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The HOMEGOING TO HEBRON

A fascinating article recently appeared in Saltscapes – Canada’s East Coast Magazine. If you will look through your back copies of Saltscapes, I’m sure you will find it! But really, I doubt if any Moravians do subscribe to this fine but very limited geographical magazine. The article has wonderful photos of the place and people who are ethnic Inuits who speak Inuktitut, the language of these people who live on this harsh coastline of about 250 miles that makes up Labrador. No other church or government agencies ever cared for these folks who lived in family groups, isolated from the world and fearful of the other families who lived in the adjoining areas. As a result of the successful Greenland Eskimo Mission in 1733, our second attempt to reach out to those for whom no one else cared, caused the Herrnhut Mission Board to reach out to their “cousins” in Labrador. It was not an easy move, as quite a few of the first missionaries gave up their lives to establish the Moravian presence.

The first mission in 1752 was stopped because of the murder of five workers seeking to meet the people. In 1764 and 65, Jens Haven made friendships but proved ineffective in establishing a permanent mission. In 1770 King George III gave a land grant in Labrador to the Moravian Church to start a permanent mission. In 1771 they founded the station at Nain. Then followed Okak in 1776, Hopedale in 1782, Hebron in 1830, Zoar in 1865, Ramah in 1871, Makkovik in 1896 and Killinek in 1904. But then the work was spread very thin with fewer people able to live in the most northern stations.

The work of the Unity Mission Board in Saxony and the workers from the Niesky Mission Training School provided money and personnel to run the infrastructure that made life in these northern stations possible. This was crippled by the outbreak of World War I, the devastation of the German economy after the war, the rise of Hitler and the closing of the Niesky Mission Training School in 1934. As the Church pulled back so did the government services.

So a gradual diminishing of the most northern stations began with Ramah being closed in 1907 and the people moving to the nearby stations. But other forces were at work.

The influenza epidemic in 1918 nearly wiped out all the northern stations with over half of the people in Okak dying, which closed, and in Hebron, with only 70 of the 125 people left.

As many as 200 missionaries served in Labrador in over 200 years. Now only one ordained missionary serves the Church full time, and he is on home assignment for three months.

The village of Hebron was closed in 1959 and the people moved mainly to Makkovik where they evolved into a ghetto group who never really fit in and longed for the good old days of the turn of the century. After trying for years to evoke a return, the government has tried to preserve the private and church buildings. The government secured funds to help about 140 former Hebron people return. The game and food are as good as ever, but it remains unclear if the other needs of all these folks will be met. Our church is unable to meet all their needs as before. Time will tell.