North American missionaries developed a North American-style school to prepare their children for life back in North America

In her article “Sacred children and colonial subsidies” (Fast, 2018) Anicka Fast makes some racially charged statements that are misleading and need clarification to maintain historical accuracy. These statements are also bound to be used by the Congolese in church and civilian debates that relate to the legacy of the American Mennonite Brethren Mission (AMBM) missionaries. I would like to encourage the Congolese to focus on what can be done to improve the future for the Congolese rather than rehashing the past.

The article starts off with a pejorative in the title, “Sacred children …,” implying that these missionaries considered their children “sacred” (and therefore, all other children must not be “sacred”?). In reality these AMBM missionaries considered all children to be “sacred.” The Congolese children were “sacred” and the missionaries risked their lives go to the Congo to help them (both spiritually and physically). They even raised some of them in their homes, when they were rejected by their Congolese parents (i.e. twins and mixed-race children were rescued from the forest). However, in this context, we also need to understand that, yes, the AMBM missionaries also considered their own children to be “sacred” (they are not sacrificial lambs to be sacrificed on the altar of “missions”). All parents have the responsibility to treat their children as “sacred.” I can see that the author may have meant to use the word in a specialized academic sense, or with an ironic double meaning, but this usage is still pejorative.

Good historical scholarship should strive to understand the context of comments that are found in historical writings—especially in letters. We cannot assume that we understand these comments from our current context. Historical discussions also need to distinguish between intended (main) effects and unintended (side) effects of a decision of historical importance. Fast (2018) has identified a side effect as the intended (main) effect and thereby inferred unnecessary and perhaps unintended racial and segregation motivations to the AMBM missionaries.

Fast (2018) makes the statement that the AMBM missionaries had a vision “for a ‘white children’s school,’” geographically separated from their work with the Congolese and “the creation and institutionalization of a racially separate ecclesial identity from that of Congolese Christians.” Significantly, she fails to consider the available educational options and the consequences of these options. She and other Congolese (Givule, 2008) seem to reach the conclusion that missionary children should go to the local Congolese schools. They suggest that because the missionaries chose to develop a school for their children, this was done with the intention of creating geographical and cultural separation between their children and Congolese children. We need to consider the different options available to these missionaries.

The first option, as mentioned by Fast (2018), was to send the missionary children to local Congolese schools. This would mean that the children would be taught to read and write in Kituba (or another tribal language) for the first several grades and then they would be taught in French for the higher grades. They would also have been placed in the Belgian school curriculum where they would have completed grade school after six years (this is an accelerated schedule compared to the eight years in North America (NA) (I am using “NA” to refer to the USA and Canada, because there were roughly equal numbers of AMBM missionaries from each country). Now, consider what happens when these children go back to NA, either to live or on furlough (in those days, the furlough was generally one year, so children’s schooling became a real issue). Do students who have finished four years of schooling in the Congo belong in 4th grade or in 5th grade in NA? Academically they may be somewhere in between 4th and 5th grades. In addition, these children would not be literate in English (although I assume, they would speak English). How well would children be expected to do in English-speaking classrooms when they had previously been taught in Kituba and/or in French? When the missionary children get older, they will need to start their own careers or go on to college. Where will they go? Their citizenship and passports are from NA. They would legally be expected to go back to NA to live—they were not immigrants to the Congo. With a Congolese education and, therefore, not being literate in English, they would be strangers in NA. They would be equivalent to other new immigrants who arrive in NA and end up doing menial jobs (even immigrant doctors and nurses often end up driving taxis when they first get to NA). The Congolese education was designed (and mandated by the government) to train children who were expected to live in the Congo. Although there may have been a political advantage for the mission in not having a separate school for the missionary children, that advantage only existed in theory or as long as you assume that skin color and other cultural differences would not cause reverse racism (a laughable proposition). In conclusion, Congolese schools, no matter how good or bad they are, simply did not provide the background or foundation for missionary children who were expected to go back to NA to live.

The second option was to “home school” or “correspondence school” the missionary children. This would appear to be an ideal solution. The missionary children could be taught the North American curriculum in English and the students could stay at home for their schooling. However, based on my experience and also my observations of home-schooling efforts of others in my family (in NA), home schooling appears to work when three conditions are met: first, the children are cooperative; second, the mother has the ability and training to teach; and third, the mother can devote full time to teaching the children (i.e. there were no responsibilities outside the home). Unfortunately, the third condition was impossible to meet for many missionaries in the Congo. Both father and mother inevitably got drawn into the web of mission responsibilities. They end up spending way too much time outside the home and home responsibilities commonly don’t get done because they simply run out of time (not a problem unique to missionaries, but more severe on the mission station). For example, my father was station manager, personnel manager, building contractor, Bible school principal and teacher, pastor, car/truck driver, and mechanic (and ambulance driver) for the station with some 200–300 students, a station village of 200 people and a surrounding community of several hundred thousand people. My mother was grade school principal and teacher, station nurse (like operating a small-town hospital, but she had no medical training), household manager, station and mission bookkeeper/secretary, and when she had time she was also my first-grade teacher. If I had been a cooperative child, this home-schooling project might have been more successful, but I know that, as a boy, I found insects, lizards, snakes, and leopards (Fig. 1) much more interesting than correspondence school worksheets. When mom was not watching, I was out the door. Fast (2018) quotes J. C. Ratzlaff as saying “We have seen children growing up too much like natives because of the lack of a school.” He must have been talking about ME—I was one of the oldest of four AMBM school age children at that time. I believe Ratzlaff was referring to me growing up unschooled (not the cultural contamination implied by Fast). The point is that I needed more supervision, which could only occur in a classroom with a full-time teacher. When I read the quote from Wm. G. Baerg (the other parent with two school-aged children at the time) in Fast (2018) that it is “urgent to have a separate school where no other such work is done”—I hear a plea from a parent for a full-time teacher who has no other mission responsibilities so he or she can focus all his or her attention on the task of training the missionary children. I certainly do not hear a cry for a segregated school. This home-schooling option was not a very good option for many missionary families.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Fig. 1.

Lawrent with a leopard killed at Kafumba, ca. 1947. It had killed a goat owned by someone on the station.

The third option was to send the missionary children to a “Missionary Children’s (Boarding) School.” The missionary children’s school would be conducted in English and would follow a North American School curriculum (I believe they chose to follow the Kansas curriculum). This would allow the missionaries to train their children in a way that would be very close to the way they would train them in NA. However, there was a major disadvantage to this option in that the children would have to go away to the boarding school and live away from home for part of the year. Believe me, this is not an option that any parent takes lightly. Parents and children agonize over this decision and there are huge emotional burdens and costs associated with this separation. There are also logistical and financial considerations that come into play, but nothing compares to the trauma, for parents and for children, involved with having to go away to boarding school. The other disadvantage to this option was the political situation: it didn’t “look right.” Missionary children were getting a different education than the Congolese children were getting. In conclusion, this option offered the best chance for the children to succeed when they eventually would go back to NA. In the end, this was the factor that trumped all the other concerns. However, the existing boarding school, over in Rhodesia, thousands of miles away and over very primitive roads, was full and was not accepting new students. The AMBM mission would have to develop their own school. I want to emphasize again that the separation was not something that the missionaries sought out, it was a sacrifice they made in order to prepare their children for life back in NA. It was the unavoidable side effect of the option they felt compelled to choose for educating their children.

Fast (2018) suggests that the Kajiji location was chosen as the site for the missionary children’s school specifically because it was 250 miles to the south of Kafumba. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I have done research in the mission archives on this matter because it is important to my family story. I have seen documentation that shows that the missionaries worked through at least five identifiable location options. The first was Kafumba and the fifth was Kajiji. The first four options did not work out for various reasons and the Kajiji option was the only viable option. The main attraction for the Kajiji location was the availability of a large stone-walled building that could be refurbished quickly by putting on a tin roof (which they did in the two weeks before school started). There also was a water pump that delivered water 500 ft. up the hill to the building—at most mission stations water had to be carried by hand (actually on the head). The cooler and more pleasant climate was a mitigating factor, but the distance was always a huge disadvantage (and certainly not an advantage). The distance became less of a concern (for AMBM missionaries) after the Kajiji station joined the AMBM mission in ca. 1954, effectively expanding the AMBM field of responsibility to include Kajiji. When this happened, the parents could arrange for committee meetings to occur at Kajiji and this allowed parents to visit their children (I have fond memories of these visits).

Fast (2018) cites Harvey Driver as secretary of a collaborating mission, Congo Inland Mission (CIM), as expressing concerns about the segregated character of Ecole Belle Vue and suggesting that the children be integrated into local schools (option one). He indicated that two neighboring missions, American Baptists and Unevangelized Tribes Mission, had already done this. I think we need to ask “How did this work out for the children?” From my experience and my conversations with other missionary children, I have heard of only one missionary family (possibly American Baptist) who may have used the first option (sending their children to the Congolese school). I believe at least some of those children did not return to NA—they became Congolese. A fellow missionary child tells me that he thinks that the bestselling fiction book, The Poisonwood Bible (Kingsolver, 1998) may have drawn inspiration from this missionary family. From the perspective of most missionaries I know, this example would be considered a “total failure” (exactly what they did not want to happen to their children; the missionaries came to the Congo to change the culture—not to adapt to it).

I know of three missionary children who successfully completed much of their schooling by correspondence (option 2). They were in the Unevangelized Tribes Mission. Two of the three actually completed their schooling at Ecole Belle Vue. I know of at least three missionary children (me included) who failed at correspondence schooling (first several grades). I suspect that there were many more children who failed, like I did, but they probably prefer not to talk openly about their failure. I know of four families (in NA) who tried the home-schooling option. It worked for two of the families, but it failed for two families. Home schooling (correspondence school back then) appears to work for some families, but it clearly does not work for many others.

I know of some 30 to 50 classmates who attended Ecole Belle Vue (option 3) who have successfully reentered society in NA. I have not heard of any “total failures,” but I believe most of these children had various social, emotional, and academic difficulties, due to their education and related experiences on the mission field. Most of these children seem to have overcome these problems well enough that they could adjust and become successful in North American society (but some still have significant lingering issues). Boarding school is not a perfect solution, but neither are neighborhood schools in NA, they both have some problems and produce some failures.

There may have been other children in the two mission programs (American Baptist and Unevangelized Tribes Missions) mentioned by Driver that I have not heard about. However, I think I have enough information to conclude that integrating missionary children into local Congolese schools must have been extremely rare and it was not necessarily successful. The missionary children’s school was successful and it was clearly the best option for educating the missionary children.

Fast (2018) states that “missionary children continued to worship separately on Sunday,” implying that they should have attended the Congolese church at Kajiji. When the school was initially located at Kipungo, we (the 6–7 children) worshiped with the Congolese church. We had additional devotions in the home/dorm. I personally remember having my “born again” experience during this time—probably as a result of evangelistic services in the Congolese church. At Kajiji the situation was different. The local church was conducted in the “Chokwe” language, a language that most of us children did not understand. When we were back on our home stations, all of us worshiped in the local Congolese churches because we knew the local languages (sometimes better than the adults). At Ecole Belle Vue the children came from many different mission stations using six to eight different languages. Only the children from the Kajiji station would have known the local language (I believe the Kajiji children usually worshiped at the station with their parents). So, the first reason to have our own services in English was so we could all understand what was going on. The second reason was that there were large cultural differences between African and North American worship styles (think musical instruments and singing). This issue is usually discussed from the perspective of missionaries forcing North American-style worship on native populations. In this case, we need to understand that African worship style was also being forced on the missionary children. The missionaries needed to train their children for transition to NA, so they needed to teach their children the North American style of worship—they needed to learn to sing the North American songs, to play the piano, play the various band instruments, and then perform before an audience, as did children in NA (this was more important back in the 1950s than it appears to be these days).

It is also important to remember that the missionary children’s school, Ecole Belle Vue at Kajiji, was developed in tandem with the development of the Congolese teacher training school, Ecole De Moniteurs, at one of the CIM mission stations. These schools were developed as joint projects by the cooperating AMBM and CIM missions. There was an agreement in which each mission would operate one of the schools, but they would share responsibility for finances, staffing, and governance. This allowed each mission to send their children and/or students to the respective schools. The mission archives at Fresno contain information about Ecole Belle Vue, because that was the school that was operated by the AMBM. There is less information there on the Ecole De Moniteurs because that school was operated by the CIM. However, we need to remember that the Ecole De Moniteurs was a sister school to Ecole Belle Vue, and it was intended to serve the advanced Congolese students. Therefore, we need to consider these two schools as a package deal in which the two missions were deliberately moving to serve both the missionary children and the advanced Congolese students.

Ecole Belle Vue was set up as a tuition-charging private school. It was not intentionally racially segregated, but since it did charge a significant tuition, most Congolese could not afford to send their children to this school. However, during the 1950s the school admitted two non-missionary children, children of Portuguese traders who were probably Catholic. For the AMBM missionaries of that time, admitting Catholic students was a more difficult decision than a decision to admit a black Protestant student would have been. Eventually, after Congo independence in 1960, the school, teachers, and materials were moved to Kinshasa where the school developed into “The American School of Kinshasa” (TASOK), which currently serves a broad spectrum of black and white children from around the world. I believe this shows that the motivations behind the development of this school were not to create a racially segregated school, but to create a North American-style school. I believe there is still a significant tuition at TASOK which prevents many Congolese parents from sending their children there.

Fast (2018) states that “AMBM received a letter from the governor of the province that refused the mission’s application for land title (for the missionary children’s school) on the grounds that AMBM had refused government subsidies for their [Congolese] schools.” This was news to me, but not really surprising, since European governments were probably used to having control of such schools (they don’t practice separation of church and state like we do in NA). I have no doubt that the governor was trying to pressure the AMBM mission to accept the subsidies. However, I do not believe it is right to interpret the AMBM response as a simple surrender of principal to government pressure. First, AMBM had several other land title issues before the government, that is, Kipungu and Matende (and later several others)—only the Kafumba land title was settled. This letter was a threat not only to the missionary children’s school, it was also a threat to the other mission stations where titles were in limbo. More importantly, we need to understand this situation in the context of the changing demographics among the missionaries. The original missionaries that arrived before 1947 were Bible school graduates who had attended denominational private Christian and Bible schools. They would have opposed accepting the government subsidies since they were committed to private Christian education. However, as the need for trained medical personnel and educators increased on the mission field and the pressure increased to meet government standards, the AMBM mission started sending new missionaries who were trained as nurses, doctors, and educators. These people were more likely to have been trained in North American public schools (few private schools offered the medical and education training needed for certification) and they would have been less committed to private Christian education. In addition, these were also the individuals who were on the front lines and were charged with the responsibility of meeting the government standards for medicine and education. They would have been the individuals who most keenly felt the need for the substantial funds that the government was offering (50% to 100% funding for salaries and facilities).

It is also important to remember that in NA, at this time, churches were operating hospitals, retirement homes, and schools. When government funds became available, many churches accepted the funds. However, in NA, the churches were able to turn these projects over to independent boards who took over the operation of these programs. In the Congo this transition was not so smooth and the government funding was not stable. Therefore, the large medical and educational infrastructure became a serious burden on the Congolese church (and a significant opportunity for corruption in dealing with funds). I agree that the fears of the original missionaries have been realized.

However, what is important in this discussion is that the missionary children’s school was not the only factor in the decision to accept government subsidies, as Fast proposes. I believe that, at most, the government forced the missionaries to reevaluate their stand on the issue of accepting the education subsidies (the medical subsidies had already been accepted years earlier). They voted again and found that there was now support for accepting the education subsidies. In NA we went through similar changes, so this was part of a broader pattern of change within society and in the church, both in NA and on the mission field.

Fast (2018) also makes the statement that “missionaries working in colonial contexts could subtly participate in the logic of colonization” and “missionaries enacted their whiteness in interaction with the etiquette of the colonial regime.” I’m not sure how the missionaries could avoid this situation. I point out that AMBM missionaries did what they could to resist this tendency—I believe they were aware of this problem. One of the first things AMBM mission did when they took responsibility for the mission at Kafumba was to discontinue the agricultural production of palm nuts, coffee beans, and other agricultural products. I believe the primary reason for this action was to avoid continuing the appearance of being a “for-profit agricultural plantation” as practiced by other white colonists in the Congo (I know there is also criticism of this decision among the Congolese for other reasons [Givule, 2008]). Another example of trying to avoid the plantation problem was the way the AMBM home office leadership tended to micro-manage the Congo missions—particularly during the leadership of J. B. Toews (Hiebert, 1997). I believe this was done largely to avoid allowing the missionaries the opportunity to set themselves up as autocratic plantation owners, as practiced by other colonial whites of that era. I am sure that Toews saw missionaries acting like plantation owners during his visits to the AMBM mission in India (Penner, 1997). AMBM also rotated the assignments of their missionaries so that after each furlough, missionaries were assigned to a different mission station. This was a practice that caused a lot of grief among the missionaries (and occupies much space in the archives). This was also a major concern for the Congolese who wanted to maintain relationships which had developed. I believe this policy was also intended to suppress the development of autocratic missionary leadership, as had developed in India. I believe the mission and missionaries tried to avoid the most egregious examples of “participation in the logic of colonization” (Fast, 2018).

I am disappointed that the accusations of racial segregation against the AMBM missionaries are receiving so much attention, since I have seen so little evidence of what I would consider “blatant racism” (Givule, 2008; Fast, 2018). I would agree that there are cases of unintentional racism and I would offer my apologies for these—if my apologies have any value. Probably more importantly, I am also sure that the missionaries made some (maybe many?) flat-out errors and mistakes. I would offer my apologies for these as well. However, I want to emphasize again, blaming the AMBM missionaries for current problems in the church (Givule, 2008) does not solve these problems. Blaming these problems on racism by the missionaries is only an exercise in distraction. The Congolese are a proud people, they do not need—nor do they want—the missionaries to come back to solve their problems. They need to take ownership of their problems so they can work on solving them. They have the resources to solve their problems without falling back on the excuse that “the missionaries were racist.” The racism accusations of Fast (2018) tend to support this “blame the missionary for our problems” syndrome and it detracts from true problem-solving efforts.

I wish there would have been a better way to handle the education of missionary children. The AMBM missionaries were caught between a rock and a hard place. They were dammed if they built a school for their children (Givule, 2008; Fast, 2018), but they were also damned if they didn’t do a good job of educating their children. If they failed to educate their children, they would have been accused of neglecting their children and their friends and families in NA would have been merciless in their accusations of child neglect. Looking back on the situation, it appears to me that the missionaries made the best choice—for their children. What more can we expect? I also understand that for some people accusations of racism do not need to have an evidence base. For such people no evidence to the contrary or lack of evidence will ever be convincing. However, for historians, I would hope that the lack of evidence would carry more weight. I would hope that historical scholarship on AMBM missionary activity in the Congo will not stop after finding some unintentional racial implications—of course these will be there. There may be some more interesting information behind those implications.

I would ask my Congolese friends to understand that many of the AMBM missionaries would have had to return to NA when their children reached school age if it had not been for the missionary children’s school. As it was, some missionaries had to leave the Congo for medical reasons. Others would have had to leave to save their children from educational failure and/or social development problems. The school allowed the missionary parents to stay and minister in the Congolese church for many years beyond the time when they would otherwise have had to leave. The school also allowed the missionaries to fulfil their responsibilities to their children. I believe Congolese parents can appreciate the choice that the missionary parents had to make when they understand that the missionary children were expected to go back to NA to live. I can also appreciate that some Congolese might feel some jealousy and wish that they would have had similar options for their children. However, I do not believe that Congolese parents would have expected the missionaries to give up the options that they had for training their children.