Page 309 - The Diary of A. H. W. Behrens
P. 309
149
What then will there be for us?
Two children, Wilhelm and Maria, were born to him in the Missionary Seminar and with these he was sent out into an uncertain future, into a completely unknown country to the kaffirs. He was not promised a basic salary nor was anything put down in writing about maintenance for his family. In addition, there was Communism in the Mission! Father did not ask what he would be receiving per month or year for himself and his family. He went out for the sake of the gospel and trusted the Lord, as Pastor L. Harms had taught and preached and lived himself.
On the small Kandaze and a three-months journey he came to Natal and was sent to the Ehlangeni Station with his family where he lived in the small house together with Missionary Müller’s family and learnt the language of the indigenous people. He stayed here for three years from 1857 to 1860. He had to build himself a small house during this time and had to make himself a field. Everything for his maintenance came from Hermannsburg, he had no money in his pocket, so he not even had a glimmer of a possibility that Jesus’ promises would be fulfilled, it was merely securing an existence. Then my father was ordered to establish the new station Emhlangane to the West of Etembeni. He had to go there on foot through the thorny field with kaffirs who carried the necessary things to Etembeni. The family stayed behind for many months
in Ehlangeni. After he had spent weeks together with the kaffirs building a road for wagons across mountains, through valleys