Adventist History in Indonesia: 1909 Report, Anniversary Edition of the Review and Herald

Review and Herald, June 16, 1910, page 43

The Australasian Union Conference

The strong conferences in Australia and New Zealand constitute the base of operations for our work among the forty million in the South Sea Islands and the East Indies.

" Australasia's burden” is the phrase by which our Australasia brethren voice this sacred responsibility. The school at Avondale, near Sydney, and the Sydney Sanitarium and nurses’ school, are their leading training centers. Elder J.E. Fulton, president of the union conference, says that 1909 was “another year of victory.”

From various reports we give a brief outline of the year's advance.

East Indies Java Mission

WITH its thirty-two millions, this island has had very little missionary effort. Many years ago a godly Dutch missionary, Mr. Janz, translated the bible into Javanese. His daughter carried forward a work after his death, and for some years has been an observer of the Sabbath. Elder Fulton says:

Just about the beginning of 1909, Miss Janz gave to us the oversight of her little colony of two hundred persons. Three of our workers are now located at this place. We hope that some of the young men who have learned of the religion of Jesus through her efforts will carry the message to other parts of this great field.

Small leaflets are to be printed in the many languages spoken in Java, so that our native laborers will have a tract for every man they meet. Elder R. W. Munson has returned to Java from Australia, to work in translating, settling at Soekaboemi. Elder J.W. Hofstra, of Michigan, who speaks the Dutch, the government language, arrived this year. He will doubtless locate near the Soember Wekas health home. Here in the mountains will be our Java headquarters. Two other workers were also added, Brother Woods, a trained nurse, and Miss Knight, a Bible worker. The centers of our work are Batavia, Surabaya, Soember Wekas, and Pangoensen.

Sumatra Mission

Sumatra has three millions of people ; and we have there three workers. Brother Bernard Judge gives us a glimpse of the complex conditions : —

As there are many different nationalities of the Caucasian race, so there are many subdivisions of the Malay race. In Padang we have the Malay proper, some Battaks from north Sumatra, and the Nias from the islands of Nias and Paga. The inhabitants of Paga, a few months ago, literally hacked to pieces one of the German missionaries stationed there. This was brought about by the missionary calling for some, soldiers from the government, and then using them to compel the natives to attend his meetings.

The Chinese are well represented. There are two classes, the immigrant Chinese, who speak Hokkien or some other Chinese dialect, and those who are born here of Chinese fathers and Malay mothers. These speak Malay as their mother tongue, and are called Babas.

We have two Chinese sisters in Padang, faithful believers, from the days of Elder R. W. Munson's former labors here. A young Battak, in the Singapore school, is preparing publications for his people in Battakland (northern Sumatra), where, during the year, there has been considerable stir over the message. The laws prohibit any of our white missionaries going there, but out of the agitation and by the use of literature, we expect to see the truths for these last days making progress. The workers are studying Malay.