Bishop of Cape Town and thus had even less time to do any work for the Board. The minutes for the year 1973 show that most of the work being done by the Board was administrative. Bishop Swartz demonstrated this by
reporting that for every Muslim convert, nine Christians converted to Islam. The Anglican outreach work itself petered out to become almost non-existent in the late 1980s. The official position of the denomination was now ‘inter-faith’, which boiled down to the absence of Gospel presentations to Muslims.
The DRC by and large lost its vision to reach out to the Muslims, even though Gerdener was hereafter one of the mentors to their future ministers for many years (By his own admission, Ds Davie Pypers, who studied under Gerdener and who became a pioneer missionary to the Cape Muslims in the second half of the twentieth century, did not get his inspiration for Muslim outreach at the Stellenbosch Kweekskool. This only happened after he had become a minister at St Stephen’s in Bo-Kaap).

A significant Power Encounter
When Ds Davie Pypers commenced work in 1956 as a minister of the Dutch Reformed St Stephen’s Church in Bree Street - which was quite prominent in the Bo-Kaap in those days - he discerned the need for increased prayer for the Muslims of the area. Soon he initiated praying for Bo-Kaap and the Muslims living there. Together with two other Dutch Reformed Church colleagues, he interceded every Monday for the area that became even more pronouncedly Islamic in the wake of the envisaged implementation of Group Areas legislation.
Ds Pypers appears to have been one of the very few ministers at the Cape of his era who had any notion of spiritual warfare. It was definitely not common practice yet. And Satan was not going to release his gains so easily.
Davie Pypers was called to become the missionary to the Cape Muslims on behalf of the Dutch Reformed Church, linked to the historical Gestig (Sendingkerk) congregation in Long Street, the church where once people from different denominations worshipped, the cradle of missionary outreach in South Africa.51 He had hardly started with his new work when a challenge came from a young imam, Mr Ahmed Deedat, to publicly debate the death of Jesus on the Cross. As a young dominee David Pypers prepared himself through prayer and fasting in a tent on the mountains at Bain’s Kloof for the event on 13 August 1961 at the Green Point Track.
Because of publicity in the media, 30 000 people of all races jammed into the Green Point sports stadium. The venue quivered with excitement like at a rugby match. In the keenly contested debate, Ahmed Deedat started with the assertion that Jesus went to Egypt after the disciples had taken him from the cross. He thoroughly ridiculed the Christian faith, challenging Pypers to give proof that Jesus died on the cross. The young dominee rose to the challenge by immediately stating that Jesus is alive and that He could there and then do the very things He had done when He walked the earth.
Dr David du Plessis reported on the event in his autobiography: ‘Taking a deep breath, he (Pypers) spoke loud and clear, ‘Is there anybody in this audience that, according to medical judgement, is completely incurable? Remember, it must be incurable...’ Of course, the stadium was abuzz by now. And then several men came along, carrying Mrs Withuhn, a White Christian lady, with braces all over her body. She was completely paralyzed. Then Pypers went ahead, asking whether there were any doctors present who could examine her and vouch for her condition. ‘Several doctors came forward, including her own physician, and they concurred in pronouncing her affliction incurable.’
Pypers simply walked to her and without any ado prayed for her briefly and proclaimed: ‘In the name of Jesus, be healed!’ Immediately she dropped her crutches and began to move.
Through apartheid legislation the ‘Malay quarter’ of Bo-Kaap was greatly extended, churches there were closed down and Christians were tempted to become Muslims if they wanted to continue living there. Many who worshipped at St Stephen’s and at the Anglican St Paul’s church, started leaving the residential area because of Group Areas legislation in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Green Point aftermath
The Green Point event thus resulted in a victory for the Cross, when Mrs Withuhn was miraculously healed in the name of the resurrected Lord.
Many Muslims were deeply moved. The re-issue of the booklet The Hadji Abdullah ben Yussuf; or the story of a Malay as told by himself in an Afrikaans translation and its distribution at the gates of the Green Point Track, was definitely not helpful. Actually it was quite unfortunate and insensitive, referring negatively to the Qur’an and Muhammad, the founder of Islam.52 The Muslim community was enraged by this re-publication of the insensitive nineteenth century pamphlet.
What was perceived as the defeat of Ahmed Deedat and thus of the Muslims at Green Point, called for revenge. Deedat stated publicly that the original motivation for these public debates was his humiliation at the hand of Christians. He was not going to accept defeat lying down.
The impact of the miracle was almost nullified by the news that came from another part of the world that same day. The report of the building of the Berlin Wall resounded throughout the world! A new type of battle was cemented - the ‘cold war’ between Soviet Communism and Western Capitalism!
But it was nearly just as bad that Pypers was heavily criticized by his denomination because he undertook the confrontation without getting prior synod approval. Furthermore, his denominational leadership was still clinging to a Calvinist interpretation of Divine healing, so that it ceased at in biblical times.
A notable achievement of Pypers occurred at the ‘Coloured’ church S. A. Gestig in Long Street, when one of his former congregants, Lizzie Cloete, came to the conviction in 1964 that the Lord had called her for the spreading of the gospel to the Muslims. As a church worker in the congregation of Wynberg she thus became one of the first full-time missionaries to the Muslims from the ‘Coloured’ community, but it was not seen that way by the church at large. She was just regarded as a church worker, but her consecration on 17 May 1964 was a landmark for the ‘Coloured’ sector of the Dutch Reformed Church.

Islam linked to Communism
With the ensuing cold war becoming the talk of the day, the enemy of souls abused Communism with its atheistic basis, to hinder the spreading of the victorious message of the Cross, which had been proclaimed at the Green Point Track. The event of 13 August 1961 had great importance in the spiritual realm. The Islamic Crescent was subtly linked to Communism in opposition to the Cross. (This was to happen again in reverse in 1990 after the demise of Communism. Islam then took over the mantle from the atheist ideology as a threat to world peace when Saddam Hussein marched into Kuweit with his army. That event became the catalyst for many Christians to start praying against the ideology of Islam as a spiritual force.)
Yet, in his own denomination, Pypers was still a lone ranger. In some quarters he was even vilified by some after the Green Point event, although he had actually been challenged by the literature on faith healing, written by Andrew Murray, a revered hero of his church. Pypers was out on a limb in the Dutch Reformed Church. At the Kweekskool in Stellenbosch, the theological seminary of the church, it was officially taught that faith healing was something which belonged to a past age - to the times of the apostles.

Start of Life Challenge
The German missionary couple Gerhard and Hannelore Nehls had to stop their work in Johannesburg with the Bible Band for health reasons. When they saw Bo-Kaap at the beginning of 1975 for the first time, it immediately called forth a resonance in their hearts. Soon the focus of their ministry changed, although they were formally still missionaries of the Bible Band. In the mid 1970s the mission effort to the Muslims at the Cape was revived through the pioneering work of the Nehls couple, who laboured hard for many years without seeing much in terms of fruit or local recognition. Nehls started with regular outreach to Muslims in Salt River in 1980, later calling his work Life Challenge.
Support from the Cape churches was almost non-existent at the time. In fact, the churches were rather indifferent to Muslim Outreach in general. Suburbs like Woodstock and Salt River became increasingly Islamic, among other factors also because of this indifference. Prostitution, drug abuse and the sale of houses to Muslims that had been the tenants were however the major factors, which pushed many Christians out of these residential areas during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Gerhard Nehls became God’s instrument for the recruitment of a string of German and Swiss missionaries. These missionaries hardly made an impact on Islam. However, they kept the consciences of those churches alive, which did not get on the inter-faith bandwagon with regard to their missionary duty to the Cape Muslims. A major contribution by Nehls was the linking of his agency Life Challenge with other missionaries among Muslims. John Gilchrist (Jesus to the Muslims) and Fred Nel (Eternal Outreach) joined forces with Nehls in 1982 under the umbrella of CCM (Christian Concern for Muslims), which later held annual conferences for all co-workers plus a leadership consultation once a year. Dave Foster of the Africa Evangelical Fellowship joined them quite soon.
Life Challenge and the initiative from the Dutch Reformed Church seemed to co-operate quite well, especially while Ds Chris Greyling was still the Sendingkerk man. Neville Truter became a co-worker from Dutch Reformed ranks after a tract deeply impacted him. (Gerhard Nehls gave this to him during a private car sale in 1976.) Truter was thrown in at the deep end when he was requested to arrange an appointment for Gerhard Nehls and Walter Gschwandter, with the imam of a mosque in Cravenby, an Indian northern suburb. After Professor Pieter Els returned from the Indian University of Durban-Westville in 1973 to lecture in Old Testament at the University of the Western Cape, he teamed up with Truter. Els immediately picked up the threads of his student days in Muslim outreach as they joined forces for many years in the Indian residential area Cravenby.

Other Denominations in Muslim Outreach
The well-known evangelistic St. James Church of Kenilworth, a White suburb, belongs to the doctrinally related denomination - the Church of England in South Africa. Members of this congregation became involved in Muslim Outreach via Life Challenge. This happened for example through workers in the Lansdowne area and later with a team under the leadership of John Higson in Salt River. An attempt to arsonise the Uniting Reformed Church of Lansdowne, the scheduled venue for a teaching course Share the Gospel with your Muslim Neighbour in September 1996, was the catalyst to approach the St James Church. As a result, one of their halls became the venue for the combined SIM\WEC course ‘Love your Muslim neighbour’.53
12. Christian Initiatives at the end of the 20th Century

A special ministry of compassion to the city nightclubs started in the early 1970s was based in the Tafelberg Hotel in District Six. It was started amongst the youth of the White Dutch Reformed Church congregation of Wynberg, and birthed in prayer.

Straatwerk started
Pietie Victor, who started his theological training at the Dutch Reformed Church Kweekskool in Stellenbosch in 1964, founded a ministry of compassion with his wife Annette which they called Straatwerk (Street Work). She was a social worker by profession.
In their denomination there was initially a lot of opposition to the work. However, after an invitation by Ds Solly Ozrovich to come and share about their work in his congregation in Gordons Bay, they received invitations from all over. The favour of the devout young people seemed to have angered the forces of the arch enemy tremendously. Pietie Victor was soon asked to appear before his church council. Via the grapevine he heard that he had to account for the ‘late night activities’ and that he was busy with sectarian ‘things’ like speaking in tongues, laying on of hands and other ‘geestelike vergrype’ (spiritual offences). The group was driven to prayer as never before. God vindicated them. At the actual meeting with the church council, not a single one of the accusations was mentioned. Instead, the youth group only harvested praise.
One of the criticisms thrown at Pietie Victor, who finished his theological studies at the end of 1971, was that he was a liberal. The reason for this was that they welcomed people from all races into their mobile coffee bar - a Microbus, which they parked in front of St Stephen’s Church in Bree Street under a street lamp. There they served those whom they had brought from the streets with sandwiches and coffee. That was the reason St Stephen’s Church offered two of their cellar rooms for the use of the coffee bar. What an irony of history followed. The ‘Coloured’ congregation that was still linked to the Groote Kerk - the same congregation that refused teaching to Muslims in one of their rooms at the beginning of the century - now hosted the White young people. Even a greater irony followed. The venue that functioned as coffee bar, had once been the source of conflict in 1842. It was the place where a little more than a century before manumitted slaves learned to read and write. That had been the main bone of contention - the reason why the church received its name, after being pelted with stones by angry White colonists. For many decades, the Straatwerk Koffiekamer (Coffee Room) at 108 Bree Street has been a blessing to many destitute people.
(Picture of Koffiekamer)

Low-key Opposition to apartheid
The Cape Town City Mission, with its modest beginnings at the beginning of the twentieth century, soon had no less than four congregations in District Six, respectively in Aspeling, Constitution, Cross and Smart Street. Fenner Kadalie, son of the trade unionist Clements Kadalie, became one of the most famous sons of the mission. He was himself impacted by the work in District Six when he was seven year old. Working closely with Bruce Duncan, Fenner Kadalie was to become a pivot of massive expansion of the Mother City’s most well-known institution of compassion. When the community was forced out of District Six by cruel legislation, Fenner Kadalie and his right hand, a young Bruce Duncan, gathered the scattered remnants of the District Six fellowships, ministering to their needs in their new homes on the Cape Flats. Fenner Kadalie was ‘a catalyst for the birth of many upliftment projects in and around Cape, notably when he roped in Melvyn Maxhegwana in Khayelitsha.
Under the inspiring leadership of Rev. Bruce Duncan and Fenner Kadalie the denomination grew rapidly in the 1970s, getting involved in various ministries of compassion. Bruce Duncan, an unsung hero of the ‘struggle’ because he was not formally involved with politics, dared to speak out against the injustice of apartheid, communicating at the same time ‘with anyone from Constantia to Hanover Park and gained credibility with gang lords that few others have achieved’. Halls of the Cape Town City Mission developed into fully-fledged churches. The story has been told of a young man with an afro who walked into one of these churches while Barry Isaacs was preaching. He kept coming back until he eventually committed his life to Christ. The man, Lorenzo Davids and Reverend Barry Isaacs later served together as leaders of The Cape Town City Mission.
Susan Benjamin represents one of the many success stories of the Mission, described as one of the women who changed the heart of the City. She and her husband had been heavy drinkers when Jesus rescued them through the ministry of the City Mission. When the family had been forced to leave District Six, Susan asked the Mission to hold meetings in her home. That became the pristine start of many new congregations across the Western Cape. Her children became stalwarts in the denomination.

Bliss and Blessings
David Bliss came to South Africa from the USA as a student in 1967 under the auspices of Africa Enterprise (AE). The relatively young mission and evangelistic agency AE, which was started by Michael Cassidy in 1962, rubbed off on David Bliss in the best sense of the word. He decided to postpone his return to Princeton University for a year. After his marriage to Deborah in 1972, the couple returned to South Africa in 1979 as AE workers on the Wits University campus in Johannesburg. In that year the South African Christian Leadership Assembly (SACLA) took place in Pretoria, an event that impacted Dave and Debby Bliss significantly. There the issue of unreached people groups and the possibility of recruiting South Africans as missionaries came to their attention very powerfully. Soon thereafter they started to put together a group of 35 people to attend the Urbana missions’ event in the USA at the end of the same year.
The next year they participated in the students’ conference in Edinburgh, which was running parallel to the 70th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the World Council of Churches. In the same city the American John Mott had been one of the main movers in 1910, the man who had catapulted missions into the attention of Christian students all over the Western world. The 1980 event brought the use of non-Westerners as missionaries into focus. For Dave and Debbie Bliss this was a natural follow-up to SACLA in Pretoria the previous year.
Professor Nico Smith, who had come to the event from Stellenbosch, was significantly challenged at SACLA to attack the apartheid structures more aggressively and - at least from time to time - to bring people from the various race groups together,. David Bliss linked up with him in 1981 at a CYARA conference, the acronym for come ye apart and rest awhile.
The Bliss family had relocated to Pietermaritzburg when Dave Bryant, who is known around the world for Concerts of Prayer, came to the country in 1983. This initiative spread and helped to bring people together on a city-wide level. Anything from 5 000 to 50 000 people were coming together in stadiums to pray for their cities and nations. Millions of intercessors were mobilized in this way. Bliss organized a busload of people from Natal to attend a prayer and revival conference at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) that would have a deep impact on many young people.

Waves of Prayer start from UWC
The Mother City and the wider surroundings of the Peninsula were blessed when a Frontiers Missions Conference was organized in 1983 at the UWC with Dave Bryant as speaker. This conference radiated waves of prayer throughout the country. Charles Robertson, who had been a lecturer at that university from 1971 to 1976, was brought into the swing of prayer events when he was approached to help fund the hiring of a bus to transport participants to the event at the historical Sendingsgestig Museum in the Mother City’s Long Street.54
Charles Robertson was challenged to chair the meeting as an Afrikaner at the Concert of Prayer with Dave Bryant. That would not be the last time either. He led the Concerts of Prayer not only at the monthly meetings at that venue, but later also at the Presbyterian Church in Mowbray where the event later moved to. (These Concerts of Prayer were subsequently held there for many years.) Charles Robertson also wrote a booklet at that time that speaks of spiritual waves emanating from South Africa as a result of prayer.
The visit to the Sendingsgestig Museum in Long Street with Dave Bryant - along with a visit to Wellington - paved the way for the Bliss family to move to the Boland town, which had so much of the stamp of the renowned Dr Andrew Murray. At the Mission’s Museum in the city, Dave and Debby Bliss were intensely challenged by the vision of Dr Helperus van Lier to see slaves trained to become missionaries. The Concert of Prayer in Wellington moved Dave and Debby Bliss deeply, especially when Dave Bryant proposed a Consultation on Prayer and World Missions in the town. Dr Christie Wilson, one of Dave Bliss’s lecturers at Seminary, furthermore suggested that they buy the building, which in due course became the Andrew Murray Centre for Prayer, Revival and Missions. That also became the venue for the first Bless the Nations conference. Thereafter this became an annual event that would significantly impact the country for missions in the late 1980s.

Cape Missionaries breaking through Apartheid Hurdles
Sydney Dean, an English-speaking Capetonian from the suburb of Vredehoek, married Annamie, an Afrikaner from the Boland town of Bonnievale when marriages like that were still frowned upon - at best tolerated. After being trained at the WEC Missionary Training College in Tasmania, they were refused visas for Indonesia, the country that they perceived to be the one to which God had been calling them. They were requested by their international office to fill the gap as national leaders at the WEC Headquarters in Durban. As newcomers it was not easy for them. They experienced opposition leadership-wise and on the ‘separate development’ issue. Very bravely and prayerfully they fought against the apartheid hurdles.
Two young people from the Cape, Caroline Duckitt from Bishop Lavis Township (in 1979) and June Domingo of Steenberg (in 1980) became the first South African WEC missionaries of colour to go abroad in the apartheid era. They went to Brazil and France respectively. WEC international also pioneered with South African-born but ethnically Indian missionaries. The first three such missionaries, Bhim Singh, Tiny Kuppen and Geetha Sunker, hailed from Durban. All three had a link through the missionary endeavour of Ds Davie Pypers, who started his career in Bo-Kaap. Two Blacks - Newman Muzwondiwa from Zimbabwe and Abraham Thulare, a South Sotho from Mapumalanga - pioneered a new recruitment base for Southern African missionaries. Both of them ministered in Japan. However, only many years later the next Black African was accepted as a WEC missionary in Durban.
Sydney Witbooi and Peter Tarentaal, respectively from the Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF) and Operation Mobilization (OM), broke through racial marital prejudices. Witbooi married Andrea, the daughter of Gerhard Nehls, the well-known Life Challenge missionary pioneer. Quite a few racially mixed marriages followed within OM ranks through the ministry on their ships. Jeremy Kammies from the Assemblies of God Congregation in Grassy Park married his bonny Anne from Pietermaritzburg. After serving WEC International in Liberia, the family was forced to leave in 2003 because of the civil war there. Like Peter and Cathy Tarentaal, Jeremy and Anne Kammies were elected as national leaders of their respective mission agency.

A Natalian Indian couple impacts the Cape
Richard Mitchell was a young pastor affiliated to the Full Gospel Church, who came by bus from Natal to the Frontiers Missions Conference in 1983 at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), where Dave Bryant was the main speaker. Mitchell had been a political anti-apartheid activist and a drug addict, who came to faith in Jesus Christ in prison. He became an important catalyst for citywide prayer in the 1990s.
The Mother City and the wider surroundings of the Peninsula were blessed by the Frontiers Missions Conference. At this conference Richard Mitchell met a young man from the Cape, Roland Manne, who had a passion for missions. Manne’s yearning to serve the Lord abroad was aborted when he contracted cancer of the bowels, dying in 1984. His commitment had by then however sown seeds that were germinating in the hearts of many young people. Richard Mitchell was one of those who were deeply moved by the testimony and commitment of Roland Manne and Dave Bryant for missions and prayer.
Richard Mitchell and his wife Elizabeth had already been used by God in 1980 when they asked Reverend Hugh Wetmore to share a room in their home with Dr Theodore Williams, the speaker at a Keswick Convention in Durban. For Wetmore, who became the leader of the Evangelical Fellowship of South Africa, the predecessor of The Evangelical Alliance of South Africa (TEASA), the experience was life changing. It was the first time that the White clergyman, who had been born and raised in the apartheid set-up, would share a room with a person of colour!
When Mitchell came to the Cape to plant a church in Rylands Estate in 1985, he felt challenged by his background in the struggle against apartheid to bring the element of prayer into the matter as well. He approached Pastor Ron Hendricks of the Silvertown Baptist Church to invite a few evangelical pastors for regular weekly prayer. In later years the practice found a powerful emulation in Mitchells Plain. Richard and Elizabeth Mitchell pioneered prayer on the heights, at Rhodes Memorial and Signal Hill on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings respectively.

A special Move of God’s Spirit
A special move of God’s Spirit took place through Pastor Alfred West. After he had accepted Jesus as his Saviour around 1952, the young White English-speaker became involved with various forms of evangelistic outreach like Wayside Sunday Schools in ‘Coloured’ residential areas. He also considered missionary service, but sensed the Lord calling him to get more involved locally. He was redirected to start working as a missionary in the township-like suburbs of Kensington and Windermere. Around 1963 he started a missionary prayer meeting in the home of a committed believer from Kensington, Doreen Hoedemaker. The group of people gradually formed a congregation, which had as its major goal to support missionary work financially. The fellowship included the Blignaut family, of which the son Wavell was to become a pastor of the Emmanuel Mission Church in Bishop Lavis. When members of Pastor West’s flock moved to Bishop Lavis and Bonteheuwel, the mission-minded pastor started a prayer-centred ministry that sent out missionaries to different parts of the world. Caroline Duckitt from Bishop Lavis Township would become the very first South African missionary of colour serving abroad formally, going to Brazil in 1979 with WEC international – thus causing a little crack in the apartheid wall.55 Diane Guta went as a missionary with SIM to Bolivia where she ministered for many years. Various missionaries visited the two churches in Bishop Lavis. Quite a few went from there to minister in other parts of the world subsequently. All this started to take place at a time when the concept was still rife that South African missionaries were not expected to come from the ‘non-White’ communities. Peter Barnes, who was trained at the nearby Cape School of Missions in Ravensmead, became a missionary to the Transkei where the vision was developed to prepare missionaries for other African countries.
When Pastor West retired from actual church involvement in Bishop Lavis, a special trophy of his ministry there were two church fellowships, one with Wavell Blignaut as pastor. The other one was led by Percy Jeptha, a gangster who got converted. He subsequently became a pastor of a home church. Special about Pastor West’s outreach was that he regarded the new home church not as competition, but as an extension of his ministry, keeping close contact with the new fellowship.
Pastor West became involved with church planting elsewhere after a group of young people from Stellenbosch had attended an evangelistic campaign in Grabouw, where he was the speaker in 1974. Among this group there was a young teacher, Godfrey Martin. Pastor West discerned potential in him, nurturing the young man until he was given leadership responsibility in a mission-minded fellowship of believers that started at the home of the Hine family in the Stellenbosch suburb of Idas Valley. From this fellowship Raymond and Sandra Robyn left to Central Asia with OM. At the beginning of the new millennium a mission agency developed there called Free to Serve.
In the late 1980s Pastor West was in the forefront of a prayer move when gangster violence threatened to turn the township of Bonteheuwel into anarchy. All law-loving citizens of the township appreciated West’s brave challenge to shebeens (illegal liquor outlets).
A romantic snippet occurred when Pastor West fell in love with one of the congregants. Because of The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949, he had to wait for 20 years before he could marry his ‘Coloured’ sweetheart Gladys.

An innovative Township Bible School gets off the Ground
The Cape School of Missions commenced in 1987 innovatively as a video school - the Urban Missions School. Martin Heuvel started the one-year programme in his home in Belhar with ten of his congregants. The following year they moved to the projector room of a cinema in Ravensmead, which became a prayer room. Subsequently they bought the building that later became the Fountain Christian Centre.56 When a few students wanted to continue their studies, it was decided to start a very affordable Bible School at his church and one that could be attended by students who had no Matric certificate.
Gielle (Deon) Daniels is a special former student of the Cape School of Missions. He was only in Standard Six (Grade 8), when he was expelled from school in 1980. Boycotting and political activity was the reason. He landed in gangster-type activity in Port Elizabeth until he came to know Christ, experiencing a call for full-time service. No Bible school was willing to accept him, because he only had a Grade 7 report. Daniels applied to the Cape School of Missions, which had advertised in Rapport, an Afrikaans nationally distributed newspaper. He excelled, faring better academically than student colleagues who had already attended university. After marrying a girl from Ravensmead, he returned to the Eastern Cape, continuing with theological studies. He is scheduled to graduate in 2007 with his Master of Theology..
Until 1994 Martin Heuvel was the principal of the Cape School of Missions. James Selfridge, an Irish missionary from the Metropolitan Church, became involved with this Bible School at an early stage. Heuvel was succeeded as principal by Selfridge in 1995, who led the teaching and proceedings until the disbanding of the school and the merger with the Bethel Bible School in 2004.

A training Ground for South African Missionaries
Church work in the Cape townships also served as a training ground for South African missionaries. Believers who had been operating and trained in the Cape are now serving in many countries. Especially through the activity of David Bliss of the Andrew Murray Centre in Wellington, the Western Cape started leading the mission scene of the country in the 1980s. The Bless the Nations conferences were soon operating in tandem with student weeks on many Afrikaans tertiary campuses. In the latter half of the 1990s this was done in conjunction with Love Southern Africa. The annual mission conference - which was followed by different short term outreaches - was started in Wellington and later decentralized. Over the years the component of South Africans working in Muslim countries grew significantly.
The Western Cape Missions Commission, to which our WEC colleague Shirley Charlton took the author soon after his return to the Cape in 1992, proved very valuable in terms of contacts. Here I met among other strategic people, Jan Hanekom, Bruce van Eeden and Martin Heuvel. One of the events organised in 1993 with some link to the Western Cape Missions Commission was a workshop with John Robb of World Vision. I used the list of participants at this event to organize Jesus Marches the following year.
The pastors Martin Heuvel and Bruce van Eeden were instrumental in bringing the missions vision to the ‘Coloured’ churches. Pastor Heuvel was also God’s instrument in a ministry with Muslim background believers to be revived when he challenged the author to this effect in 1992. (The occasion was the distribution of invitations to a pending visit of the internationally well-known Patrick Johnstone, the author of Operation World. Together with Alain and Nicole Ravelo-Hoërson, a small group of converts was soon congregating once a month at their home in Southfield). A meeting with Jeff Swartz, a student from the Cape School of Mission and a Ravensmead resident, had an interesting aftermath when he introduced me to Tim Makamu, a student from Vendaland who was a student at the Cape Technical University at the time. Tim became the senior pastor of the well-known His People Church in 2006.
Bruce van Eeden set up the Great Commission Conferences to great effect. Similar conferences were organised annually by Paul Manne and his Frontier Life Ministries. An indigenous evangelistic and church planting effort called Kingdom Ministries started under the leadership of Alfie Fabe when the Cape Town City Mission decided to let its churches become independent from its charity arm.

Jesus Marches
The next big move by Christians at the Cape centred around the Jesus Marches, which were co-ordinated in 1994 by Chris Agenbach of OM, Danie Heyns, a Christian businessman and the author. Probably for the first time Cape Christians started to pray concertedly around the occult power of the Kramats, the Islamic shrines on the heights of the Peninsula.
The 1994 Jesus Marches and the effort to start a prayer network in the Peninsula, led to contact with Trefor Morris, who was closely linked to Radio Fish Hoek. Occasionally he joined in the Friday lunchtime prayer at the Shepherd’s Watch at 98 Shortmarket Street in the Mother City, that received its nudge from Achmed Kariem, a local Muslim background believer. This was the beginning of a close link between the author and the radio station, which became well-known peninsula-wide when it was renamed Cape Community FM (CCFM). The link to the countrywide prayer movement was forged in October 1994 via Jan Hanekom of the Hofmeyr Centre in Stellenbosch. Local Christians joined Bennie Mostert for prayer at the Kramat (shrine) of Shaykh Yusuf in Macassar. Bennie Mostert, a Namibian Dutch Reformed minister, had been challenged to become a missionary to South Africa. God used him to spearhead the prayer movement, the Network of United Prayer in Southern Africa (NUPSA). The connection to the countrywide movement was strengthened when Gerda Leithgöb, the leader of Herald Ministries, was invited as the guest speaker for a prayer seminar in Rylands Estate in January 1995, which focused on Islam.

Prayer Sequels
The Messianic prophecy of Isaiah 60 was part of a devotional in a Friday lunch hour prayer meeting at the Shepherd’s Watch in the early 1990s. This nudged Gill Knaggs, a one-off visitor, towards evangelical outreach to the Muslim World. She was attending the lunch hour prayer meeting. But this set her in motion to pray about getting involved in full-time missionary work.
Gill hereafter helped to translate (from Afrikaans) and edit the testimony booklet Search for Truth. She also hosted a prayer group for Muslims at her home for quite a number of years. When CCFM started with a radio programme targeting Muslims in 1998, she was on hand for the writing of scripts, something she continued to do for many years, also after her marriage to John Wrench.
As a result of the 1994 Jesus Marches, some Cape churches came to know the missionary work of WEC International better. One of these churches was the Logos Baptiste Kerk in Bellville. Not only did this church become a major recipient of the annual Ramadan prayer booklet, but Freddy van Dyk, a leader in the church who worked at the City Council, joined the Friday lunchtime prayer meeting at the Shepherd’s Watch.

In November 1996 the launch of the 30-day Muslim Prayer Focus booklets took place in the historic St Stephen’s Church of Bo-Kaap. Bennie Mostert arranged the annual countrywide distribution, ensuring that the vision of countrywide prayer for Muslims once a year was guaranteed.

Intercessors from different areas
June Lehmensich, a regular at the Friday prayer meetings and an office worker for the City Council, had taken the pastoral clinical training course with Dr Dwyer in Lansdowne, in addition to attending the ‘Love your Muslim neighbour’ course at St James Church (Kenilworth) in 1996. She became a pivotal figure as she spread the vision for prayer, taking it right into the Provincial Chambers and the national Parliament. She was simultaneously the personification of faithfulness and perseverance, as well as a link to a prayer group with a long tradition at the Cape Town City Council.

Intercessors were coming together from different places once a month at the Sowers of the Word Church in Lansdowne, where the veteran Pastor Andy Lamb was the leader. Eben Swart became the Western Cape coordinator for Herald Ministries, working closely with NUPSA (Network of United Prayer in Southern Africa), which had appointed Pastor Willy Oyegun as their coordinator in the Western Cape. Important work was done in research and spiritual mapping, along with Amanda Buys, who went on to start Kanaan Ministries. Some of her clients had been involved with Satanism.

Citywide prayer Events
A citywide prayer event on the Grand Parade in 1998 almost floundered after a bomb threat. Churches across the Peninsula had initially been requested to cancel their evening services on Sunday, 19 April 1998. In sheer zeal, a Christian businessman had thousands of pamphlets printed and distributed without proper consultation with the organizing committee in respect of the content of the pamphlet. The flyer and poster that invited believers to a mass prayer meeting against drug abuse, homosexuality and other vice, unfortunately also referred to Islam in a context that was not respectful enough for some radical Muslims.
A PAGAD member apparently regarded this as an invitation to disrupt the meeting. The event was subsequently announced as cancelled, but a few courageous believers including the late Pastor Danny Pearson, who had been deeply involved with the organization of the prayer occasion, felt that they should not give in to the intimidation, and that, if need be, Christians should be willing to die for the cause of the Gospel. The meeting proceeded on a much smaller scale than originally planned. The prayer event included confession for the sins of omission to the Cape Muslims and to the Jews.
A mass march to Parliament on 2 September 1998 - in response to the perceived attack on community radio stations - was followed by a big prayer event on Table Mountain a few weeks later. The prayer day, this time as an effort to rename the reviled peak ‘God’s Mountain’, was called for 26 September 1998. A few thousand Christians prayed over the city from Table Mountain. The event inspired a new initiative whereby a few believers from diverse backgrounds started to come together for prayer on Signal Hill on Saturdays every fortnight at 6 a.m. Soon early Saturday morning prayer meetings also commenced at Tygerberg, Paarl Rock and on the Constantia Heights. Christians from different churches thus demonstrated the unity of the body.
Churches in Networking
1998 had brought significant steps in the right direction through the initiatives of NUPSA (Network of Prayer in Southern Africa) and Herald Ministries. Regular prayer meetings at the Mowbray Baptist Church, with warriors coming from different parts of the Peninsula, and from different racial and church backgrounds, carried a strong message of the unity of the body of Christ. However, the suggestion in 1999 to continue on local level in different areas, never took off. Nevertheless, the Mowbray exercise brought together two racial groupings for prayer. This thus became the forerunner of citywide prayer events.
In early 1999 Ernst van der Walt (jr) started working closely with Reverend Trevor Pearce, an Anglican cleric, in the sphere of the transformation of communities. They started distributing the video produced by George Otis. The video’s first screening to a big audience in Cape Town was at the Lighthouse Christian Centre in Parow in October 1999. Already in the short term this showing brought about substantial change in some churches. The video broke the ground for a citywide prayer event at the Newlands Rugby Stadium on 21 March 2001.
Richard Mitchell and his wife were pivotal in the resumption of early morning prayer meetings on Signal Hill. When the opening came for a regular testimony programme on Friday evening on Radio CCFM, Richard Mitchell was a natural choice. The programme ‘God Changes Lives’ with him as presenter, was naturally also used to advertise the citywide prayer events. Richard Mitchell and his wife left for England at the end of 1999. (Through him the vision of citywide prayer was exported from the Cape). In London they became not only catalysts for citywide prayer, but Richard Mitchell was also quite pivotal as a member of the (South) African delegation of the Europe and Africa Reconciliation Movement that investigated the effects of colonisation on the ‘dark continent’ in the new millennium.

The Battle of the Airwaves
The differing factions of Cape Islam have their favourite radio stations. However, influential shaykhs like Sa’dullah Khan of the Gatesville mosque have been operating on both Islamic stations. Yet, many Muslims perceived Radio Voice of the Cape to be in competition with Radio 786, although the two Islamic stations share the same frequency. At some stage the rivalry reached such a frenzy that telephone lines were cut. In the mid-1990s, Radio 786 had virtually become the voice of Qibla, the radical faction of Cape Islam.
At the GCOWE conference in Pretoria in July 1997, Avril Thomas, the Director of Radio CCFM (Cape Community FM), formerly Radio Fish Hoek, was challenged to use the station to reach out to Cape Muslims. She phoned the author, offering airtime for a regular programme to this effect. At that stage he had only assisted with advice and teaching to the ‘prayer friends’ of the station, who had to counsel those Muslims who phoned in at CCFM. Since the 1994 Jesus Marches and the effort to start a prayer network in the Peninsula, there had been contact with Trefor Morris, who was closely linked to Radio Fish Hoek. Occasionally he joined in the Friday lunchtime prayer at the Shepherd’s Watch in Shortmarket Street. Avril Thomas was warned of the unsuccessful arson attempt on the Lansdowne Church where a Muslim Evangelism seminar in 1996 was scheduled to take place. Nevertheless, she and the CCFM board were prepared to take the risk for the sake of the Gospel.
A series on biblical figures in the Qur’an and the Talmud was transmitted towards the end of 1997. After a gradual increase of occasional programmes geared to address the Cape Muslim population, missionaries felt challenged to start utilising the CCFM offer to use the medium on a regular basis.
In the meantime, Gill Knaggs had offered her services to CCFM in 1997. Gill also had previous experience in commercial script writing. Soon she was ready to write the scripts for Ayesha Hunter and Salama Temmers, two followers of Jesus with an Islamic upbringing. At a meeting on 7 January 1998 it was decided to start with a regular programme via CCFM, making use of the two converts as presenters. On the same day the radio station Voice of the Cape published their intention in the Cape Argus to use a convert from Christianity as one of their presenters.
The precedent created space for CCFM radio to follow suit - with less fear of PAGAD reprisals for putting Muslim converts on air. Ayesha and Salama soon hereafter started with a weekly programme, beginning with the theme ‘the woman of two faces’. Gradually many women, some of them Muslims, started responding with phone calls, hereby giving evidence that the radio programmes were making an impact. Life Issues, the women’s programme on CCFM on a Thursday morning went from strength to strength till it ceased to operate in the second half of 2004 when CCFM restructured their programmes.
The phoning CCFM, on the part of Muslims, some anonymously, continued unabatedly. This possibly even increased when Cassiem Majiet started to minister at the prayer friends of the radio station. Some Muslims were offended when they discovered that he was actually a Christian, but it helped many others to share openly their fears and beliefs. Booklets by Gerhard Nehls and the testimony booklet Search for Truth 2 were among the booklets which found their way into many a Muslim home.

Threats and Attacks on Christian Radio
A white paper was rushed through Parliament on 20 August 1998, which contained a veiled threat: the closing down of community radio stations. There had previously already been an attempt to close down Radio Pulpit, a Christian radio station that broadcasts nationwide.
The ill-fated government white paper on public broadcasting - whatever its original intention - resulted in a mass march to the houses of Parliament on Wednesday, 2 September 1998. The perception could not be removed sufficiently that the government wanted to regulate the airwaves in such a way that the freedom of religious broadcasting would be severely curtailed. Twenty thousand Cape Christians from different races and denominations marched in unprecedented unity. One of the banners proclaimed “United we stand”, a wry reminder of PAGAD’s main slogan. Wisely, the government dropped their plans.
From time to time, local Muslim background followers of Jesus shared their testimonies on the CCFM programme that started in January 1999 called God Changes Lives. Two consecutive issues of this programme by Achmed Adjei - a convert from Ghana - had reverberations as he shared how he and his 28 siblings came to the Lord one after the other. The same programme also made inroads into other religious groups. Thus the testimony of Richard John Smith, a famous Cape singer of the 1980s, who had been a New Apostolic Christian, surely had a profound effect as did the conversion story of Herschel Raysman, who came from a Jewish background. Raysman came to believe in Jesus as his Messiah when he linked up with the Jesus People in the 1970s.

Influx of Muslim Foreigners
The new millennium saw a major influx of Africans and other Foreigners, many of whom are Muslim. Since September 11, 2001 Cape Town became a favourite destination for learning English. But also tourists from the Middle East started streaming to the Mother City of South Africa. In the late 1990s the economic refugees were predominantly men, who could somehow make a living, by living in crowded health hazard conditions. When government agencies seemed to turn a blind eye to these conditions and corruption at home affairs aggravated the problem, they also brought or fetched their wives and children.
The success of traders from East Africa, notably from Somalia, created a problem among local traders. Unlike other foreigners, they made no attempt to mingle with other nationalities. For a few years they have been targets of attacks in places like Mitchells Plain.
Things became really bad when an unknown number of them were killed in September 2006, many in the informal settlement Masi near Simon’s Town. Some of them lost everything they possessed as they fled the township. The King of Kings Baptist Church in Fish Hoek gave refuge to some of them. Thereafter the Muslim religious leaders became involved, allowing the Somalians to sleep in a local mosque. For Ramadan they had to vacate the sanctuary when they were taken to Saldanha Bay where they however had to live in subhuman conditions.
A recently produced DVD with English subtitles tells the true stories of five Muslims who came to faith in Jesus Christ. The actors speak respectively in Arabic, Hausa, Indonesian, Turkish and ???

Missionary Explosion from the Cape
Much of the prayer endeavours of the early 1990s were connected to missionary work. David Bliss from OM had already put the Cape on the map again with his Bless the Nations conferences. Love Southern Africa events started in Wellington, taking over from the Western Cape Missions Commission. All these efforts fizzled out towards the end of the twentieth century, while Gauteng grew in importance with regard to missionary-sending from South Africa.
Pastor Bruce van Eeden proved the big exception in this regard. He had always wanted to see South Africans involved in missionary work. The Lord laid India and China on his heart. When one of his daughters found employment as a stewardess with South African Airways, he saw that as his chance to get involved himself more intensely. Now he could fly cheaply, albeit only on a standby basis. In 1995 he started a Mitchell’s Plain-based movement called Ten Forty Outreach, which concentrated on sending out short-term workers to India. For three months a year Pastor van Eeden would go and minister in India, partnering with Indian believers and taking with him volunteers from South Africa. God used Pastor van Eeden to challenge and equip Indian evangelists to take the Gospel to the unreached tribes of their country. God put Africa on his heart, after an invitation to Uganda in 2003. After his return he received the vision to challenge believers of 7 countries around the lakes of Central Africa to reach the northern part of the continent. Another visit to Central Africa in April 2006 led to a conference where steering committees were formed for Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda as a spiritual gateway to the northern countries of the continent.
At a missions’ consultation at the Dutch Reformed Church in the suburb of Athlone on Saturday 9 December 2006, the Africa Arise movement was born. The inspiration for this initiative is a contemporary and adapted paraphrase of Isaiah 60:1 ‘Africa arise, your light has come.’ The event in itself was nowhere impressive in terms of numbers, but the participants nevertheless discerned that it was a unique occasion in the spiritual realms.

Mission Challenges
The democratic South Africa is faced with many mission challenges. Too many churches, missions and missionary agencies are merely going through the motions, hardly impacting society here or anywhere in the world. Things have hardly changed since the apartheid days regarding the implementation of nice-sounding resolutions.
Churches and mission agencies would probably be quite unanimous that something drastic should be done with regard to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the problem of drug abuse. And what about the slide towards immorality and sexual perversion? More and more occult - and even demonic practices - appeared to have become accepted as a part of the modern way of life. In the discussion around gay marriages, which became legal in South Africa on 1 December 2006, the original spread of the pandemic in the 1970s and 1980s among gay men was not even mentioned. The alternative seems now merely whether one acts politically correctly or whether we aspire to submit to absolute divine norms of creation.
It seems as if we are hand-cuffed or paralysed by the magnitude of the problems. Yet, we may take heart from the fact that individuals are still swimming against the stream of complacency and indifference. We may be comforted that certain individuals have paid a high price for their inconvenient convictions, the fruit of which we may now enjoy.

A Role for the revived Church
Home churches led by teams of young people and older folk who have been taught in obedience-based training, obedience to the Holy Spirit – in contrast to traditional knowledge based training – have already started to make a difference in the lives of many people. It may not take very long before communities will be transformed as new believers share the story of how personal faith in Jesus changed their lives, their outlook and mind-set. The question then is what the role of the Church – the united body of Christ - could be in the future. Accommodation to the secular society of our age seems to me the sure way to fade further into irrelevancy. In a society of brokenness where so many carry a heavy burden, scars caused by abortion, alcoholism and drug abuse, the Church faces an immense task. By contrast, the much less expedient and inconvenient road of the cross – swimming against the stream in self-denial, in sacrificial obedience to divine commands will contribute to transformation a possible route to revival. This is the Church that is needed - a new distinctive community that reflects the values of the kingdom of God. A body that is an agent of healing and a place of belonging. Nothing else will suffice. Ian Cowley refers so aptly to a new voice within the possible future role of the Church at large in his book The Transformation Principle: '... a model fo Christian discipleship that calls women and men everywhere to change their way of thinking and lay down their lives in following Jesus... those who serve the poor and care for the lost and broken-hearted people of our consumerist and self-indulgent age'.
The challenge for the church and Christian missions in the 21st century is not new at all. The bottom-line teachings from the Man of Nazareth have stood the test of time: confession of sin (including doctrinal bickering), followed by restitution and commitment towards justice and love. The age-old battle cry of the Moravian Unitas Fratrum, which celebrated 550 years of its existence in 2007, is still valid – The Lamb has conquered, let us follow Him!


Select Bibliography
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Botha, D.P. - Die twee-eeue erfenis van die SA Sendingsgestig, 1799-1999, LUS Publishers, Cape Town, 1999
Brandt, Albert A. – Andrew Murray Immergroen, More Light Publications, Helderberg, 1998
Codrington, Reginald G, An Appraisal of Modern Jewish Evangelism, - with special reference to
Southern Africa, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, 1985
Du Plessis, Johannes - A History of Christian Missions in South Africa, Facsimile Reprint, Struik,
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Elphick, Richard & Davenport, Rodney - Christianity in South Africa, David Philip, Cape Town, 1997
Gerdener G.B.A. - Two Centuries of Grace, S.C. A. of South Africa., Stellenbosch, 1937
- Recent developments in the S.A. Mission Field, N.G. Kerkuitgewers, Cape Town, 1958
Haasbroek, L. - Die sending onder die Mohammedane in Kaapstad en omgewing (A
Historical survey), University of Stellenbosch, Unpublished doctoral thesis, 1955
Hanekom - H.R. van Lier: Die lewensbeeld van ‘n Kaapse Predikant, N.G.Uitgewers,
Kaapstad, 1959
Hermann, Louis – The Cape Town Hebrew Congregation, A Centenary History, 1841-1941, Cape Town, 1941
Hofmeyr J.W. and.Pillay Gerald J, A History of Christianity in South Africa, HAUM Tertiary, Pretoria, 1994
Krüger, Bernhard - The Pear Tree Blossoms, Rhodes University (Ph.D. Thesis) Grahamstown, 1969
Müller, P. Karl – Georg Schmidt, die Geschichte der ersten Hottentottenmission, 1737-44,
Verlag der Missionsbuchhandlung, Herrnhut, 1923
Schoeman, Karel - The early Mission in South Africa, Protea Boekhuis, Pretoria, 2005
Shell, Robert Ch. - Children of Bondage, Witwatersrand University Press, 1994
Worden, Nigel, Van Heyningen, Elisabeth and Bickford-Smith Vivian,
- The Making of a City, David Philip, Cape Town, 1998

Glossary
Afrikaners: Whites of primarily Dutch descent, whose home language is Afrikaans.
Apartheid: A formal system of racial segregation. Forcefully implemented by the National Party after it came to power in 1948, it entrenched White domination in virtually all sectors of South African life.
Bo-Kaap: The geographical area of the Cape Town City Bowl which borders the lower slopes of Signal Hill. It is sometimes also erroneous referred to by parts of the area, viz the Malay Quarter or Schotse Kloof.
Dominee: The minister of an Afrikaans-speaking Reformed congregation.