# First Protestant Missions (c. 1907)

URL: https://allhistories.com/rwanda/timeline/1907-first-protestant-missions
Location: Kirinda, Karongi, Rwanda
Themes: main-event

Protestant missionary societies had followed German colonial expansion in East Africa, and the German authorities welcomed German Protestant missions in Rwanda as a counterweight to the predominantly French-speaking Catholic White Fathers. From 1907 the Bethel Mission, a Lutheran society based at Bethel near Bielefeld, sent missionaries to Rwanda. They established stations in the west and centre of the country, including Kirinda, Rubengera near Lake Kivu and Zinga, and opened schools and dispensaries. Musinga's court, which hoped to play the missions off against one another, showed some interest in the Protestants, and the missionaries worked with the court on literacy. The Bethel missionaries were expelled after the Belgian conquest in 1916, and their stations were taken over by Belgian Protestants of the Société Belge de Missions Protestantes au Congo, while British Anglicans of the Church Missionary Society, active from the 1920s, founded the Anglican Church in Rwanda. The Presbyterian Church in Rwanda traces its roots to the Bethel missions. Protestants have remained a significant minority in Rwanda. Their early schools, though small, produced some of the first literate Rwandans outside the Catholic network. At this point in the timeline (1907), the Mwami of Rwanda was Yuhi V Musinga (December 1896 – 12 November 1931); the German Emperor and King of Prussia was Wilhelm II (March 1897 – 6 May 1916); the Governor of German East Africa was Albrecht von Rechenberg (15 April 1906 – 22 April 1912).

## Why it matters
The Bethel Mission planted Protestant Christianity in Rwanda, the roots of today's Presbyterian Church.

Ruler at the Time: [Yuhi V Musinga](https://allhistories.com/rwanda/rulers/yuhi-v-musinga)

German Emperor and King of Prussia: Wilhelm II
Governor of German East Africa: Albrecht von Rechenberg

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Bethel Mission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethel_Mission)
- [Wikipedia — Presbyterian Church in Rwanda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_Church_in_Rwanda)
- [Wikipedia — Religion in Rwanda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Rwanda)
- [Wikipedia — German East Africa (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruanda-Urundi)