Biography
Ludwig Ingwer Nommensen was born on February 6, 1834, on the island of Nordstrand, off the coast of Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany. His father was a poor fisherman and a laborer who suffered from poverty. The family was devout and Lutheran. As a boy, Ludwig was injured in an accident and lay for months on a sickbed. During his illness, he made a vow that if he recovered, he would serve God as a missionary. He was healed, and he never forgot the promise. He worked as a laborer and a shepherd in his youth, and he had little schooling. He taught himself to read.
He entered the training school of the Rhenish Missionary Society at Barmen, in 1857. He was twenty-three years old and was one of the oldest students. He was a diligent learner, and he showed a remarkable aptitude for languages. In 1861, he was sent as a missionary to the island of Sumatra, in the Dutch East Indies, where the Rhenish Mission had begun work among the Batak people. He sailed in the same year and arrived in Padang. He was the only missionary in that region.
The Batak were a people of the highlands, who were known for their fierce reputation. They practiced cannibalism in some cases and were hostile to outsiders. Two American missionaries had been killed by them in 1834. The Dutch government was not eager to allow missionaries into the area. He went anyway. In 1864, he moved into the interior to a place called Silindung, a fertile valley around the town of Tarutung. He was told that it would be deadly. He settled among the Batak and began to learn their language and customs. He was alone for several years.
His first years there were marked by hardship. He lived in poverty and faced the suspicion of the people. In 1866, he was nearly killed, when a local chief sought to put him to death and eat him. He managed to calm the people and gained their respect. He took a gentle and patient approach. He lived among them as a neighbor, and he showed concern for their welfare. He dressed in the local manner, and he took part in their festivals and customs, as far as his faith allowed. He did not try to cast aside their culture wholesale but sought to work within it. He attended to their needs for medicine, for schooling and for justice.
The first baptisms took place in 1865. The numbers grew steadily, and by the 1870s, there were thousands of Batak converts. In 1873, he opened a school and a seminary to train native teachers and pastors. He translated the New Testament into the Batak language, which was published in 1878, and the whole Bible later. He also wrote a grammar and a dictionary. He worked to build up a self-supporting church, and he insisted that the Batak should lead their own churches. The church that he founded grew into the Batak Protestant Christian Church, now one of the largest Protestant churches in Southeast Asia, with millions of members.
He married Caroline Bonn in 1866, and they had several children. His wife was a woman of courage who shared his hardships. His family lost a child, and he suffered from fevers. In his last years, he was honored as the Apostle of the Batak. He was often called Ompu i, which means the venerable one. He was also criticized by some for his paternalism, since he held a firm control over the church and was slow to hand it over to the Batak leaders. He also did not oppose Dutch colonial rule.
He died on May 23, 1918, in Sigumpar, in Sumatra, at the age of eighty-four. He had been in Sumatra for fifty-seven years. His life shows how patient work among a feared people can bring a harvest. A poor boy from a fishing island had become a father to a nation.