Robert Moffat was a humble gardener who followed God's call to South Africa at a pivotal time in its history. In Part 1, hear about his early ministry, his love life, the HMS Bounty, and his ministry to an infamous warlord.
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00:00 --> 00:02 [SPEAKER_00]: You're listening to Martyr's Emissionaries.
00:02 --> 00:07 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Elise and in every episode I'll bring you a new martyr and or missionary, the cold and the breathe.
00:07 --> 00:11 [SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, we're talking about the life of Robert Moffitt, missionary to South Africa.
00:32 --> 00:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Hello and welcome back to another episode on the last episode that we did on Judith Weinberg.
00:38 --> 00:42 [SPEAKER_00]: There was a lot of positive feedback a lot of you guys really enjoyed her story and I did too.
00:42 --> 00:50 [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the questions that I asked in the episode is if anybody knew why exactly so many Christians had an aversion to dancing.
00:51 --> 00:54 [SPEAKER_00]: And I got some emails and some comments and things about it, and it was really helpful.
00:54 --> 00:56 [SPEAKER_00]: And this one comes from Ella.
00:56 --> 01:05 [SPEAKER_00]: She said that there are still many groups that do have objections to it, such as holiness, pinacostals, and abaptists, conservative abaptists, and a lot of Russian abaptists.
01:05 --> 01:11 [SPEAKER_00]: There was actually a lot of influence in the Ukrainian Russian abaptists from Mininites who fled to Russia under Catherine the Great.
01:11 --> 01:25 [SPEAKER_00]: And then she said, for early churches, it was a concern for like the kind of sensuality that was associated with these dances, the kind of sensuality that might lead to the beheading of John the Baptist or just the idea that it could be immoral.
01:25 --> 01:33 [SPEAKER_00]: And then she also mentions during the Shakespeareian theater days that there was a lot of bad things associated with a lot of the theaters and dances and things like that.
01:34 --> 01:35 [SPEAKER_00]: So that answers my question.
01:35 --> 01:36 [SPEAKER_00]: So thank you, Ella, for sending that in.
01:36 --> 01:40 [SPEAKER_00]: And then for some others who also sent theirs and this is very similar things.
01:40 --> 01:41 [SPEAKER_00]: This was very helpful.
01:42 --> 01:49 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's good to know, because I wish just thinking it was maybe like, there was an era of like 100 years, but apparently it goes back much, much further than that.
01:50 --> 01:52 [SPEAKER_00]: And this other comment also comes from the Judith episode.
01:52 --> 01:53 [SPEAKER_00]: This is by Richard.
01:53 --> 02:02 [SPEAKER_00]: He said, one of an incredible story of Judith, whose name is in the book of life, to encourage and spur us on to remain faithful to our saber, Jesus Christ, whatever the personal cost.
02:03 --> 02:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely, 100% agreed.
02:06 --> 02:08 [SPEAKER_00]: And this last comment I'll read comes from Jordan L's Hopp.
02:08 --> 02:14 [SPEAKER_00]: This is on the Henry Inn Stanley episodes, and it's a wonderful quote, and I want to share it with you guys.
02:14 --> 02:18 [SPEAKER_00]: He says, only yesterday they professed to shutter at the word murder.
02:18 --> 02:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Today, by a strange twist in human nature, they lusted to kill, and were hounded on in the work of destruction by their pastors, elders, mothers, and sisters.
02:27 --> 02:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh for once, I was beginning to know what the real truth, man was born for slaughter.
02:32 --> 02:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Henry M. Stanley on the Battle of Shiloh, April 1862.
02:36 --> 02:42 [SPEAKER_00]: That is a fantastic quote and you can tell that he has a journalistic background because he's just such a word Smith.
02:43 --> 02:44 [SPEAKER_00]: So thank you for those comments guys.
02:44 --> 02:46 [SPEAKER_00]: I really enjoy keybomb coming.
02:46 --> 02:46 [SPEAKER_00]: I love reading them.
02:46 --> 02:52 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to get better at making sure I'm consistently reading your guys' comments because I do enjoy them.
02:52 --> 02:54 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sure you guys enjoy hearing from each other as well.
02:56 --> 03:24 [SPEAKER_00]: moving on to this episode we're going to be talking about Robert Muffett and I feel like he's one of those names that you're kind of know the season the back of your brain somewhere like I know that name I feel like he's somewhere in Africa and Robert Muffett in his day was famous and this is what happens a lot of times where it's we go back and look today and we're like oh yeah that person's like you know they did a lot of cool stuff why do we know more about them they just kind of fade away because generally somebody a little bit more famous kind of super
03:26 --> 03:32 [SPEAKER_00]: And Robert Muffet gets superseded by his very famous son-in-law, who I'm not going to spoil for you.
03:32 --> 03:35 [SPEAKER_00]: If you don't know it, I'll kind of mention it at the end of this episode.
03:36 --> 03:39 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a Robert Muffet's life will be a two-parter, because I cannot cover it all in one.
03:40 --> 03:47 [SPEAKER_00]: And I figure, I don't want to shove it all in, so I want to give it some breathing room, and I think you'll all enjoy it much better that way.
03:48 --> 03:50 [SPEAKER_00]: And I want to set the stage for Robert Muffin.
03:50 --> 03:52 [SPEAKER_00]: I do this a couple of times and some other episodes.
03:52 --> 03:57 [SPEAKER_00]: And I really feel like it gives a good flavor to what was going on in the time period.
03:58 --> 04:06 [SPEAKER_00]: So when Robert Muffin was born in a small town in South Eastern Scotland in December of 1795, the French Revolution still raised across the channel.
04:06 --> 04:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Napoleon had just suppressed a royal uprising in the infamous whiff of great shot making a name for himself and France, which of course will lead to absolutely nothing, right?
04:15 --> 04:16 [SPEAKER_00]: So, no need to worry about that.
04:17 --> 04:24 [SPEAKER_00]: The ever-expanding British Empire had taken over Australia, and now officially the son never set on the British Empire.
04:24 --> 04:35 [SPEAKER_00]: The London Missionary Society had just been founded, and lastly, a 24-year-old Ludwig von Beethoven had just made his public debut in Vienna as both a pianist and a composer.
04:36 --> 04:52 [SPEAKER_00]: But to Robert, his world is obviously much smaller than this, his ancestors had at one time boasted at Bishop of Glasgow, another who went on a crusade with Edward Longshanks and Luke King Louis IX, another who became a civil magistrate at St. Andrews, but those days were long past.
04:53 --> 04:56 [SPEAKER_00]: And Robert's father was a farmer who was longing for greater things.
04:56 --> 05:01 [SPEAKER_00]: And when Robert was two years old, his father finally received an appointment to serve at a customs house
05:06 --> 05:06 [SPEAKER_00]: stuff.
05:07 --> 05:12 [SPEAKER_00]: And while this was quite the leg up for a farmer, the moth it still lived rather humbly.
05:13 --> 05:21 [SPEAKER_00]: They had a large family, seven kids in all five boys, two girls, and Robert's mother took nurturing her offspring very seriously.
05:21 --> 05:34 [SPEAKER_00]: She taught all of her children how to knit, how to sew, how to cook and clean, and this would come in handy for Robert especially as he's out in the desert with nobody to wash his clothes and do those kind of womanly things for him.
05:35 --> 05:48 [SPEAKER_00]: She would also read to them every night about the exploits of missionaries, like the Moravians in Greenland and the East Indies and other pioneer missionary efforts, and at this point, the Moravians had mostly gotten back on track after the whole side hole epidemic.
05:48 --> 05:51 [SPEAKER_00]: They were, they could once again be read to children.
05:52 --> 05:56 [SPEAKER_00]: Robert's first foray in deformal schooling didn't go too well.
05:56 --> 06:09 [SPEAKER_00]: He was not academically gifted in the traditional sense, and his schoolmaster was also rather harsh, so he often would find his knuckles getting beaten for performing slowly, and he dreamed instead of running off to the C.
06:10 --> 06:12 [SPEAKER_00]: And when he was 9 or 10 years old, he did that.
06:13 --> 06:17 [SPEAKER_00]: So he endured himself to a local captain, got his parents permission to sail up and down the coast.
06:18 --> 06:23 [SPEAKER_00]: And he did this for about a year until he came to the conclusion that, see, life was just not really for him.
06:24 --> 06:27 [SPEAKER_00]: To the no small joy of my parents, you made a road.
06:28 --> 06:34 [SPEAKER_00]: And I know that times are different in 18th century, not in early 19th century, England.
06:34 --> 06:38 [SPEAKER_00]: But I can't imagine my son, he's seven years old.
06:38 --> 06:40 [SPEAKER_00]: He comes up to me, he goes, I've had a great life.
06:41 --> 06:42 [SPEAKER_00]: I think you've done a really good job raising me.
06:42 --> 06:45 [SPEAKER_00]: I think now I'm bound for the ship life.
06:45 --> 06:48 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna go sail up and down the coast of Java.
06:48 --> 06:50 [SPEAKER_00]: I just can't wrap my head around the idea that
06:51 --> 06:52 [SPEAKER_00]: that anyone would do that.
06:52 --> 06:56 [SPEAKER_00]: It just seems so young, but they did, but he came back and everything's fine.
06:56 --> 07:06 [SPEAKER_00]: It all, it all came out in the wash. And when he's 11 years old, he joined his older brother at school and his brother chose to pay a little bit extra for lessons in astronomy and geometry.
07:07 --> 07:12 [SPEAKER_00]: And Roberts, not being thought to be very bright, was allowed to kind of sit outside and wait for his brother.
07:13 --> 07:14 [SPEAKER_00]: And he was listening outside the door.
07:14 --> 07:14 [SPEAKER_00]: But
07:15 --> 07:22 [SPEAKER_00]: who cares such as Robert and he was actually picking a lot of stuff up and what he didn't understand his brother would then explain to him on the way home.
07:22 --> 07:24 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's kind of a two for one deal that he just didn't know it.
07:26 --> 07:32 [SPEAKER_00]: But these few months were really the only former formal traditional training that he ever received.
07:33 --> 07:39 [SPEAKER_00]: A few years later, when he was 14, he was a printenced to a gardener and he and these other boys would work really hard.
07:39 --> 07:43 [SPEAKER_00]: They'd get up at like four o'clock in the morning and in a dead of these Scottish winters.
07:43 --> 07:46 [SPEAKER_00]: They'd be having to beat their knuckles against the shovels to keep feeling in them.
07:47 --> 07:52 [SPEAKER_00]: And even in all of this, he managed to take the occasional night class and attempted to learn Latin and applied geometry.
07:53 --> 07:57 [SPEAKER_00]: And he also started the violin and was able to become proficient enough at it.
07:58 --> 08:04 [SPEAKER_00]: his fellow gardeners enjoyed listening to him and then even in Africa he was able to keep himself company or play for other people.
08:04 --> 08:10 [SPEAKER_00]: So he was a very dedicated young man even though he wasn't educated in the traditional sense.
08:11 --> 08:20 [SPEAKER_00]: And somehow in all of this he also found time to become a very avid swimmer and he even saved the life of one of his friends who got a little bit overconfident his abilities and almost drowned.
08:22 --> 08:31 [SPEAKER_00]: When he was 16 a couple years later, he had the opportunity to work in England at the home of Mr. Lee of Highly, and you know you've made it as a person when the town bears your name.
08:31 --> 08:32 [SPEAKER_00]: That's my goal.
08:32 --> 08:34 [SPEAKER_00]: I want to have like a, you know, Fraserville or something like that.
08:36 --> 08:45 [SPEAKER_00]: This new job meant that he was moving 400 miles away from home, which even today makes a kind of difficult in order to go back and visit your family, and he wrote down his parting with his mother, and I'll read it here.
08:46 --> 08:51 [SPEAKER_00]: He said, when we came within sight of the spot where we were to part, perhaps never again to meet in this world.
08:51 --> 09:01 [SPEAKER_00]: She said, now my Robert, let us stand here for a few minutes, but I wish to ask you one favor before we part, and I know you will not refuse to do what your mother asks.
09:01 --> 09:02 [SPEAKER_00]: What is it, mother?
09:02 --> 09:03 [SPEAKER_00]: I inquired.
09:03 --> 09:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Do promise me first that you will do what I am going to ask you and I shall tell you.
09:08 --> 09:11 [SPEAKER_00]: No, mother, I cannot tell you to tell me what your wish is.
09:11 --> 09:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, Robert, can you think for a moment that I shall ask you my son to do anything that is not right?
09:16 --> 09:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Do I not love you?
09:18 --> 09:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, mother, I know that you do, but I still do not like to make promises which I may not be able to fulfill.
09:23 --> 09:27 [SPEAKER_00]: I kept my eyes fixed on the ground, I was silent trying to resist the rising emotion.
09:28 --> 09:33 [SPEAKER_00]: She sighed deeply, I lifted my eyes and saw the big, big tears rolling down the cheeks which were want to press mine.
09:34 --> 09:39 [SPEAKER_00]: I was conquered and as soon as I could recover speech, I said, oh mother, ask what you will and I shall do it.
09:40 --> 09:45 [SPEAKER_00]: I only ask you whether you will read a chapter in the Bible every morning and another every evening.
09:45 --> 09:48 [SPEAKER_00]: I interrupted by saying, Mother, you know that I read my Bible.
09:49 --> 09:53 [SPEAKER_00]: I know that you do, but you do not read it regularly, or as a duty you owe to God, it's author.
09:54 --> 09:59 [SPEAKER_00]: And she added, now I shall return home with a happy heart, and as much as you promised to read the scripture's daily.
09:59 --> 10:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, Robert, my son, read much in the New Testament, read much in the gospels, the blessed gospels, then you cannot well go astray.
10:06 --> 10:08 [SPEAKER_00]: If you pray, the Lord Himself will teach you.
10:09 --> 10:13 [SPEAKER_00]: I partied for my beloved mother now long gone to the mansion about which she loved to speak.
10:14 --> 10:16 [SPEAKER_00]: I went on my way and air long found myself among strangers.
10:17 --> 10:25 [SPEAKER_00]: My charge was an important one for a youth and though possessing a muscular frame and a mindful of energy, it required all to keep pace the duty which devolved upon me.
10:27 --> 10:32 [SPEAKER_00]: I lived the considerable distance from what are called the means of grace, and the Sabbath were not always at my command.
10:33 --> 10:45 [SPEAKER_00]: I met with none who appeared to make religion their chief concern, I mingle with opportunities offered with the gay and goblin and what are considered innocent amusements, where I soon became a favorite, but I never forgot my promise to my mother.
10:46 --> 10:59 [SPEAKER_00]: The head gardener of the Leah State took a shine to him and soon he had a lot of extra responsibilities and he still tried to study what books he could find in his spare time and Mrs. Lee noticed how studious he was and so she would let him borrow some books in their personal library.
11:00 --> 11:06 [SPEAKER_00]: And the Lees, Robert, and the majority of England at this point in time and I guess even still today are Anglicans.
11:07 --> 11:13 [SPEAKER_00]: Yet the Methodists had made a lot of headway there in the Highly and Robert was invited by a Methodist and his wife to one of their meetings.
11:14 --> 11:18 [SPEAKER_00]: And it was at one of these meetings, the robber became a genuine believer and gave his life to Jesus.
11:19 --> 11:22 [SPEAKER_00]: And he also became very involved in Methodist society activities.
11:23 --> 11:31 [SPEAKER_00]: And through this, he lost the goodwill, the least who were really upset that one of their one of their own, one of somebody they looked very kindly upon, could become a Methodist.
11:33 --> 11:45 [SPEAKER_00]: I read two books as research for this episode, one of which was called Robert Moffitt Pioneer in Africa by Cecil Northcott, and the other more well-known book is called Robert Moffitt the Missionary Hero of Kermon by David Dean.
11:45 --> 11:51 [SPEAKER_00]: And if I could go back in time or if I was recommending just one of these to read, I would definitely recommend the Missionary Hero of Kermon.
11:52 --> 11:53 [SPEAKER_00]: It just reads much more narratively.
11:54 --> 12:00 [SPEAKER_00]: And as an example, I really liked the way that the author words this upcoming change in Robert's life trajectory.
12:00 --> 12:13 [SPEAKER_00]: He said, apparently unimportant events frequently determine the whole course of our lives and a simple incident was now about to change the current of this young man's life to convert the rising gardener into the god honored and much beloved missionary.
12:14 --> 12:17 [SPEAKER_00]: This simple incident to which he refers is a trip to a nearby town.
12:18 --> 12:23 [SPEAKER_00]: He was passing over a bridge and noticed a sign announcing a missionary meeting featuring a speaker named William Roby.
12:24 --> 12:29 [SPEAKER_00]: And he'd never heard of such a meeting before, but he was reminded of all the different stories his mother would tell him, a while he was going up.
12:30 --> 12:35 [SPEAKER_00]: And so he decided to go to one of these meetings, and he left it later on that evening with just one thought.
12:36 --> 12:38 [SPEAKER_00]: How do I become a missionary?
12:40 --> 12:45 [SPEAKER_00]: not to be mean to Robert, but he was not the dream applicants of any missionary society.
12:46 --> 12:56 [SPEAKER_00]: They were looking for a learned man, not a gardener with elementary education, and he knew this, but even so, he approached William Roby at his house in the fall of 1815.
12:56 --> 13:02 [SPEAKER_00]: And William Roby was a director for the London Missionary Society, and he heard this earnest young man's appeal to become
13:03 --> 13:13 [SPEAKER_00]: of a missionary and he sends a letter to the committee and he receives this reply from the LMS that they were not interested in him as a candidate in fact they said it very bluntly.
13:14 --> 13:22 [SPEAKER_00]: They said we cannot receive all who offer their services for missionary work and are therefore obliged to select those who possess the most promising requirements.
13:22 --> 13:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Just really brutal.
13:24 --> 13:29 [SPEAKER_00]: But William Robby was not terribly surprised by this, and he didn't simply abandon Muffin.
13:29 --> 13:34 [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, he got a job working for a Mr. Smith, closer to Manchester where Robby lived.
13:35 --> 13:40 [SPEAKER_00]: And this Smith's were wonderful people who would actually use their home as kind of a port of call for ministers all over the UK.
13:41 --> 13:56 [SPEAKER_00]: And then Roby further took Moffitt under his wing and then taught him through a system of copying and memorizing and he had Moffitt write down his own system of divinity, which consisted of 80 lectures and these lectures contained an entire theological framework.
13:56 --> 14:07 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is from Northcott's book so much more of the kind of dictionary based work, but I want to share this because I think it gives you an idea of exactly how rigorous this training was and what an impact it had on Moffitt's life.
14:08 --> 14:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Northcott writes, one prime inference for all of this for Moffett and formerly stated in Ruby's system was to learn to acknowledge the sovereignty and dominion of God and all the events which occur and to consider the duty of being willingly subject to his government.
14:23 --> 14:34 [SPEAKER_00]: This recognition and submission sustained him for 50 years in Africa, a theological substratum to a working faith which however rigid it may appear in formulation was always resilient to new demands.
14:34 --> 14:39 [SPEAKER_00]: For, in Moffitt's hands, the great themes of Orthodox theology became an instrument of mission.
14:40 --> 14:44 [SPEAKER_00]: providing both the authority and the impetus for his calling.
14:44 --> 15:00 [SPEAKER_00]: To see them all set out in his neat copper plate handwriting, extending for 460 pages of manuscript, complete with biblical and contemporary references, is to realize not only how dutifully the young gardener regarded his tutoring, but how deeply the majestic system became part of himself.
15:00 --> 15:06 [SPEAKER_00]: He found there three guiding principles for practical affairs, acceptance, duty, and obedience.
15:07 --> 15:13 [SPEAKER_00]: and he set himself to follow them with an undivvating pertinacity that continued throughout his long life.
15:14 --> 15:23 [SPEAKER_00]: The copy of this manuscript he kept with him for his entire life and you can kind of imagine after 50 years and he's probably going back through it consistently and regularly.
15:23 --> 15:29 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's on his bookshelf for on his desk or traveling in his backpack that how beat up this thing would be.
15:29 --> 15:34 [SPEAKER_00]: But also what a lifeline it would be especially out there on your own without any like
15:35 --> 15:55 [SPEAKER_00]: really background other than this and obviously the lore and the Bible, but how much he would reference this and how grateful he would be that Roby took him under his wing and taught in these things because I feel that he would probably have been a little bit under-prepared if he didn't have something so rigorous to fall back on.
15:57 --> 16:03 [SPEAKER_00]: And while Moffitt started under Ruby, he also found time to fall in love with the Smith's beautiful and only daughter named Mary.
16:04 --> 16:13 [SPEAKER_00]: And she had been educated at the Moravian School that was equally as perfect for mission work as Moffitt, and she was prepared to pack it up and leave England behind to do the Lawrence work.
16:14 --> 16:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I stumbled upon this as in North Cotsa book, just as kind of a blurb.
16:18 --> 16:23 [SPEAKER_00]: And I decided to chase that rabbit and I discovered something fascinating.
16:23 --> 16:27 [SPEAKER_00]: So Mary Smith's uncle is a guy named Alexander Smith.
16:27 --> 16:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Alexander Smith is a famous mute near of the HMS bounty, the infamous mutiny.
16:35 --> 16:38 [SPEAKER_00]: So he is part of this crew, overthrows William Blay.
16:39 --> 16:40 [SPEAKER_00]: in like 1789.
16:40 --> 16:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And then they end up like sailing to a place called the Pitcare and Island.
16:46 --> 16:47 [SPEAKER_00]: And they live there for like a decade.
16:47 --> 16:48 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a horrible idea.
16:48 --> 16:49 [SPEAKER_00]: It's like them.
16:49 --> 16:52 [SPEAKER_00]: And then there's like some tohesions that are there with them.
16:52 --> 16:54 [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know.
16:54 --> 16:54 [SPEAKER_00]: It went awful.
16:55 --> 17:01 [SPEAKER_00]: but Smith found the ship's Bible, at least cracked it open and he was trying to teach himself how to read.
17:01 --> 17:10 [SPEAKER_00]: And through teaching himself how to read, he became a Christian and I believe the other guy that was alive at this point also became a Christian and then there were just him.
17:11 --> 17:21 [SPEAKER_00]: And he ends up leading this little village in a perfect model society like echoing Geneva in this wonderful Christian commune.
17:21 --> 17:24 [SPEAKER_00]: And so a decade or so later, I may be 20 years later, I forget.
17:25 --> 17:32 [SPEAKER_00]: But a whaling ship, an American whaling ship, stumbles across this random society out in the middle of nowhere.
17:33 --> 17:36 [SPEAKER_00]: And he gets brought back to England or England finds out about it.
17:36 --> 17:44 [SPEAKER_00]: And they see what an amazing job he's done with this colony that he just gets part in.
17:44 --> 17:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And they're like, keep doing your thing.
17:46 --> 17:53 [SPEAKER_00]: And even today, the mutiniers and their descendants are the ones who kind of like, run the pitcare island.
17:53 --> 17:59 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's just a really strange and cool story and I figured I'd share that with you guys And this is the family who's daughter.
18:00 --> 18:13 [SPEAKER_00]: Moth it falls in love with and the Smith's loved missionaries They loved mission work, but they were not quite ready to part with their only daughter and see her rush off with some young gardener To the end of the work end of the earth as much as they might have liked him.
18:13 --> 18:14 [SPEAKER_00]: They're like nah, no, thank you
18:15 --> 18:28 [SPEAKER_00]: But Marion Robert weren't totally dismayed by this, they kind of understood it, and I think the idea was, if Robert spends a few years over there, everything is going well, he seems settled, then maybe my parents will feel more keen to let her join him.
18:29 --> 18:30 [SPEAKER_00]: We'll see how that works out.
18:31 --> 18:38 [SPEAKER_00]: But in the meantime, Muffet is approved by the LMS in 1816, and he hurries back to Scotland to visit his parents in the say goodbye.
18:38 --> 18:40 [SPEAKER_00]: He was never expecting to see them again.
18:41 --> 18:44 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be a bit of a spoiler because I don't really know how much it plays into the other story he did.
18:44 --> 18:46 [SPEAKER_00]: It's able to later on see his mom again.
18:46 --> 18:48 [SPEAKER_00]: I think his dad had passed by this time.
18:50 --> 18:59 [SPEAKER_00]: But then after he visits with him for a little while, he heads back to Manchester to say goodbye to Robbie, whose kindness he said was like a father and will not easily be obliterated from my mind.
19:00 --> 19:07 [SPEAKER_00]: And when he arrives in London waiting to be ordained and commissioned, he visits the museum at the rooms of the London Missionary Society.
19:08 --> 19:11 [SPEAKER_00]: They have such convoluted names for everything of their difficult to read out.
19:12 --> 19:14 [SPEAKER_00]: But he wrote this about it to his parents.
19:14 --> 19:22 [SPEAKER_00]: He said, I spent some time in viewing the museum, which contains a great number of curiosities from China, Africa, and the South Seas, and the West Indies.
19:23 --> 19:25 [SPEAKER_00]: It would be foolish for me to give you a description.
19:25 --> 19:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Suffice to say that the sight is truly awful.
19:28 --> 19:35 [SPEAKER_00]: The appearance of the wild beasts is very terrific, but I am unable to describe this sensation of my mind when gazing on the objects a pagan worship.
19:36 --> 19:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Alas, how fallen on my fellow creatures, bowing down to forms enough to frighten a Roman soldier, enough to shake the heart as tart.
19:44 --> 19:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that I had 1 lives, and 1 bodies, all of them should be devoted to no other
19:52 --> 19:53 [SPEAKER_00]: and yet beloved mortals.
19:55 --> 19:57 [SPEAKER_00]: It reminds me of Hudson Taylor's heart race.
19:57 --> 19:59 [SPEAKER_00]: So as if I had a thousand pounds, China should have them.
19:59 --> 20:04 [SPEAKER_00]: If I had a thousand lives, China should have them, and then something like, no not China, but Christ.
20:05 --> 20:14 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it really shows the hardcore nature of these guys who go on become pioneer missionaries out to a field that no one is really successfully broken ground in.
20:15 --> 20:20 [SPEAKER_00]: As digging of traveling out, the timing for moth it going really couldn't have been any better,
20:22 --> 20:34 [SPEAKER_00]: there had been a danger in traveling because if you were out on a ship and you happened to run into an English military vessel, there is a very high chance that you could get pushed into the Navy.
20:35 --> 20:47 [SPEAKER_00]: And so the French allusion ended and then immediately then Napoleon of course pretty much started up and they had been over for about a year and so you could safely travel to and fro without having to worry about being pushed into the Navy.
20:49 --> 20:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Moth it was officially ordained and commissioned on September 30, 1816, and four of them were going to be sent to the South Pacific, and five of them will be sent to South Africa.
20:59 --> 21:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Originally, Moth it was going to go to the South Pacific, but this was changed for some reason we no longer know why that was, but if he had been sent to the South Pacific, he would have gone out with John Williams, who was that famous missionary who would later be martyred in
21:15 --> 21:19 [SPEAKER_00]: And John Williams' death would later inspire a John Payton to go.
21:20 --> 21:25 [SPEAKER_00]: And if you've not listened to those episodes, they are fantastic because a John Payton is amazing.
21:26 --> 21:28 [SPEAKER_00]: So I'll link that in the episode description.
21:28 --> 21:31 [SPEAKER_00]: If you have not had a chance to listen to them, I highly recommend it.
21:31 --> 21:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Go do it.
21:32 --> 21:39 [SPEAKER_00]: But Moffett and his fellow missionaries arrived in Cape Town in January of 1817 after six months of travel.
21:39 --> 21:44 [SPEAKER_00]: And I want to explain a little bit about what life was like in South Africa when they arrived.
21:45 --> 21:52 [SPEAKER_00]: because it can be a little bit tricky, even as I was reading through these biographies, I'm like, there's so much that is going on.
21:52 --> 21:56 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not gonna bog you down in all these details, but you need to have some what of an understanding.
21:57 --> 22:00 [SPEAKER_00]: That South Africa for a long time, but then controlled by the Dutch.
22:00 --> 22:10 [SPEAKER_00]: And the English had made some incursions during the Napoleonic Wars, and then they were granted the Cape of Good Hope colony in the southernmost tip in a treaty after the war ended.
22:11 --> 22:14 [SPEAKER_00]: And this makes up about 15% of modern-day South Africa.
22:15 --> 22:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, after they had been given this colony, they brought over 200 Scotsman who were going to help kind of supplement the labor force and solidify British control through immigration.
22:26 --> 22:32 [SPEAKER_00]: And then a few years later, they brought in 4 more British citizens and it was kind of a two-fold situation.
22:33 --> 22:42 [SPEAKER_00]: because after the Napoleonic Wars ended, there were a lot of brits who had nowhere to go because there was no longer a need for whatever their line of work was, and there was a lot of unemployment.
22:42 --> 22:51 [SPEAKER_00]: And so they brought them over in order to help alleviate the unemployment, but then also to really, once again, further solidify their control of this colony.
22:52 --> 22:55 [SPEAKER_00]: And another big thing is happening on the other side of South Africa.
22:55 --> 23:00 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of tribal upheaval and unrest in the North Eastern portion of South Africa.
23:00 --> 23:12 [SPEAKER_00]: And this will lead to a power vacuum which will allow Shaka who is the brilliant tactician and a military commander he is able to seize control and then he establishes the Zulu Kingdom.
23:35 --> 23:36 [SPEAKER_00]: But that's on the other side of South Africa.
23:36 --> 23:44 [SPEAKER_00]: And on the side that Muffet and in the kitchen homes, this is a married couple, they were going to be headed to Nama-Kawalan.
23:44 --> 23:47 [SPEAKER_00]: This is North of Cape Town near the Nambe and Border.
23:47 --> 23:54 [SPEAKER_00]: However, Lord Charles Summerset, who was in charge of Cape Town and the movement of its British citizens, refused to give them permission.
23:54 --> 23:57 [SPEAKER_00]: He had a very negative outlook on mission work.
23:58 --> 24:05 [SPEAKER_00]: One of reason why is that he conflated mission work with the growth of Methodism, which he absolutely detested and he didn't want it to spread.
24:05 --> 24:15 [SPEAKER_00]: And the other reason, and this is a bit more understandable, is that a few years back, they named something kind of derogatory, the Black Circuit of 1812.
24:16 --> 24:19 [SPEAKER_00]: And this was named because a guy named James Reed, he's an LMS missionary.
24:20 --> 24:28 [SPEAKER_00]: he was out and kind of the frontier area and he's seeing how terribly these indigenous people, these coy coy people are being treated by the Dutch.
24:28 --> 24:36 [SPEAKER_00]: And so he convinces a judge to let these people bring their grievances before a court and have them heard and have these Dutch farmers try.
24:37 --> 24:51 [SPEAKER_00]: And there were some convictions, but these were actually rarely upheld and it just caused a huge amount of consternation among the Dutch and they were really upset about it, especially because this was one of the first things that the British had done when they took over the colony.
24:51 --> 24:53 [SPEAKER_00]: So Lord Summerset is just not really having any sense.
24:53 --> 24:56 [SPEAKER_00]: You're not going to stick on stick here in Cape Town for a while.
24:57 --> 25:01 [SPEAKER_00]: So that meant Muffet was staying with a Dutch farmer, some miles outside this city.
25:01 --> 25:05 [SPEAKER_00]: But while he's kind of staying put, he's able to learn some rudimentary knowledge of Dutch.
25:06 --> 25:19 [SPEAKER_00]: And this knowledge actually will serve him quite well, because not only for talking to the Dutch boars, but also because a lot of the tribes did speak some varying levels of Dutch having to obviously interact with them such a long time.
25:20 --> 25:23 [SPEAKER_00]: And this was a start, so this is not wasted time per se.
25:24 --> 25:40 [SPEAKER_00]: And I want to tell you guys about some of the problems that are happening on the ground, like on the missionary side of things, because even though South Africa has its own kind of transition issues that are happening, the missionary movement there in South Africa is also going through quite a transient time.
25:41 --> 25:57 [SPEAKER_00]: And the reason for this is that there is nobody in charge so everybody's kind of doing whatever they wanted to just kind of So it's no concentrated effort to reach out to one people group or how to do it and they had different denominational backgrounds that were kind of not agreeing with each other.
25:59 --> 26:05 [SPEAKER_00]: There were some accusations of immorality about how money was being used, but there was nobody to answer for these things.
26:06 --> 26:12 [SPEAKER_00]: And there was a guy who was going to be sent out to the South Pacific, but he ends up routing through Cape Town.
26:13 --> 26:16 [SPEAKER_00]: And he gets stuck there for a long, longer than he thought he was going to be.
26:16 --> 26:18 [SPEAKER_00]: And he sees all these problems.
26:18 --> 26:22 [SPEAKER_00]: And he writes to the LMS and he says, hey, there's a lot of issues you asked him to look into this.
26:23 --> 26:25 [SPEAKER_00]: And it does this, I think for like two years.
26:25 --> 26:27 [SPEAKER_00]: And they never respond.
26:27 --> 26:31 [SPEAKER_00]: And so eventually, he takes matters into his own hands and he has this sign on.
26:31 --> 26:42 [SPEAKER_00]: And this sign on, it ends up being like a, some of the things were good and some of the things were maybe like personal vendetta as we're being acted out and it was a huge mess.
26:42 --> 26:52 [SPEAKER_00]: And Mothit, for the most part, he stays out of it, there's a little bit that he gets into on kind of the more like operational side, but as far as like accusations, he doesn't deal a whole lot with that.
26:53 --> 27:04 [SPEAKER_00]: But imagine like arriving in your new country, and it's having a lot of issues for government, the governor in charge of it doesn't really like you.
27:05 --> 27:10 [SPEAKER_00]: And then there's really not even a strong support group to like deal with these things.
27:10 --> 27:15 [SPEAKER_00]: So it would just be a nightmare for any new missionary to be thrust into.
27:17 --> 27:19 [SPEAKER_00]: But Muffet kind of handles all in stride.
27:19 --> 27:25 [SPEAKER_00]: This doesn't seem like he's super put out for it or at least I couldn't find anything where he's talking about his feelings during this time.
27:26 --> 27:31 [SPEAKER_00]: But he is able to kind of break free of the colony mold for a little while.
27:31 --> 27:38 [SPEAKER_00]: And he goes on this six week, 700 mile preaching circuit where these call grants come from miles and miles away to here.
27:39 --> 27:58 [SPEAKER_00]: And Moffat is kind of stumbling along in both English and Dutch, and he sleeps outside under the open sky, listening to these, what I would think will be horrifying serenades of hyenas and jackals, and he's also having to keep an eye out for fugitive slaves, which we're very dangerous because they would often like Robert kill you as you're out there.
27:58 --> 28:05 [SPEAKER_00]: But after this experience, Moffat seriously leveled up in his Dutch, and he was able to communicate much more naturally, which really came in handy.
28:05 --> 28:13 [SPEAKER_00]: as he got away from Dutch civilization and more into the tribes which really only spoke Dutch or the tribal language.
28:14 --> 28:23 [SPEAKER_00]: And finally, in October, after about 10 months of waiting, Muffet and Kitchingham were granted a leave to head out for Nama-Qualand.
28:24 --> 28:30 [SPEAKER_00]: And this wasn't an inviable post by any means because it was a very erid and desolate land.
28:30 --> 28:32 [SPEAKER_00]: It was far from civilization.
28:33 --> 28:40 [SPEAKER_00]: and it was also most importantly, the haunts of a wanted fugitive and bandit whose name is Yager Afroconer.
28:40 --> 28:43 [SPEAKER_00]: So, Yager Afroconer and his men kind of...
28:44 --> 28:57 [SPEAKER_00]: created a quite the impression of terror over this region, and on his way out of the colony, one woman noted that Afrocona would strip off his skin and make a drum of it to dance to, another said he would drink out of his skull.
28:58 --> 29:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, who is Afrocona?
29:00 --> 29:03 [SPEAKER_00]: So his story begins long before Mothit was even born.
29:04 --> 29:07 [SPEAKER_00]: So Afrocona, his father and his brothers, they worked as cattle ranchers for this
29:11 --> 29:14 [SPEAKER_00]: And after his father's death, Yeager becomes the captain of his people.
29:15 --> 29:20 [SPEAKER_00]: The resistance to this Dutch farmer eventually led them to near-slavery-like conditions.
29:20 --> 29:26 [SPEAKER_00]: And it all came to a head in 1796 after six years of service, and Muffet relates the story in his memoirs.
29:27 --> 29:34 [SPEAKER_00]: He wrote, it was even tied and the farmer exacerbated to find his commands disregarded, ordered them to appear at the door of his house.
29:34 --> 29:37 [SPEAKER_00]: It had not yet entered their minds to do violence to the farmer.
29:37 --> 29:43 [SPEAKER_00]: When they reached the front door of the house, and yager the chief had gone up a few steps leading to the door to state their complaints.
29:44 --> 29:48 [SPEAKER_00]: The farmer rushed furiously on the chief and with one blow participated him to the bottom of the steps.
29:50 --> 30:01 [SPEAKER_00]: At this moment, Titus, the chief's brother, drew from behind him a gun, and fired on Penaar, who staggered backward and fell, they then injured the house, the wife having witnessed the murder of her husband shrieked an implored mercy.
30:02 --> 30:06 [SPEAKER_00]: They told her on no account to be alarmed for they had nothing against her.
30:06 --> 30:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Overcome with terror, two children escaped by the back door.
30:09 --> 30:14 [SPEAKER_00]: They were slain by two Bushmen, who had long been looking out for an opportunity of avenging injuries they had suffered.
30:15 --> 30:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Mrs. Penaar escaped in the safety to the nearest farm.
30:20 --> 30:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, after this moment, Afra Conner and his group of people, they kind of moved out onto the banks of the Orange River, and they set up a band that kingdom in Nama-Kalain.
30:28 --> 30:32 [SPEAKER_00]: They were raiding not only colony farms, but also some of the northern tribes as well.
30:33 --> 30:37 [SPEAKER_00]: And he's described as being a man of considerable intelligence and a strategist.
30:37 --> 30:46 [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the most amusing episodes that Moffitt tells about is when he's raiding cattle and stealing all these things, he comes across a missionary care of him.
30:47 --> 31:07 [SPEAKER_00]: This missionary care event happened to be transporting a new piano forte that was the pride in joy of one of these missionary wives and their missionaries end up hiding themselves in like six feet of sand to kind of make sure that they are undetected they lay kind of a wagon tarp over themselves and they also buried the piano forte.
31:08 --> 31:10 [SPEAKER_00]: So they are hidden, they say they're like a week.
31:11 --> 31:19 [SPEAKER_00]: And one of Afro-Conners men kind of like comes up and they step over the shallow grave of this piano, they hear music.
31:19 --> 31:25 [SPEAKER_00]: And then Yager comes over and he's like, he thinks steps on it, he kind of jumps up and down and he hears more music.
31:25 --> 31:40 [SPEAKER_00]: And he's a little terrified because it's a little bit eerie and he's thinking like what if this is like the dead are going to rise like the missionaries talk about and then they end up digging it up and they break it apart in a little pieces and they take it back with them.
31:41 --> 32:00 [SPEAKER_00]: And five years later, when Moffitt arrives at his village, he shows it to him like, hey, look at this piano forte, and that poor missionary wife who was probably so proud of this piano that she had bought all the way from one den only to have it stolen from her, then watching it be broken up pieces, oh, I can't even imagine that would just be awful.
32:01 --> 32:08 [SPEAKER_00]: Now speaking of awful, one month into this journey, it is the most miserable trip that I have ever heard of described.
32:08 --> 32:10 [SPEAKER_00]: It is slow, awful going.
32:11 --> 32:15 [SPEAKER_00]: They had a spring list wagon, so there's absolutely no bounce in the wagon whatsoever.
32:15 --> 32:18 [SPEAKER_00]: So every single little bump is just, ugh, can't even imagine.
32:19 --> 32:25 [SPEAKER_00]: And it also went extra slow because miskitching men is nearing the time of maternal solitude as Mothit puts it.
32:26 --> 32:44 [SPEAKER_00]: They also traveled at night when it was cooler and the men took turns the back of the wagon watching out for hyenas who would prowl around looking to pick off a sheep or two from the caravan and eventually the hyenas scared off this last sheep and they ended up traipsing accurate and they saw that it was way up there in some high cliffs and they were thinking like logo chase it down.
32:44 --> 32:46 [SPEAKER_00]: This is our last little sheep.
32:48 --> 33:09 [SPEAKER_00]: but they look down and they see there's a little panther tracks and they don't have guns and they don't really have the the hots are really chase after this little sheep and they had to go back and and give it up to the panthers and everybody back at camp is just like waiting for this lovely mutton and they see they arrive empty handed and they were really disappointed.
33:11 --> 33:37 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's just how this little journey goes because it was so hot that you couldn't even touch the wagon and then the little oxen would huddle together and like cast shadows over their feet to try to cool down the sand and at one point they've been a few days of that water and they see this little like they see that there's going to be maybe some water in this hollow of a mountain which I don't know what that is but it's interesting and apparently has terrible water.
33:37 --> 33:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Because they get there, they dig for two hours and up trickles, what moth it refers to as a build water.
33:44 --> 33:48 [SPEAKER_00]: And build water if you're younger listener or even if you're like me who was like, what exactly is this?
33:48 --> 33:53 [SPEAKER_00]: It is the water that kind of bubbles up from the bottom of a ship.
33:53 --> 34:00 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's partially seawater and it's also partially like the ship's wheels and grease and stuff that kind of collects in the very bottom of the ship.
34:01 --> 34:03 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what it compares the drinking water to.
34:04 --> 34:09 [SPEAKER_00]: But when you're out in the desert and you haven't drank for a few days, you do what you got to do, and so they drank this water.
34:10 --> 34:37 [SPEAKER_00]: and they moved along in the world's most miserable journey that I ever read about, and not only are they having to deal with hyenas dealing their sheep, there's also they can hear the roar of lions in the distance, and the oxen decide they had enough of this, so when they dropped the kitchens off at this lovely little town, several miles back, the oxen decided they really liked it there, so in the middle of the night they just kind of take off, they packed their bags, they had help.
34:38 --> 34:44 [SPEAKER_00]: And the guide is like he could trace them down, but there's no food and he doesn't wanna risk the lions.
34:44 --> 34:46 [SPEAKER_00]: And so they just have to let the oxen go.
34:47 --> 34:50 [SPEAKER_00]: And now they are stranded with no food and no oxen.
34:50 --> 34:56 [SPEAKER_00]: So they have to elect to send somebody out to this town named Pella, which is about three or so days away.
34:56 --> 35:05 [SPEAKER_00]: So they're waiting, hopefully hoping that they can get through the town and come back with oxen, come back with food and that would be a horrible waiting game.
35:08 --> 35:11 [SPEAKER_00]: but this little town named Pella is kind of important.
35:11 --> 35:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Not because it's a, you know, super important town, but I like the way that it's named and what it's named for and therefore I'm gonna tell you about it.
35:19 --> 35:24 [SPEAKER_00]: So Pella is a mission station that has a kind of a long history.
35:24 --> 35:25 [SPEAKER_00]: It's an oasis town.
35:25 --> 35:26 [SPEAKER_00]: It's fed by a local spring.
35:27 --> 35:29 [SPEAKER_00]: And originally it was used by the song people.
35:29 --> 35:34 [SPEAKER_00]: they're kind of an indigenous tribe there, and then by the Dutch, alongside the song for number of years.
35:34 --> 35:48 [SPEAKER_00]: And then there was an LMS missionary troop that came through because they were being persecuted by Yager Afroconner, and they named it after Pella, which is the ancient Macedonian town that became a refuge for early Christians fleeing from Roman persecution.
35:49 --> 35:53 [SPEAKER_00]: And then originally that same Pella was also the birthplace of Alexander the Great.
35:55 --> 35:58 [SPEAKER_00]: So there you have the history of Pella of two pellets, really.
35:59 --> 36:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Windmoth that arrives in Pella, he is blown away at how they're able to coax so much life from this little town.
36:06 --> 36:15 [SPEAKER_00]: And he kind of packs away these nuggets that he learns and obviously it requires a lot of water, but he packs away what he's learned and he's able to bring it to fruition many years later at Kremon.
36:16 --> 36:18 [SPEAKER_00]: And after he leaves Pella, they head out.
36:18 --> 36:21 [SPEAKER_00]: He's like the only guy, I think at this point, in the care of Anne left.
36:21 --> 36:28 [SPEAKER_00]: They've been dropping people left and right for good rest, suddenly nobody dies, but he's the only guy who's left to transport.
36:29 --> 36:30 [SPEAKER_00]: And they come to a little outpost town.
36:31 --> 36:41 [SPEAKER_00]: and moth it heads out with this welcoming committee sent by Afra Connor and he takes him away to the village and he is not the first missionary that Afra Connor has had.
36:41 --> 36:43 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a guy there named Mr. Ebner.
36:43 --> 36:47 [SPEAKER_00]: He's a German missionary and he had had some minimal success there.
36:47 --> 36:57 [SPEAKER_00]: He actually had baptized Afra Connor and his brother Titus and they were no longer openly hostile to missionaries but neither were they actually like truly Christians.
36:57 --> 36:58 [SPEAKER_00]: They just were they kind of put
37:00 --> 37:07 [SPEAKER_00]: And Ebner, for whatever reason, he had kind of worn out as welcome, and they were looking to replace him, and that's how moth it comes in.
37:08 --> 37:19 [SPEAKER_00]: And within 30 minutes of arriving, Africana approves his request to stay, and then directs the village women to build him a home, and his home resembled a beehive, and it's made of sticks and woven mats.
37:19 --> 37:26 [SPEAKER_00]: And like everybody else's, it is not sealed from the elements, and it had this kind of flim-jazzy of flimsy illusion of safety.
37:26 --> 37:42 [SPEAKER_00]: It didn't prevent protection from the wind, the rain, and it was also subject to break-ins from the dogs who were looking for food, and then from snakes, and from every manner of bugs, and even wayward cattle who would escape from the pins at night, and kind of come traipsing through your home, and he actually almost got crushed a couple times.
37:43 --> 37:44 [SPEAKER_00]: By that happening to him,
37:44 --> 37:49 [SPEAKER_00]: A few days after he arrives, Mr. Ebner heads out, and so moth it is left alone.
37:50 --> 38:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Any feels really isolated because even though they had been baptized, they didn't have a full understanding of the gospel, and it was just a very difficult environment.
38:02 --> 38:20 [SPEAKER_00]: And at this time, his ministry, Muffet doesn't really speak any of any native language, only Dutch and English, and so he could speak in Dutch those who understood it, such as like Yager and his brothers, but then for much of his speaking, he's talking through an interpreter, which would be very frustrating because it's only adds to his isolation.
38:21 --> 38:32 [SPEAKER_00]: And during this time, he wrote, Here I was left alone with a people suspicious in the extreme, jealous of their rights which they had attained at the point of a sword, and the best of whom Mr. Abner described as a sharp thorn.
38:33 --> 38:36 [SPEAKER_00]: I had no friend and brother with whom I could participate in the communion of saints.
38:37 --> 38:51 [SPEAKER_00]: None to whom I could look to for council or advice, a barren and miserable country, a small salary about 25 pounds a year, no grain and consequently no bread, and no prospect of getting any from the once of water to cultivate the ground.
38:51 --> 38:53 [SPEAKER_00]: And destitute of the means of sending to the colony.
38:54 --> 39:02 [SPEAKER_00]: These circumstances led to great searchings of heart to see if I had hitherto aimed at doing and suffering the will of him in whose service I had embarked.
39:02 --> 39:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Satisfied that I had not run un-since and having in the intricate and sometimes obscure course I had come, heard this still small voice saying, this is the way Waki in it.
39:12 --> 39:26 [SPEAKER_00]: I was want to pour out my soul among the granite rocks surrounding the station, and now in sorrow, and then enjoy, and more than once I have taken my violin, and reclining upon one of the huge masses have, in the stillness of the evening played and sung the well-known
39:29 --> 39:33 [SPEAKER_00]: A wake my soul enjoys to sing the great redeemers praise.
39:35 --> 39:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Moffa had soon come into a bit of a routine.
39:38 --> 39:44 [SPEAKER_00]: He was doing his missionary duties, which included a morning and evening service, as well as three or four hours of school each day.
39:44 --> 39:52 [SPEAKER_00]: And a little ray of sunshine began to break through Moffa's bleak spirit, because he noticed that, Afrocona was regularly attending these services.
39:53 --> 40:02 [SPEAKER_00]: And even though he wasn't the best reader, the new testament soon became his constant companion, and the change that occurred in his life was obvious to everyone in the village.
40:03 --> 40:10 [SPEAKER_00]: quoting from the hero of Kermon, the lion at whose name many tremble became a lamb, and the love of Jesus Christ filled his heart.
40:11 --> 40:23 [SPEAKER_00]: He, who was formerly like a firebrand, spreading discord, enmity, and war among the neighbouring tribes, was now ready to make any sacrifice to avoid conflict, and besought parties at variously chubber to be at peace.
40:24 --> 40:30 [SPEAKER_00]: and although his brother's hide is never made a perfection of faith, he became a steady and awayvering friend to moth it as well.
40:30 --> 40:33 [SPEAKER_00]: He would say, I hear what you say when the truth was pressed upon him.
40:34 --> 40:37 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think I sometimes understand, but my heart will not feel.
40:37 --> 40:47 [SPEAKER_00]: In two of the other brothers of the chief, David and Jaco Bister, Jacobus, I'm not sure, but they became believers and also ardent helpers in the work of the mission.
40:47 --> 40:54 [SPEAKER_00]: And when Muffet came down with malaria or yellow fever, it's unclear, he became delirious, and it was african or who stayed by his side.
40:54 --> 41:00 [SPEAKER_00]: And then Muffet recounts that he took some mercury as a laxative and soon felt right as rain.
41:01 --> 41:07 [SPEAKER_00]: And after reading this, I looked into kind of the history of Mercury as a, like, a treatment for things.
41:08 --> 41:12 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's history is really dodgy, because it goes back to, I believe, like, ancient China.
41:12 --> 41:20 [SPEAKER_00]: And the reason it started being used at all is if they thought that because it was shiny, looking that it must be some kind of like magical elixir.
41:21 --> 41:25 [SPEAKER_00]: And then it stays in the medical community for a really long time.
41:25 --> 41:27 [SPEAKER_00]: This is what he credits to saving him.
41:27 --> 41:32 [SPEAKER_00]: I am just glad I didn't kill him because that would have been, you know, we wouldn't be reading this biography today if it had killed him.
41:33 --> 41:41 [SPEAKER_00]: But after drinking his mercury, he decides to look for a new mission station because this village is kind of terrible.
41:41 --> 41:42 [SPEAKER_00]: It's got not enough water.
41:42 --> 41:43 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a bad area.
41:43 --> 41:45 [SPEAKER_00]: They're living on milk and dried meat.
41:46 --> 41:51 [SPEAKER_00]: And there is one wagon in which they can kind of foray out and scopes out
41:54 --> 42:07 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, moth it, it reminds me of like when Iron Man is captured by the terrorists and he's trying to figure out like how to break out and he's like putting together all these random pieces that's to create this weapon, the original Iron Man suit.
42:07 --> 42:12 [SPEAKER_00]: This is what I think of because he makes a bellow from two ghost skins in a board.
42:12 --> 42:13 [SPEAKER_00]: He builds a forge.
42:13 --> 42:17 [SPEAKER_00]: He used a granite stone as an anvil and he knows, I don't even know what he uses for tongs.
42:18 --> 42:22 [SPEAKER_00]: He has this dangerously weak hammer that he's kind of like, you know, smell, I don't know
42:24 --> 42:26 [SPEAKER_00]: banging hot like metal with it.
42:26 --> 42:33 [SPEAKER_00]: But it does work, but it's really all for not because they wander around for a while, and there's just nowhere nearby that is suitable.
42:33 --> 42:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Everything is too errid.
42:35 --> 42:39 [SPEAKER_00]: And now it is November of 1818, and services were going really well.
42:39 --> 42:40 [SPEAKER_00]: His relationships are going amazingly.
42:41 --> 42:52 [SPEAKER_00]: And then he received a letter from his sweetheart Mary Smith back in England, saying that she had given up on ever getting permission to join him in South Africa, because her father was determined to keep her close.
42:53 --> 43:06 [SPEAKER_00]: and he was heartbroken, but you will have to wait and see until next time if he stays single forever, but he is the father-in-law of the David Livingston, so maybe, just maybe there is hope for him yet.
43:07 --> 43:13 [SPEAKER_00]: Moving forward, as imagine, in early 1819, he had been asked to come to Cape Town, and he has this idea.
43:14 --> 43:18 [SPEAKER_00]: What if he brings Afra Connor and he can show people how Jesus had changed him?
43:19 --> 43:24 [SPEAKER_00]: And he shares this idea with Afra Conner, who responds an exactly the way that you would think he would.
43:24 --> 43:33 [SPEAKER_00]: He said, I thought that you loved me and you advised me to go to the government to be hung up as a spectacle of public justice, then putting his hand to his head.
43:33 --> 43:42 [SPEAKER_00]: He said, do you not know that I am an outlaw and that I had $1 ricks dollars that have been offered for this poor head, and after a while.
43:42 --> 43:50 [SPEAKER_00]: He replied to the missionaries' argument by saying, I shall deliberate and wait on a lord because I know that he will not leave me.
43:50 --> 44:07 [SPEAKER_00]: He agrees to come and the only way to get him safely to the colony was to disguise him as Mothitz attendance because he's a very wanted man and even if the bounty for him was not so high, his atrocities were so great that many would just want to see him dead just for the kicks and just for justice.
44:08 --> 44:11 [SPEAKER_00]: And as they had closer to calling him off, it's able to say with these Dutch farmers.
44:12 --> 44:17 [SPEAKER_00]: And one of Slames' de Hammond says that this must be his ghost because Shirley Afrikaunter had killed him.
44:17 --> 44:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Apparently someone told him that Moth had been murdered at that man had actually seen his bones.
44:22 --> 44:25 [SPEAKER_00]: And then he asked Moth it, what do you think about Afrikaunter?
44:25 --> 44:34 [SPEAKER_00]: And Moth had assured him that he was truly a good man and reading again from the book he said, I can believe almost anything you say, but I cannot credit that.
44:35 --> 44:43 [SPEAKER_00]: And finally, he closed the conversation by saying, with his much earnest, well, if what you assert to be true, respecting that man, I have only one wish.
44:43 --> 44:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And that is to see him before I die.
44:45 --> 44:51 [SPEAKER_00]: And when you return, as sure as the sun is over our heads, I will go with you to see him, though he killed my own uncle.
44:52 --> 45:03 [SPEAKER_00]: The farmer was a good man who had shown Moth at kindness on his way before, and knowing his sincerity and the goodness of his disposition, Moth at turn to the man sitting by the wagon, and dressing the farmer said,
45:06 --> 45:11 [SPEAKER_00]: With a start, and a look as though the man might have dropped from the clouds, he is splaimed, are you Afro-Connor?
45:12 --> 45:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Afro-Connor arose, doffed his old hat, and making a plight bow replied, I am.
45:17 --> 45:23 [SPEAKER_00]: The farmer seemed awestruck, but on realizing the fact lifted up his eyes and said, oh God, what a miracle of thy power.
45:24 --> 45:26 [SPEAKER_00]: What cannot thy grace accomplish?
45:27 --> 45:35 [SPEAKER_00]: When they finally arrived in Cape Town, Moffitt wrote to Lord Somerset and told him that Afroconner was with him was a Christian now, and it truly changed man.
45:36 --> 45:39 [SPEAKER_00]: And Somerset wasn't really convinced but decides to meet with him.
45:39 --> 45:42 [SPEAKER_00]: And after he'll link the interview, he was fully convinced.
45:42 --> 45:46 [SPEAKER_00]: And he saw this complete 180 in Afroconner's life.
45:46 --> 45:49 [SPEAKER_00]: And he expressed genuine joy at being able to meet him.
45:49 --> 45:54 [SPEAKER_00]: And then finally saw the worth of the mission stations and missionary work, because remember, he hated them.
45:55 --> 45:58 [SPEAKER_00]: He gave it african or a lovely and new fancy wagon.
45:59 --> 46:02 [SPEAKER_00]: And there were two other missionaries that were present at Cape Town as well.
46:02 --> 46:04 [SPEAKER_00]: And they had a new task for Moffitt.
46:04 --> 46:13 [SPEAKER_00]: They wanted him to visit various mission stations with them, and then officially take over the mission station at Beckwana, or modern day, Botswana.
46:13 --> 46:14 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is the Currim on Station.
46:14 --> 46:19 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's multiple names, but the Currim on Station, where he will spend the next 50 years.
46:20 --> 46:25 [SPEAKER_00]: But Moffitt, originally, he's not excited by this change and feels as though he could be betraying his friend.
46:26 --> 46:30 [SPEAKER_00]: And so he tells the man he will not make a decision until he has spoken with AfroConnor.
46:31 --> 46:35 [SPEAKER_00]: But AfroConnor is okay with the change because he understands why they need him at this new station.
46:36 --> 46:41 [SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, he decides he tells Moffitt, I'm going to move my entire village to be near you.
46:42 --> 46:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And knowing that he had AfroConnor's blessing, he tells the man that he will accept.
46:46 --> 46:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Afro-Connor and Mothet would meet one more time at this new mission station.
46:51 --> 46:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Afro-Connor is dropping off some different things for him, but he reiterates to him his desire to move his village.
46:58 --> 47:01 [SPEAKER_00]: But sadly, he died before this move could be officially carried out.
47:01 --> 47:07 [SPEAKER_00]: And a missionary who was with him when he died wrote this letter detailing Afro-Connor's final days.
47:07 --> 47:13 [SPEAKER_00]: When he found his end approaching, he called all the people together and gave them directions as to their future conduct.
47:14 --> 47:19 [SPEAKER_00]: We are not, he said, what we were, savages, but men professing to be taught according to the gospel.
47:20 --> 47:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Let us then do accordingly, live peaceably with all men if possible, and if impossible, consult those who are placed over you before you engage in anything.
47:29 --> 47:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Remain together as you have done since I knew you.
47:31 --> 47:33 [SPEAKER_00]: Then when the directors think it fit to
47:36 --> 47:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Behave to any teacher you may have sent as one who is sent of God and I have great hope that God will bless you in this respect when I am gone to heaven.
47:44 --> 47:48 [SPEAKER_00]: I feel that I love God and that he has done much for me of which I am totally unworthy.
47:49 --> 47:54 [SPEAKER_00]: He also added, my former life is stained with blood, but Jesus Christ has pardoned me and I am going to heaven.
47:55 --> 48:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh beware of falling into the same evils into which I have led you frequently, but seek God and he will be found of you to direct you.
48:04 --> 48:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Afro-Connor only become a Christian about five years before his death, but his testimony in those five years left no doubt that Jesus had radically changed his life.
48:14 --> 48:21 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is where we will leave part one, we'll pick it up next time with the arrival of someone very special on her way to meet Moffitt in Cape Town.
48:22 --> 48:28 [SPEAKER_00]: If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts or to Spotify, or wherever you listen and let us know.
48:28 --> 48:31 [SPEAKER_00]: And as always, thank you for listening to Martyr's Emissionaries.
48:32 --> 48:32 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Elise.