Page 219 - The Diary of A. H. W. Behrens

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1909
Director Egm. Harms asked every missionary to make a suggestion for a new superintendent. Such letters should be secret and confidential. I wrote: none of us missionaries should be nominated as superintendent, instead an experienced pastor should be found and nominated in Germany, similar to Pastor Haccius, who had a heart for the mission and could be an authority for all of us. Until someone had been found Brother Chr. Müller should be acting superintendent.
The director and the missionaries met in Kroondal. He offered the old missionaries Brother Schepmann. Everybody declined and he then nominated Brother H. Behrens, Eben Ezer, as superintendent. At the subsequent election of advisors, I refused to be an advisor to Behrens although I was elected twice and I also refused to state my reasons for declining. Müller said the books and everything else was in Eben Ezer and so it could also be Yordt’s son-in-law. The director hardly greeted me, I was in his black books. I wrote him a letter, excused myself with Brother Müller, went home and from there to the General Missionary Conference in Bloemfontein as representative of the Hermannsburg Mission. That was a
big and very nice conference of all missionaries. Only the Anglicans did not attend because all of us other missionaries called ourselves protestants. The Anglicans do not want to be seen as protestants.