Page 133 - The Diary of A. H. W. Behrens

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1880 Back in Bethanie
Now I got straight to work because I had returned to be father’s adjunct and to help him with his great work. From the beginning he handed over the baptism classes to me, as well as the sermons for heathens and a part of the school.
The congregation had grown to about 900 souls and the Christian village had been built. The old Mamagola had died as a heathen and so did his son Raikane who had become “kaptein” in 1874. He was followed by his son Jakobus, a Christian in Pretoria who had been baptised while he worked there.
In August my fellow travellers then arrived by ox wagon. Cousin August came to Fuls for three years in terms of the contract. The weddings of the brides (Grotherr and Wickert) took place and Pastor Heuer got the seminary in Bethanie and Wickert came to Mahanaim [?]. My little shoemaker Küsel did not come along, he had been told in Natal that there were so many white ants in Transvaal that if you put your shoes down on the floor at night, they would be built in and partially eaten up the next morning. He refused to come along and so my plan to start a shoemaker’s shop in Bethanie did not materialise.