“Aus dem Leben des Missionar Greiner”, Nachrichten aus der ostafrikanischen Mission 1 (1887), 23-29, 37-45, 51-53:
- Edited by Mission Inspector Carl G. Büttner, based on the autobiography written by Johann Jakob Greiner on the occasion of his application to the Evangelische Missiongesellschaft für Deutsch-Ostafrika (aka Berlin III) in 1886.
English translation (Extracts)
Note: In the original, where [Oromo] is shown in brackets, there is an exonym that is no longer used today. Some paragraph breaks and the headers have been added in the translation.
Greiner’s upbringing and mission training
[p. 23] Johann Jakob Greiner was born on May 16, 1842, as the son of Mayor Greiner in Brombach near Lörrach in Baden. Growing up in his father’s house with eleven other siblings, he learned about God’s word at an early age through his faithful pastor, Pastor [Carl Friedrich] Ledderhose. After one sibling after another gave themselves entirely to the Lord, he too was led on the path of grace and decided to dedicate his life to the service of the Lord. Soon after the death of his father, he found himself in great danger while working at the rescue center in Tüllingen. One day, he was digging and loading alone in the clay pit. Suddenly, the earth slipped and buried [p. 24] him up to his neck so that he almost suffocated and could hardly call for help. Only the chance passing of an overseer was able to save him.
At the age of 18, he wanted to join the missionary service, and when he was exempted from military service, he enrolled at the Pilgrims’ Missionary Institute on St. Chrischona near Basel and was immediately accepted. In the fall of 1863, he entered the fourth [i.e. lowest] class and moved up to the third in 1864.
Ministry in Egypt and the Sudan
A special circumstance caused Greiner to be sent to Africa very soon. The well-known Mr. Arthington in Leeds, who had already induced many missionary societies to take exceptional action in previously untrodden regions through extraordinary gifts, had at that time enthusiastically promised to pay all expenses for four brothers for the plans of the Apostles’ Road of the Chrischona Mission, if one immediately began to found two stations on the White Nile among the Dinka. Four brothers were quickly selected to be sent to Sudan, including Greiner, who had not yet completed the usual course of study but seemed suitable for this mission due to his other abilities. […]
[p. 25] In Jerusalem, they then came to rest a little in the Syrian orphanage there with the house father Schneller. There, they had the opportunity to learn Arabic. In December 1865, Greiner received the order from his committee [Mission Board] to move to Cairo, where the Möhl and Schlegel brothers had died of cholera and where the study of Arabic could be continued conveniently. […] After a subsequent stay in Alexandria to assist in the establishment of a school, the St. Chrischona Committee sent Greiner and five others up the Nile to reach the [Oromo] via Khartoum. During the lengthy preparations, Mr. Arthington lost patience and withdrew his promise. […]
They arrived in Khartoum at the end of July 1867, where one of the six men, Gutberlett, succumbed to fever after only two days of illness. Another group member entered the service of a merchant. Greiner was to stay in El-Gadarif for the time being to take over from Brother Eipperle, who wanted to return to Europe with his sick wife. The other three, Driver and the two Mooy brothers, set off for the [Oromo] country via Abu Harras [near Wad Madani]. But there were already difficulties with the government in Fazogly; they wanted to hinder the brothers and make any onward journey impossible. Jakob Mooy died of climate fever. Overwhelmed by pain, his brother sank into melancholy and became mentally disturbed for a long time. Brother Treiber had no choice but to accompany the sick man back. Within a year, only Greiner was left of the six. He now sought to settle in Khartoum, the capital of the whole Sudan.
Greiner also could only work there for a short time. No sooner had he set up a school in which children from various ethnic groups of Inner Africa were gathered than he too was seized by a severe one-day climatic fever. He became unfit for all work and, on the advice of the experts, he was taken half-dead with difficulty to Alexandria, where he arrived in March 1870. There, he helped in the school until mid-1871, as far as his strength allowed him.
Continuation of mission training and call to Shewa
He then received permission from the Mission’s committee to return to Basel, where he arrived again in September 1871 […] [p. 26]. During the winter, Greiner again took part in the lessons in the first [i.e., final] class at St. Chrischona. Meanwhile, a better way than the previous one to the pagans in the interior of East Africa seemed to be in the offing. King Menelik of Shewa [Menelik II of Shewa, South Abyssinia] promised to allow a mission among the pagan [Oromo] within the borders of his kingdom.
Brother Mayer, who until then had been a colporteur in the service of the English [i.e., British and Foreign] Bible Society in Adwa in Abyssinia, was now to go to Shewa as a missionary to communicate verbally with the king. The king made fine promises and himself wrote a letter to the St. Chrischona committee with a specific request to send him missionaries.
Ministry in Ankober
On December 8, 1872, Greiner was sent out again for the [Oromo] mission. […] [p. 28] In December 1873, Greiner finally reached the residence of the King in Warra Illuu. The king’s reception was extremely friendly, but he seemed somewhat disappointed. He had expected a lot of presents and shotguns, and now the large amount of luggage he had been told about for a long time only contained books, Bibles, and New Testaments in Amharic. Greiner had to show the king everything he had and explain everything to him. Menelik very soon took the fine hunting rifle, which had provided a lot of meat on the way, and gave an old, poor Abyssinian rifle in exchange […] It was hoped that such gifts would persuade him to soon allow the missionaries to move to the [Oromo] land [p. 29]. However, when the matter came up, he always said that it was not yet possible, just rest a little in Ankober first.
Not wanting to be completely idle, Greiner began teaching some [Oromo] boys and girls in Ankober who had been taken as prisoners of war from their country to Shewa. Although he could not travel to the [Oromo] land immediately, teaching [Oromo] children provided the best opportunity to master the language. The students got off to a good start, and Greiner enjoyed them. […]
[p. 37] In the late fall of 1877, Greiner married a Christian [Oromo], but the happy marriage lasted only half a [p. 38] year. Smallpox broke out in Ankober, and as some of Greiner’s pupils fell ill, his wife was also infected and soon died in peace. Her last word was: “Fear not, Jesus is with me.”
The students gradually recovered, but the long period of suffering had borne fruit, hearts became more trusting, and the [Barth’s] Bible Stories could be translated into [Oromo]. They were printed in St. Chrischona in 1880. Greiner later drafted a translation of the prophetic books of the Old Testament. Unfortunately, the manuscript was lost, together with many other books, on the journey home in Tadjoura.
In 1879, Greiner married Lydia Mayer, the daughter of his coworker in Abyssinia. In the same year, Emperor Yohannes IV of Tigray, had conquered Shewa and chased the Roman [Catholic] missionaries out of the country, who had almost forced King Menelik to place himself under the Pope’s yoke, and who had also been the reason why Greiner and his companions had not been able to leave Ankober. No sooner had they left than a message arrived from King Menelik that he had a place ready for the Protestant missionaries.
Ministry in Balli
In January 1880, they set out on a journey, eight days southwest, to Balli in the Adaa Province. They would have loved to go even further. But since they didn’t have any connection behind them, this was almost too far from the coast, and their hopes of prompt supplies from Chrischona were dashed.
They had to start all over again in Balli, as accommodations for the missionaries’ families were almost impossible to find. Since the aged missionary Mayer no longer had much energy for outdoor work, Greiner also had to build the house for him. Some [Oromo] students had, of course, come with them from Ankober to Balli and now faithfully helped both set up the station and run the school. Classes began at dawn or even earlier.
Opportunities often arose to contact the [Oromo] and speak with them about divine things. Admittedly, these people are not accustomed to reflection; anything new that would divert them from their usual path is unpleasant to them. The preaching of the cross and the simple, glorious truths of Holy Scripture often seem to grip a dark pagan heart, but such inspirations are usually extinguished as quickly as they come. Working with the youth through continuous instruction appears more thorough and promising.
[p. 39] Since King Menelik had granted the missionaries land for their subsistence, and the missionary society believed this would allow them to reduce their salaries, the missionaries also had to consider the clearing and cultivation of the land granted to them.
Balli was still a kind of wilderness when the missionaries first moved there. Only a few locals lived scattered here and there, trying to establish gardens. But they were close to starvation, as the countless wild boars all too often ravaged their fields and gardens, and you almost had to fear that the people would leave completely and leave the place to itself. […]
It took almost a year to complete the house, and many drops of sweat were shed during the process. The wood for the construction had to be fetched six hours from a forest, where there was constant danger of Arsi [Oromo] assassins [p. 40]. While some people were busy felling, pruning, and hewing the logs, the others had to keep watch to prevent the entire group from being unexpectedly attacked. These external tasks, of course, significantly hindered and disrupted the actual missionary work.
King Menelik liked Greiner’s carpentry and repeatedly asked him to demonstrate how it was done to his own, the king’s men. The Abyssinians were unable to saw a tree trunk into planks. If they needed a thin plank, they cut it from a solid trunk, which involved a lot of labor and wasted wood. Greiner was then supposed to use his saw to procure the planks for the king and continually train new Abyssinians in plank carving. […] With this variety of work, it was, of course, difficult to arrange a quiet continuation of his actual missionary work. […]
In the last year of his work in Balli [in 1885], Greiner finally found a new collaborator. A young Abyssinian, Gobau Desta, who had been forced to leave his homeland with other missionaries shortly after the death of Emperor Tewodros II and subsequently found shelter in the Protestant institutions of Jerusalem, had come to the St. Chrischona institution. After being educated in Basel for seven years, he was sent to Balli to support the mission. He adapted well to the conditions there and fulfilled his duties with loyalty and dedication; he was particularly active in the school and also helped with Sunday services. […]
German source
Cross-references
» Greiner, Letters published in St. Chrischona (1874‒75)
» Greiner, Letters to Swedish Evangelical Mission (1880, 1886)