Mzanzi Travel - Local Travel Inspiration (Issue 5)

Discover
Mission churches of the Northern
Cape
Christian mission stations became an integral part of South
Africa’s history over the last two centuries, and nowhere more
so than in the arid Northern Cape. Today a number of these
mission stations and their beautiful churches survive, where
the missionaries left their indelible footprints. Experience the
sanctuary and unusual sight of the imposing cathedral at Pella,
rising from a flat semi-desert plain, surrounded by a circle of
tall date palms, like a scene straight from the Bible. Visit more
mission stations at Leliefontein, Komaggas, Matjieskloof,
Concordia, Kuruman and Steinkopf, each with their own unique
history. And many more.
Travelling across the Northern Cape, a flat and mostly arid landscape,
interspersed by rocky outcrops, boulders and rugged mountains, stretches in
every direction as far as the eye can see. It is harsh country scorched by an
unforgiving sun and with little water. Today there are many oasis-like towns
connected by tarred roads, although mostly great distances apart.
This, without the towns and tarred roads but with many dangers that included
wild animals, lack of water, heat stroke, and law-breakers who fled into the
interior, and unknown indigenous people, is what awaited the first European
Christian missionaries who travelled here from the Cape of Good Hope in
the early 19th century to establish their mission stations. They were true
adventurers, courageous and hardy. Not only did they survive, but they built
homes, churches, schools and clinics that survive to this day. To the Nama and
other people who lived here, and who mostly warmly welcomed them into
their midst, they brought literacy, medicine and their Christian scriptures and
values.
But their role in the history and affairs of the region has come to be seen as
ambiguous by some historians. On the one hand they genuinely desired to
serve humanity and improve the quality of life of the indigenous people, but
on the other hand their moral self-righteousness often led them to make
uninformed judgements upon the mores, norms and values of these people.
Nonetheless, their legacy in the form of many beautiful churches are still
found across this wide open and beguiling land. Among them are the mission
stations and churches at places such as Leliefontein, Komaggas, Matjieskloof,
Concordia, Kuruman, Kuboes, Carnarvon and Steinkopf, and the imposing
cathedral at Pella. The latter is an extraordinary sight as it rises from a flat semidesert
plain, surrounded by a circle of tall date palms, like a scene straight from
the Bible.
The mission station at Pella was founded in 1814 by a missionary called
Christian Albrecht who had moved with his assistants and converts to Cammas
Fonteyn, having left Namibia where the Orlam Chief, Jager Afrikaner, had
been persecuting them. Over the years missionaries such as the Reverend
John Campbell, Heinrich Schmelen and Robert Moffat would visit here. The
missionaries of the London Missionary Society at Pella abandoned the place
Church at Kamieskroon, Namaqualand /
All images supplied by Northern Cape Tourism
Desert Cathedral at Pella