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Lind, Magdalon Eugen (1910–1985) and Kezia (1909–2013)

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Lind, Magdalon Eugen (1910–1985) and Kezia (1909–2013) Magdalon and Kezia Lind Photo courtesy of Leif Lind. Lind, Magdalon Eugen (1910–1985) and Kezia (1909–2013) YONA BALYAGE, AND NATHANIEL MUMBERE WALEMBA Yona Balyage, Ph.D. in education (Central Luzon State University, Philippines), is a professor in Educational Administration and Management. He serves as director of Quality Assurance at the University of Eastern Africa, Baraton, Eldoret, Kenya. He has also served as department head and school dean at the same university. He is married to Eseza and they have three children. Nathaniel Mumbere Walemba, D.Min. (Andrews University, Berrien Spring, Michigan U.S.A.), retired in 2015 as executive secretary of the East-Central Africa Division (ECD) of Seventh-day Adventists. In retirement, he is assistant editor of this encyclopedia for ECD. A Ugandan by birth, Walemba has served the Seventh-day Adventist Church in many capacities having started as a teacher, a frontline pastor, and principal of Bugema Adventist College in Uganda. He has authored several magazine articles and a chapter, “The Experience of Salvation and Spiritualistic Manifestations,” in Kwabena Donkor, ed.The Church, Culture and Spirits (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2011), pp. 133-143. He is married to Ruth Kugonza and they have six children and fourteen grandchildren. Referred to as “God’s Angel to Mount Rwenzori,” Magdalon Eugen (M. E.) Lind, along with his wife Kezia, were pioneer missionaries of the Seventh-day Adventist Church to the Rwenzori1 Mountains2 in western Uganda. He was a pastor, director, president, fluent speaker of several African languages, fundraiser, and a generous donor. As missionaries, Magadalon and Kezia were beloved by the people of Uganda and other countries where he worked, including3 Kenya, United Kingdom, Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and Lebanon.4 Early Life M. E. Lind was born to Trygve Nikolai Lind Totland and Hilma Eugenie Hansen in Bergen, Vestland, on the west coast of Norway on June 24, 1910. He was the only child of his parents. His father, a ship engineer, lived from February 29, 1888, to October 1915, when he was killed at the age of 27 by a German sea mine that sank his ship during World War I. International law required the government of Germany to pay the young Lind an annual compensation from the time he was 12 until he reached the age of 30 in 1940. After the death of his father, Lind lived with his mother and stepfather, Johan Bundjord,5 on the second floor of Markesmuget 2a, in Bergen. Johan was a canvasser of religious books—a trade that influenced Lind to work as a canvasser to earn his school fees. He grew up in Bergen, the largest city on the western coast and the second largest in Norway. Its inhabitants were known for their patriotism to the city and a sense of humor. He and his mother were converted to Adventism in an evangelistic crusade in Bergen around 1922. School, Ministerial Training, and Marriage Lind attended primary and secondary schools in Bergen until he was converted to Adventism. After his conversion he attended Onsrud Mission School, an Adventist boarding school near the town of Jessheim in eastern Norway, between 1926 and 1930. It was here that he met his future wife, Kezia Sørbøe, who was born December 17, 1909, in Kragerø on the south coast of Norway.6 He and Kezia were baptized at Onsrud Mission School on April 1, 1927, by Pastor L. Sæbø-Larsen. Between 1930 and 1935, Lind studied theology at Newbold College in England. The two were engaged on July 30, 1932, and were married before the justice of the peace in Bergen, Hordaland, in Norway on June 1, 1935,7 a week before leaving Norway for their first mission service in Africa. Magdalon, a theologian, and Kezia, a registered nurse and physical therapist, had three children who were all born in Uganda: Gerd, born 1936 in Kampala; Elsa, born 1938 also in Kampala; and Leif, who was born in 1952 in Ishaka Mission Hospital, Ankole, Western Uganda. From 1947 to 1948 Lind pursued a master of arts degree in ministerial training at Emmanuel Missionary College Seminary in Takoma Park, Maryland, USA (which later became Andrews University Seminary in the state of Michigan). Ministry Lind started serving the Seventh-day Adventist Church at the age of 21 at Halden, Østfold, Norway. He did his ministerial internship in 1931 and 1932 under the guidance of Pastor J. A. Tillgren and Pastor T. S. Valen. He was fully employed by the church on February 1, 1932.8 His first pastoral position after internship was in Flekkefjord Adventist Church, which had a small, “notorious” membership.9 The place was so challenging that many pastors did not want to work there, so the next pastor who agreed to serve at the same congregation was his own son, Leif Lind, in 1977, after a period of 44 years.10 Magdalon and Kezia received their first missionary service call to Uganda from the Northern European Division with headquarters in Edgware, London, a week after they were married on June 1, 1935.11 Upon arrival in Uganda, they joined the Nchwanga Mission Station,12 which had been established by S. G. Maxwell in 192613 in Mubende district, midwestern Uganda. It was the first Adventist mission station in Uganda and S. G. Maxwell was its first superintendent. He was assisted by Pastor W. W. Armstrong. After S. G. Maxwell departed in 1929, Pastor G. W. Ellingworth14 became the superintendent and was assisted by Rye Andersen.15 In 1930 Pastor V. E. Toppenberg16 became the mission superintendent and was assisted by Rye Andersen and V. Rasmussen. In 1927, the seat of the mission was transferred to Kireka Hill, some 11 kilometers east of Kampala. Nchwanga was a primary school and a ministerial college for school teachers and pastors. In 1948 the school and college were transferred to Bugema. Nevertheless, to this day, the people of western Uganda refer to Seventh-day Adventists as abachwanga,17 meaning “the people of Nchwanga.” By the time Pastor Lind18 arrived at Nchwanga Mission Station in 1935,19 Uganda had temporarily become a union mission in 1933 under the leadership of Pastor V. E. Toppenberg, with headquarters at Kireka.20 The Uganda Union was again reorganized in the same year as the Upper Nile Union, with headquarters on Kireka Hill.21 The Upper Nile Union included two mission fields, namely, Central Uganda Mission under the leadership of Pastor F. H. Muderspach, 22 which covered the kingdoms of Buganda, Bunyoro, and Toro with headquarters at Kireka; and Eastern Uganda Mission under the leadership of Pastor E. R. Andersen,23 covering the districts of Busoga, Budama, Bugwere, Bugishu, and Teso, with headquarters in Mbale.24 Each of the two missions in Uganda had mission stations they supervised. Nchwanga Mission Station was under the Central Uganda Mission.25 Pastor Lind served at Nchwanga with seven African workers for a period of one year.26 In 1936 Pastor Lind was transferred from Nchwanga to the Eastern Uganda Mission, which had been established by Pastor E. R. Andersen in 193227 with headquarters in Mbale. There he served as superintendent28 of the mission as well as director29 of Kakoro Mission Station. At Kakoro, he served with his wife and two African workers, E. Kibuga and E. Rewe.30 Lind started a school and a dispensary at Kakoro. By 1940 Eastern Uganda Mission was run by a committee composed of Pastor M. E. Lind as mission director; Pastor V. E. Toppenberg as Upper Nile Union president; and I. Kadu. E. Kibuga served as field missionary and H. C. M. Guwedeko as an African licentiate.31 Kakoro was in a hot lowland, with frequent rainfall because of its closeness to Mount Elgon. In 1944 Lind and his family requested to leave Kakoro to pioneer the work in Toro Kingdom, which they had been told had a cool climate throughout the year, with fewer malaria-causing mosquitos. Pastor Lind and his family served in this place up to 1944.32 Their first two children were born while they were working at Kakoro. (Their births took place in Kampala because it had better facilities than Mbale.) The Lind family moved from Kakoro to Toro in 1944. They established two Rwenzori Mission Stations, the first at Kagorogoro on the Fort Portal-Kampala road, where they built a church and a dispensary in 194533 as they looked for a larger and more strategic piece of land on which to construct the headquarters for the new mission station. Lind made friendship with the king of Toro, Rukirabasaija Sir George David Matthew Kamurasi Rukidi III, who ruled from 1929 to 1965. He asked the king to allocate a hill in Fort Portal town to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as his father Rukirabasaija Daudi Kasagama Kyebambe III, who ruled between 1891 and 1928, had allocated Kabarole Hill to the Anglican Church and Virika to the Roman Catholic Church.34 Pastor Lind wanted to build the church headquarters, a hospital, and a primary and secondary school in the heart of Fort Portal town. The king appreciated the idea and took the proposal to his council—the rukurato. The king’s council refused the idea on the basis that Fort Portal town already had two Christian denominations, as well as Islam, with similar facilities. The king then allocated his own land at Kazingo in Bukuku subcounty of Burahya County to Pastor Lind. It was on this land that he began preaching the gospel in June 1946. The king told Pastor Lind that the Bakonzo people needed those facilities more than the urban dwellers in Fort Portal, since they were already taken care of by other religious denominations.
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