Johannes Rebmann

Johannes Rebmann was born on January 16, 1820, in Gerlingen, near Stuttgart, in Württemberg. His father was a farmer and a vine dresser, and the family was poor. As a young man, he trained as a gardener and worked in the fields. He was of a gentle and pious disposition. He was drawn to the missionary movement and, in 1841, he entered the mission school in Basel, which had trained many missionaries. He studied there for several years and was a diligent student. He was accepted by the Church Missionary Society and sent to Africa.

He was ordained in 1846 and sailed for East Africa. He arrived at Mombasa in June of that year to join Johann Ludwig Krapf, who had begun a mission at Rabai. Rebmann took up the work with enthusiasm. He lived in a simple house and spent his time learning the language and teaching. He was a man of a modest and retiring character. He was poor at making friends and was often alone, but he was a hard worker and a devout one.

He is best known for his journeys to the interior. In April 1848, he set out from Rabai with a small party to explore the country to the west, in the hope of finding an opening for the gospel. He traveled to the Chagga country, near Mount Kilimanjaro. On May 11, 1848, he saw the snow-capped peak of the mountain in the distance. He wrote in his journal that he saw something white and that his guide told him it was cold. He realized that it was snow. He was the first European to report the sight. The news was received in Europe with disbelief. The geographers could not believe that there was snow so close to the equator. It was many years before it was established that he was right.

He made several more journeys into the interior, in 1848 and 1849. He met the Chagga chief, Mamkinga, and visited the country around the mountain. He gathered information on the peoples and the languages of the region. He wrote careful reports of his travels, which gave Europeans their first accurate knowledge of the interior of East Africa. He also took part in an expedition to find a great inland sea, which the Africans told him of. He did not find it, but his reports helped to prompt the later expeditions of Burton and Speke, who found Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria.

His chief work was at Rabai, where he spent more than twenty years. He built a small church and a school, and he baptized a few converts. The work was slow, and the results were small. He was often discouraged. Most of the people were not interested in Christianity, and some opposed it. He was also affected by the ill health that came from the climate. In 1855, after the death of several of his colleagues, he was left alone for a number of years. He also began to lose his eyesight.

He compiled a dictionary of Swahili and a book on the Nika language. He translated parts of the Bible. His work as a linguist was valuable, and he made an important contribution to the study of the languages of East Africa. In 1875, he returned to Germany, by then blind. He spent the last year of his life at Korntal, where he died on October 4, 1876, at the age of fifty-six.

He was a man who gave twenty-nine years to the mission and who saw little fruit. His life shows that faithfulness is not measured by results and that a quiet man with a few small gifts may open a continent to the eyes of the world.