First Adventist Missionaries to Bolivia and Peru
F
erdinand Stahl (1874-1950) and his wife, Ana (1870-1968), served as missionaries for 30 years among the indigenous people in Bolivia and Peru, founding many chapels, clinics, and schools.
They met at a restaurant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Ana was a waitress and Ferdinand was a store manager who ate there frequently. They married in 1894, began Bible studies in 1900, and were baptized in 1901. They both took a nursing course in preparation for a life of mission service.
On February 4, 1909, Ferdinand wrote a letter to Ellen White, expressing his and his wife’s willingness to give up everything to be ready to go where God called them. Ellen White’s response was that they should attend that year’s General Conference Session to offer their services to the brethren.
Ferdinand and Ana submitted their plans to the Lord and traveled to the meetings with their two children and seven trunks. While there, they accepted a call to South America. Then they departed directly for Bolivia at their own expense to assist the mission in La Paz on the shores of Lake Titicaca where they would minister to the Andean Indians. The next year Ferdinand became mission director.
The Stahls were versatile missionaries not only providing medical care and teaching people how to prevent disease, but also giving advice on the best agricultural and sanitation practices, obtaining government aid, mediating conflicts, and establishing a network of mission stations with their own schools and churches. Initially, the Stahls faced opposition, but as they continued to treat the sick, the people began to appreciate their ministry.
In September 1910, Ferdinand accompanied the Peru Mission president, Alvin Nathan Allen, to the home of an Aymaran Indian named Manuel Camacho. Camacho lived in Platería, a district in Puno, Peru, located on the opposite side of Bolivia on Lake Titicaca. Camacho had gathered many of his neighbors, and on that occasion, Pastor Allen baptized fifteen people, including Camacho.
As Stahl and Allen left the village, more than a hundred villagers, many with tear-stained faces, accompanied them for some three miles, requesting that the men return soon. This touched Ferdinand’s heart, and he asked the board of directors of the South American Union Mission to exempt him from his presidential position in Bolivia so he could live among his new friends. From 1911 to 1918, the Stahls ministered in the Puno highlands of Peru.
During the Stahl’s first Sabbath in Platería, an additional 29 believers were baptized, and a church was organized. Stahl was chosen as the elder and Camacho as a deacon.
At the end of his stay in Puno in 1918, Ferdinand attended a General Conference session in San Francisco, California, where he reported the baptism of 500 believers in one year, a membership of 2,075 people in the highlands, and the operation of 46 missionary schools of which 45 were directed by teachers trained in Platería. Unfortunately, even though Ferdinand was the first president of the Lake Titicaca Mission, the Stahls had to leave Puno for health reasons.
After the session, the Stahls worked in Lima, the capital of Peru. In 1922, they moved to Brow Forest in Central Peru, where they created the Metrado Mission Station among others. Then they moved to Iquitos near the Amazon River.
The work of the Stahls in the Peruvian jungle represented an effort in the areas of health, education, and above all, spiritual hope, which were shared through their lives and preaching. In 1939, the Stahls were persuaded to leave the mission field and retire in the United States.
“May the Spirit of God impel many young men and women to abandon their worldly ambitions and consecrate their lives to God, going to these needy fields, among people who have never heard the beautiful story of the cross. May the Lord move those who cannot go, to give generously the resources entrusted to them, so that the work of the gospel may progress”
—Ferdinand Stahl, In the Country of the Incas, 1919.