Page 17 - The Diary of A. H. W. Behrens

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Directly adjacent to our farm, a house and land was purchased and transformed into the missionary seminar where young people were trained as missionaries. My father was revived by the sermons of Louis Harms and wanted to dedicate himself to missionary work but did not get the consent of his father. But while the first training course took place, his father died and
- on his deathbed - gave his retrospective consent to his son becoming a missionary, if he still wanted to do so.
My father, with the full consent of my mother, enrolled with Pastor Louis Harms for service as a missionary, was accepted, donated his farm as a running concern to the Hermannsburg Mission after he had given his mother her old-age share and
all children their inheritance share. He then moved into the mission house as a trainee and lived in the old mission house together with my mother from 1853 until he was sent out at the end of 1857. During those years he enjoyed his training under Inspector Theodor Harms, brother of Pastor Louis Harms, who had become the director of the Hermannsburg Mission.
The donation of the farm by my father to the Hermannsburg Mission, as well as his wish to be sent out to the kaffirs1 in unknown Africa
1The term “kaffir” for “Africans = black people” is Arabic in origin and did not yet have a negative undertone in the 19th century, but only became a derogatory term during the apartheid era, and is today no longer acceptable.