Bethesda Mission

Bethesda was the first mission in the separate colony of Queensland, formed by Pastor Johann Gottfried Hausmann on the banks of the Albert River at Eagleby South of Brisbane in Queensland. It was named after the Bethesda pool in Jerusalem, a healing miracle. In 1866 this was the only mission in the young colony of Queensland.

In the 1860s the Logan-Albert area became a hive for German agriculturalists and small scale sugar plantations emerged in the area. Haussman was a veteran of the earlier Zion Hill mission (1838–1848) in Brisbane, consisting of lay and ordained staff trained by the Gossner Institute in Berlin. He attempted to minister to the seventeen families who had arrived from the Uckermark in Brandenburg and settled at Bethania, but unlike other German migrant communities in Queensland, this congregation was staunchly dogmatic in their Lutheran confession, and found their Gossner-trained priest 'too unconventional'.

Hausmann attempted to combine 'heathen mission' with colonising work and ministering to German immigrants. The mission registered itself as a sugar trading company under the name of J. G. Hausmann & Son. The property consisted of an allotment in the town of Brisbane, land on the Logan Albert River and some head of cattle. Hausmann's son John also trained at the Gossner institute, and returned in 1866 together with Theodor Langebecker, Friedrich Wilhelm Burghardt and lay missionary Wilhelm Guhr. All four were reported in the local news to be destined for the 'mission' at Bethania, but only Guhr remained at Bethania until 1870 as Hausmann's assistant, before taking up a teaching position in Toowoomba. Rev. Langebecker took up ministry in Toowoomba, Rev. Burghardt at German Station (formerly Zion Hill), and Rev. Haussmann Jr. in Mackay.

According to Hausmann's reports, the local indigenous people began to gather around the mission at Christmas 1866. Hausmann used this event to create a contract with the ‘chief’. In return for money and rations the indigenous people would be expected to do some work around the mission but also to be able to speak to them about the ‘well being of their souls’. Hausmann gathered them daily under a tree for hymns and readings from the New Testament.

The mission church was formally opened on Christmas Day 1867. It was 40 foot tall and 20 foot wide and built of kiln bricks. Hausmann reported that on Sundays the local indigenous people received clean clothes and attended the services (held in German). Indigenous people showed some curiosity about his activities and intentions, but Hausmann may have over-interpreted their interest. No baptisms were performed. Aboriginal visits to the mission were occasional and months could go by when nobody came.

In the spirit of Gossner and in the absence of public funding for missionary activity, the mission needed to be self-supporting and economically viable. Evangelisation, bible study, Christian teaching and paid labour were the important parts of life at Bethesda.

In 1868 a man named Kingkame (or Kingkema or Kingcame) brought his family to attend the mission services each day and acted as a mediator for Hausmann's outrigger initiative of the industrial mission at Nerang Creek (1869–79).

Community support for the mission was dwindling. Neither the Gossner mission nor the Lutheran communities or even the Queensland government had enough interest in his efforts to lend financial support. Hausmann’s son John left in the middle of 1869 to work among the Tweed River Aboriginal people. Indeed Hausmann had not involved the larger German community in the running of the mission. Only in 1869, responding to criticism, he put together a mission board which consisted of Burghardt and Langebecker and Pastor Gottlieb Hampe, as well as the founder of the Queensland Lutheran synod (ELSQ) Pastor Ernst Heiner as treasurer.

Sugar prices fell in 1875 and three dry years and rust attacking the crop led to the debts increasing and prices falling and in 1881 Hausmann withdrew from the mission. Hausmann’s son William tried to continue the sugar business but in 1884 the creditors sequestered the home and church and crushing machinery at Bethesda.

More information can be found on the website http://missionaries.griffith.edu.au/qld-mission/bethesda-mission-1866-1881

References

Regina Ganter and Lilia Vassilieff, "Bethesda Mission (1866-1881)", German missionaries in Queensland, Retrieved 23 October 2009.