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missionary activities. On 31 March 1889, missionary Sack made this entry in
his diary about some reversions:
The Lord had already bestowed upon [me] four people,
who to be baptised and who seemed eager to learn. But [I]
was disappointed in this hope, as [I] later met one of them
in the midst of heathen drinking bout, and two others could
not bear the ridicule and persecution from their own people
and again became weak. But in place of these, others
came, from the kraal of Chief Sankobela, where hope of
success seemed warranted 295 .
The little signs of missionary successes in the Makgabeng area were also
summed up by missionary Martin Jackel who succeeded Robert Franz. He
wrote this in 1921:
The Gananoa [sic] congregation remained small despite
more than 50 years’ patient work by the missionary. The
peculiar character of the Bagananoa [sic],
quarrelsomeness and laziness, and the people’s defects,
immorality and drunkenness have poisoned the innermost
marrow of the tribe and the consequences of immorality –
295 Rev. Sack, Berliner Missionberichte, p. 5.
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