Kim Groop With the Gospel to Maasailand - Åbo Akademi

missionaries quite regularly wrote articles in the Leipzig Mission
periodical Evangelisch-Lutherisches Missionsblatt. They also wrote
annual reports and various minutes for their society, letters to friends and
colleagues, and diaries and memoirs. The periodicals and official reports,
as well as statistical records and a number of miscellaneous documents,
can be found at the Leipzig Mission archives in Leipzig, Germany.
It is more difficult to locate sources pertaining to the work after
1940, when the responsibility for the Arusha and Maasai work was taken
over by the Augustana Mission and other Lutheran bodies. These
comprise letters as well as various official- and unofficial reports and
minutes from meetings held both inside and outside Tanzania by
indigenous and overseas church bodies and mission committees. Some of
this material is available at the archives of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America located in Elk Grove Village in the USA. The work
has also been documented in various Tanzanian, American and German
periodicals and magazines, most of which are found either at the library
of the Makumira University College in Tanzania or in the archives of the
Leipzig Mission or Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Valuable items of information have also been contributed by the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria (Missionswerk der Evangelisch-
Luterischen Kirche in Bayern) through its archives in Neuendettelsau,
the Ilboru congregation and the office of the Diocese in Arusha Region,
the Regional Commissioner’s Office in Arusha and the Finnish
Evangelical Lutheran Mission in Helsinki. Lastly, a number of
individuals – most of them present or retired church- and mission
workers and historians – have willingly and professionally provided me
with information and guidance.
Obviously, it was not possible to find all the original documents. I
attempted to base my research on primary sources and, whenever
possible, I signified their use with a reference. Whenever it was not
possible to locate original documents, minutes and first hand sources, I
18