Church of Sweden: Mnene Mission

Church of Sweden

Mnene Mission

 

The Church of Sweden Mission (CSM) made its first foray into Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in 1903 with two pioneering families traveling up from South Africa – Rev. Axel and Mrs. Siri Liljestrand and Rev. and Mrs. Hellden.  Unfortunately, Mrs. Hellden died from malaria that November.  Mrs. Liljestrand also suffered from malaria and was forced to return to Sweden with their three children.  Reverends Liljestrand and Hellden returned to South Africa.

In June 1908, Rev. Axel Liljestrand, accompanied by Rev. Axel Hammar and Deacon Vilhelm Sköld, returned and established CSM’s first permanent mission station in Zimbabwe on the 6,000-acre Mnene farm located in Belingwe (Mberengwa) District. Mnene would go on to become the center of the Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe.

Liljestrand had previously purchased the farm from the Matabele Mining Company for £600.  Liljestrand died four months later of malaria at the age of 38 and is buried at Mnene Mission.  Rev. Hammar returned to Sweden in 1910, leaving Mr. Sköld as the sole CSM missionary until Rev J. Sandström, who had worked in Zululand and spoke Zulu, arrived with his family in 1913.  The following year Rev. Josef Othenius and his family joined the Mnene Mission.

A Central Primary School was started at Mnene.  Initially it was an all girls’ boarding school.   It became an all boys’ school 1940/41.  The first training school for teachers opened at Mnene in 1940 with 12 students.  Its first principal was Rev. Sundgren, assisted by Miss M. Dahl and later by Mr. G. Linell.  In 1952 the training school was moved to Musume Mission.  And in 1954 a Secondary School – the first in Mberengwa District – moved to Mnene from Musume Mission, finally ending up at Chegato Mission in 1957.

Mnene Mission is perhaps best known for its hospital. A clinic was started in 1915 with the arrival of the first qualified nurse, Sister Maria Köhlqvist. The mission received its first doctor in 1925, Dr. Nils Tilander, who supervised the construction of a building to serve as a hospital with rooms for examinations, surgeries, treatments and a laboratory.  Dr. O. Nordesjö took over from Dr. Tilander in 1935 and continued to develop Mnene Hospital as the center for medical care in Mberengwa District.  A school for training nurses was opened in 1941.

By 1950, Mnene Hospital had become the largest mission hospital in Zimbabwe, with 160 beds treating 4000 in-patients per year.  The Mnene Mission doctor, Mushori Zhou, was murdered May 1977 during the “liberation war”.  It is suspected that Selous Scouts posing as “freedom fighters” were responsible for his death.

Other early CSM missionaries at Mnene include Rev. Sigfrid Eriksson and family, Rev. Gustav and Mrs. Bernander, Rev. H von Sicard, and Mr. A. J. Bergman.

Currently under the control of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe (ELCZ), Mnene Mission consists of a Primary School, High School, Hospital, and Nurses Training School.  Mnene also continues to operate the mission farm, which concentrates mainly on cattle and dairy farming to raise income for the church.

References

Contributors
  • Mark Loomis