Zambia

Rusangu Station. On July 1, 1905, a group of workers, including W. H. Anderson and his family, Jacob Detcha, Philip Malomo, Jack Mahlatini Mpofu, and Andrew Nyakana, arrived to open the station, and by September opened a school. The station was called the Pemba Mission Station, or the Barotse Mission, but in 1912 or 1913 the name was changed to Rusangu. A good water supply and fertile soil made Rusangu a suitable place for agriculture and horticulture.

The early years were difficult. Attacks of malaria caused some of the workers to leave. Mrs. Anderson died of blackwater fever. The first converts were won through personal work among the people living along the railway from Rusangu Station south to Victoria Falls, and from among the students in the school.

From Rusangu the work spread to such an extent that in 1993 there were 45,000 members in the southern province, which is now known as South Zambia Field. There is also a large secondary school, opened in 1960.

Musofu Station. In 1917 S. M. Konigmacher left Rusangu to open work in the Chitina area not far from the town of Ndola. Until the erection of the first church building in 1918, he gathered the people under the trees and taught them how to sing and pray. In one room of the church building, which was used for a school, he taught both adults and children to read and write. The first African convert was Matthew Chiwanga, who had married a Musofu woman and had settled near the mission. He later became a mission worker. In recent years school buildings, dormitories, staff houses, and other structures have been built

. There is now a senior primary school at Musofu. Although the school needs much improvement in the physical plant, in 1993 it had 15 teachers and 500 students.

Chimpempe Station. This station is in the northeast section of Zambia, in the region of the Mweru and Bangweulu lakes, and its territory extends to the Tanzania border. Work at the station began in September 1921, with the arrival of H. J. Hurlow and two African workers, Lawson Endaenda and Isaac Galwele.

Other mission societies had already been established, and at first the local chief was opposed to Seventh-day Adventists, but through his services as a nurse Hurlow broke down prejudice. Through medical contacts and public meetings held in villages, converts were won (among whom was James Muyeba, who in 1962 was appointed vice president of the Northern Rhodesia Field). In 1923 a school was opened at the mission. In 1993 it was a junior secondary school.

The two sections, elementary and secondary, have a combined total of 450 pupils and nine teachers By 1926, a church had been organized with 27 members and there were three Sabbath schools and one day school in the district.
From 1926 to 1942 the area was organized as the Northeastern Rhodesia Mission Field, administered by the Zambesi Union Committee. In 1972 it became part of the North Zambia Field. On June 1, 1972, Zambia became a separate union of the Trans-Africa Division.

All Seventh-day Adventists in the North and Copperbelt fields are commonly referred to as “Ba-Chimpempe,” meaning “those of Chimpempe.” The field had 24 mission districts in 1993.
Mwami Station. Mwami Station was established on a farm acquired in 1925 near Fort
Jameson. Dr. E. G. Marcus, E. B. Jewell, S. Moyo, and S. Kanjanga helped to build the work in this area. See Mwami Adventist Hospital.

A secondary-level day school was in operation at the station in 1993. Along with the elementary school, it has 10 teachers and about 350 students.
Barotseland. Christianity came to Barotseland, the southwestern section of Zambia, about the middle of the nineteenth century.

The first SDA missionary was S. M. Konigmacher, who began work in the Katima-Sesheke area in 1921. In 1927 he traveled north to Lealui to ask the paramount chief for some land for a school in the Kalabo district. His request granted, he returned and opened a school late in 1928 at a place now called Liumba Hill.

He also carried on personal evangelism, and later opened a Sabbath school. In March
1929 a converted clerk from Kalabo became the first SDA teacher in Barotseland. The next month the first African evangelist began work. In 1930 an outschool was opened at Numa and another at Sitoti. In later years more outschools were opened, which in time became sites for Seventh-day Adventist churches. In 1944 W. P. Owen pioneered the work at the Sitoti Station, 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Liumba Hill Station.

In 1946 Barotseland was organized as a field. In 1958, because of improved communications, it was once more made part of the Northern Rhodesia Field. The work in the former Barotseland (West Zambia Field) is now administered from Mongu. The schools have a total enrollment of about 1,800 students.

Organization and Development. The Northern Rhodesia Field was set up in 1921 with
J. V. Wilson the first president, and with headquarters at Lusaka. During two periods two sections of Northern Rhodesia functioned as separate fields, the area surrounding the Chimpempe Mission (1926—1942) and Barotseland (1946—1958). In 1929 the European and Coloured constituency of Northern Rhodesia became part of the Rhodesia-Bechuanaland Conference. In 1945 the headquarters of the Northern Rhodesia Field were moved to Chisekesi, a small settlement on the railroad, six miles (9.6 kilometers) from Rusangu Mission.

There are two hospitals: Mwami Adventist Hospital (established 1928), and Yuka Hospital (established 1955). At Rusangu there is a coeducational boarding school (Rusangu Secondary School, reestablished 1960), offering up to and including the twelfth year of schooling. Rusangu was a government-recognized training center for lower primary teachers until 1955. In 1993 only three Seventh-day Adventist primary schools, and no secondary schools, except the Ministerial Training School, were operated by the denomination. The others came under government management. However, the new Third Republic government has negotiated to turn the schools back to the SDAs.