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Name: STAUFFACHER, John William

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Birth Date: 3.6.1878 Monroe, Wisconsin

Death Date: 12.11.1944 buried at Kijabe cem.

Nationality: American

First Date: 1903 August

Last Date: 1940

Profession: AIM Missionary. Later went to the Congo and returned in 1918

Area: Kijabe, Rumuruti, 1922 Naivasha, Narok

Married: At Kijabe 8.5.1906 Florence Priscilla Minch b. 20 Apr 1881 Hoopole, Henry, Illinois, d. 1959 (Swiss)

Children: John Raymond (Rumuruti 18.7.1908-2004); Claudon Henry (Rumuruti 10.12.1910)

Book Reference: SE, North, Tignor, EAHB 1905, KAD, Red 25, Red 31, Hut, Pioneers, Drumkey, Red 22, Web, Grasshoppers, EAHB 1906, Barnes, North, EAHB 1907, SKP, Anderson Church, Red Book 1912

General Information:

SE - J.W. Stauffacher - Dec 1907
Tignor - born and raised on a farm in southern Wisconsin. Came to Kenya in 1903 and was given responsibility for Masai evangelism. Joined by Florence Minch in 1905 and they were married there. ......... He was given to extremes in his moods, fluctuating from intense and joyous optimism to enervating moments of gloom. Moved his station to Rumuruti in 1905 (more pp. 139-42) ...... the Stauffachers went to the Congo in 1912.
Drumkey 1909 - African Inland Mission, 1906 - Mr & Mrs John W. Stauffacher at Rumuruti.
Web - Billy Graham Centre - Stauffacher initially laboured in Kijabe, Kenya Colony ….. But soon after began expeditions which started the mission's outreach to the nomadic Masai tribe. AIM's interest in the Masai had been limited only to planning, but the availability of a young Masai boy, who became the resource person for the Stauffachers, was the key to beginning evangelistic activity with the tribe. Together they moved into the newly established Laikipia Masai Reserve in Kenya to set up a mission station in Rumuruti. Following their furlough in 1909, Stauffacher was involved in expeditions into Uganda and Tanganyika, was included in the first AIM group that explored the Belgian Congo in 1912, and served at Api Hill, Mahagi, Belgian Congo, and at Butiaba, Uganda, until his furlough in 1914.
Returning to Africa in 1918 after World War I ended, the Stauffachers resumed their work with the Masai at Narok, Masai Reserve, Kenya, where they remained until 1940. While living with the Masai, Stauffacher compiled a dictionary of their language and completed a Masai translation of the Bible. He also worked among the Samburu tribe in Kenya.
In 1940 the Stauffachers retired from their ministry with the Masai, and opened the Guest Home for missionaries at Ruwenzori, Irumu, Belgian Congo. There they combined regular mission station duties with offering fellow missionaries a place for rest and retreat. Stauffacher suffered from health problems throughout his missionary career, and died while travelling to Nairobi in 1944 to get medical advice on an illness.
Florence P. Minch Stauffacher was born in 1881 in Hooppole, Illinois, and studied to become a teacher at Northwestern College in Naperville, Illinois. Following two years of teaching near her home town, she decided to become a missionary and in 1905 she joined Africa Inland Mission and departed for Africa. Enroute she was hospitalized in England for diptheria and did not complete her journey to Kenya until 1906. In 1906 she married John W. Stauffacher. In 1908, the Stauffacher's first son, Raymond was born. Claudon was born in 1910. Mrs Stauffacher's contribution to the work included not only teaching Bible lessons, but teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, and sewing. Following her husband's death in 1944, Mrs Stauffacher moved to the AIM station at Oicha, Irumu, Kenya, where she served until returning to Ruwenzori before her death in 1959.
Grasshoppers - When John Stauffacher arrived in the newly opened headquarters of AIM in Kijabe, BEA, he was assigned by the team …… to work among the warrior cattle people called Maasai. ….. The colonial government, wanting to settle European farmers onto the Maasai grazing lands, moved the tribesmen north to Rumuruti and John followed them. He longed for Florence, his fiancee, to join him, but she delayed. …….. On 7 May 1906 she addressed her diary; 'Good night Florence Minch for the last time.' John, full of malaria next day, could not walk to the church. Charles Hurlburt drove him to the mud and wattle church in an ox-cart and then carried him pick-a-back to a seat at the front. Florence's first duty as a wife was to nurse him at Kijabe for several weeks before they could move to Rumuruti.
Like Scott, John had cut short his college education in order to fulfil his call as soon as possible. But he read avidly, worked hard at the language and used his knowledge of Greek in translating the Maasai New Testament. ……  Under Hurlburt's tutelage John and Florence did more than any to realise the Coast to Chad vision. Hurlburt and John, assisted by a prominent young Maasai called Mulungit, thrust northwards into the thirsty plains of the Samburu and Rendille people. John investigated the tribes to the west around Lake Baringo. ….. John met Bishop Tucker again two years later at his home in Kampala, Uganda. He and another missionary, James Gribble, wanted to find a way to the millions of people in North East Congo. Tucker, aware of unrest between the tribes, advised against the venture. [the two men went on regardless].
At the beginning of the Great War the Stauffachers returned to the USA. "Although he found some satisfaction in building a small home in Wisconsin, he never again felt comfortable in the United States. After a year there, 'he was restless and often moody and dissatisfied and couldn't settle himself to anything.' His health forbad their return until 1918 when compassionate mission leaders, feeling that they should live closer to the Kijabe medical facilities and the missionary school, asked them to return to their first love, the Maasai. ….. The Stauffachers persevered through the disappointment of seeing the church dwindle to almost nothing in 1930. ……..
With new missionaries accepting the responsibility, John and Florence moved to a quieter life close to their sons in the Congo …… Eager as ever to serve, she ran a little rest home for missionaries at the foot of the beautiful 'Mountains of the Moon'.
Barnes - Kijabe Cemetery - John W Stauffacher June 3 1878 - Nov 12 1944
SKP - 1938 - Society of Kenya Pioneers - over 30 years in Colony - arrived Aug 1903 and Mrs Stauffacher arrived Jan 1906
Anderson Church - Stauffacher hated settlers like Lord Delamere whose racial ideas were based on those of South Africa and the Southern States of America, and was furious at the 1911 decision to move the Maasai from Laikipia, an agreed Maasai Reserve later handed over to white settlers. He told his friend, Taki ole Kindi, that Indians in the USA confined to reservations, were weak and neglected. He even sent Taki to the Maasai elders to suggest an armed rebellion. The elders were too wise to take that advice. 'It is better to be hit by a sheathed sword than a naked one,' they said, and moved out of Laikipia.
Red Book 1912 - J.W. Stauffacher - Naivasha
Red Book 1912 - Extension Director - Africa Inland Mission
EAHB 1905 - in Masailand

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