HISTORY OF THE BUSHMAN MISSION AT TSUMKWE

The Bushmen are the oldest inhabitants of Africa, and even today, some of them have a lifestyle similar to that of a thousand years ago. The Bushmen's traditional religion is an animistic one, where nature forms a central part of their religion. They fear the sun as a destroying force that consumes mankind, water, grass and animals, and they worship the moon. The Bushmen see God's revelation in nature, but interprets this in their own way. They do acknowledge that there is a God, but cannot come to the correct understanding of Jesus Christ without the Scriptures.

Tsumkwe is a small village with ca. 550 inhabitants in Bushmenland, Namibia, to the north-east of Grootfontein, close to Botswana. About 2400 Bushmen lives in 33 habitats in the vicinity of Tsumkwe (13200 km²).

Since 1961 missionary work has been done among the Bushmen. The first missionary, Ferdi Weich, had to learn the Bushman language, before he was able to give his first sermon in their own language four years later. Several missionaries have worked with the Bushmen at Tsumkwe until 1970, with the outbreak of the Angolan Bush War. The Conscripted Service chaplains then took over this work and continued until 1989, with Operation Hooper and withdrawal from Namibia ending the Angolan War.

The war was very detrimental to the Bushmen nation. They lost the ability to hunt traditionally, with the availability of guns. Money in this region encouraged prostitution and drunkenness.

Our congregation's involvement with Tsumkwe started in 1991 when the Free State Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church approved a post at Tsumkwe. Rev. Hendrik van Zyl and his wife, Elize are the current missionary couple, and the post is carried mainly by supportive congregations. This man and his wife were specially ordained by the Lord for working at Tsumkwe. He had planned to do missionary work after an erly retirement, but his involvement with Tsumkwe started in 1998. Today Tsumkwe is a multi-cultural congregation with Bushmen, Damara's, Kavango's and Hereros. Food from the veld, "veldkos", is very scarce due to recurrent drought, and as the game that the Bushmen traditionally hunted has been decimated by indiscriminate shooting, the Bushmen at Tsumkwe and vicinity suffer from famine. Few of the Bushmen have a job or income. It doesn't help to spread the Gospel to a hungry person, you first have to feed the body, the the soul. In order to provide in this need of the Bushmen at Tsumkwe, curios were traded for food. The income from curio sales must pay the food account at the shop. Our congregation helps with the sales of these authentic Bushmen curios, manufactured by the Bushmen themselves in the veld.

By buying one of these lovely and exotic Bushmen curios (see "Authentic Bushman Curios"), you help a hungry person with food. Anyone wanting to know more about the missionary work at Tsumkwe, or help finance it, of maybe wanting to buy some of the curios, can contact Jeanet Conradie, NG Congregation Heuwelkruin, Bloemfontein. Republic of South Africa (Tel. +27 - 51- 4366521, Fax: +27-51-4307805 or email: conradj@sci.uovs.ac.za)