First converts, Songomboyo, Congo, ca. 1900-1915

Black and white lantern slides showing a group of seven Christian converts in Songomboyo (Songo Mboyo), in what is now the Equateur province of Congo. The group poses outside a house thatched with leaves. Whilst one man wears trousers and a shirt and women wear smock or wrap dresses, one man seems to be wearing a traditional loincloth. Missionaries from the Congo Balolo Mission (including Edward Algernon and Lily Ruskin) first visited Songomboyo in 1905 with little success. However, they were to return in later years and baptismal services were held for Songomboyo converts in 1913. This slide comes from a collection generated by missionaries working for the Congo Balolo Mission, a mission begun in 1889 under the supervision of the East London Training Institute for Home and Foreign Missions that developed into the interdenominational evangelical mission Regions Beyond Missionary Union after 1900.