T he weary hunter studied the un familiar bush. Hours of search had not revealed the dusty trail that would lead him back to his village. No small, life-giving stream of water relieved the miles of burnt African savanna. The proud hunter leaned wearily on his spear and admitted defeat: he was lost. Exhausted as he was, he was not yet desperate. He lifted a perforated animal horn that hung around his neck, and with tight ened lips he blew several long, clear notes. Then he waited. The shimmer ing heat was punctured with the whistle of a hawk, but there was no answering trumpet call. Again he blew. “ Lost, lost,” called the trumpet. Again he strained to hear the answer. Far away, yet distinct, came the answering notes of another trumpet. “We hear, we hear.” The hunter was safe. Three years ago, Bill Samarin held an African trumpet in his hand and exclaimed, “We’ll call our magazine the Evangelical Trumpet! It’s going to call to the lost, and it’s going to rally Christians together like the old- time battle-trumpets the people here talk about.” And so a name was chosen for the first monthly paper in the heart of Africa. It, too, was to raise its voice like other recent and successful mission-sponsored m a g a z in e s , to spread the Gospel and to edify Chris
tians. The African Challenge is meet ing the need for English-speaking West Africans, Envoi for French- speaking Africans of West and Cen tral Africa, and Neno la Imani for the Swahili-speaking people of East Africa. But there had been nothing for the 1,300,000 people of Central Africa where scores of dialects were spoken, but one trade language— Sango—is used. The country did not have even a newspaper, except a daily news-sheet published for propaganda purposes by the leading political party. The Republic of Central Africa (formerly the territory of Ubangi- Shari) lies in the heart of the former colony of French Equatorial Africa. Lying partly in the jungly Congo Basin and partly in the grassy savan na, it has been open to the Gospel for almost forty years. Although this is a short time in the history of missions in Africa, the Lord has blessed the activities of several mission boards (such as the Foreign Missionary Soci ety of the Brethren Church, Baptist Mid-Missions, Swedish Baptist Mis sion, and American Lutheran Mis sion) with a large and active church. Among the members of this new born church there is an amazingly high standard of literacy. (The Sam- arins contributed to the literacy pro grams by preparing a set of scienti-
fically arranged primers in the Sango language of which, since 1953, forty- five thousand have been sold.) Out of this need and challenge for evangelism through the printed word, was bom the idea for the Evangelical Trumpet. The first issue went to press in January of 1957. Its format was simple, its editor inexperienced, and its readers as primitive as any in the world. The Samarins had other duties; but spurred on by the pressing need and buoyed up by the proven success of Christian magazines in other parts of Africa, they gave themselves enthu siastically to the work. The first office of the Trumpet was a little mud-block, grass-roofed build ing. Bill wrote the copy, and cut the mimeographing stencils; Ruth did the art work; together they ran off, assem bled, and mailed the first twelve issues of 1000 copies. (In 1958 the mission’s offset press was installed and has since then been printing the Trumpet.) A pressure lamp and unscreened window guaranteed that Bill would have night visitors. A praying mantis was a common companion on the steadily moving typewriter carriage. From the beginning there were problems: How does one create an interest in something so completely new? Who would spread the news of this new thing to thousands of Afri can villages scattered over hundreds
MISSIONS FEATURE:
The Voice o f the Trumpet
/ b y W illiam Samarin
The author shows copies of The Evangelical Trumpet to some of the new converts.
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