By the 2nd January 1904 I shall have been out five years, and so my
furlough would then be due, but as I have not the slightest intention
of going to Britain--I am thankful to say I do not feel any necessity
for so doing--I propose to ask leave from the station for six months,
during which time I should, in a very easy way, try to keep up an
informal system of itinerating between Okoyong and Amasu. Already I
have seen a church and a dwelling-house built at Itu, and a school and
a couple of rooms at Amasu. I have visited several towns of Enyong in
the Creek, and have found good enough accommodation, as there are semi-
European houses available and open for a lodging. I shall find my own
canoe and crew, and shall stay at any given place any length of time
which the circumstances suggests so as not to tax my own strength, and
members of my own family shall help in the elementary teaching in the
schools. From our home here we should thus superintend the small school
at Idot, and start in a small way work at Eki, and reside mostly at Itu
as the base, working the Creek where the Enyon towns are on the way to
the farther base at Amasu, reside there or itinerate from there among
the Aro people in an easy way, and back again by Creek and Itu home.
What I have to ask of you is that in order to do this a lady be sent
out to be with Miss Wright. The latter is perfectly capable of
attending to the station; the school and dispensary work are already in
her hands, and with some one to help her I have not the slightest
hesitation in leaving her in charge. Both ladies could co-operate in
the travelling as choice or circumstances pointed, and as Miss Wright
has had a large share in the formation and equipment of the Itu and Aro
stations it would be very natural that she should take such a part in
developing them as might suggest itself to her. The three of us, I have
no doubt, could dovetail the details of the work so that no part should
suffer, nor should any special strain be put on our health. We should
like this to take shape by the end of the year, as the people will be
more get-at-able in their villages in such a visitation kind of way
than in the ordinary church methods during the dry season. All work in
towns is slack then, and village and visitation work have their proper
value.
In proposing this I know I am going in the very face of what seems to
be the only possible way of dividing our stations. My own desire is to
have a missionary with his wife and a native teacher take over Okoyong,
congregate the educated, and at least nominal Christian part of our
community, and build up a church in the ordinary way. He has more than
he can undertake to work upon in Okoyong alone, and he has endless
scope for extension up between the rivers toward Ugep and Edi-Iba.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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