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Name: MATTER, Alfred
Birth Date: 19 May 1886 Göttingen
Death Date: 17 Sep 1967 Neanderthal, Germany
Nationality: German
Profession: Adventist missionary
Area: Kanyandoto, South Nyanza
Married: 1914 Elizabeth Nawrotzky, d. 1968, nurse
Children: Alfred A. (1916-1995); Gerhardt L.; Tabea E.
General Information:
https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=DJAN The first official missionary at Kanyadoto was Alfred Matter. He was born in Göttingen, Germany, in 1886 and attended the seminary at Friedensau, where he was baptized in 1912. He immediately left Germany and came to British East Africa as a missionary. After a brief stay at Gendia, he went to Kanyadoto. He built on the work of Sparks, who had brought a number of people to the faith. Sparks already had an evangelist working in the area named “Mariko Otieno.”
He worked at Kanyadoto until September 1914 when World War I started. He was forced to leave Kanyadoto and interned with the British to Kaimosi more than 100 miles away. For the next two years, there was no missionary at Kanyadoto. Alfred Matter and his wife resumed the work at Karungu after his internship.4 In 1917, he had a number of people ready for baptism.
Returning to Kanyadoto after the war, Alfred Matter began offering treatment to the people who came to him with medical problems. In 1917, Carscallen recognized his work and writing in the Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald, commended him for doing “…more medical work than the rest of us. In 1925 Matter left for the Belgian Congo to work with D. E. Delhove.
https://encyclopedia-adventist-org.webpkgcache.com/doc/-/s/encyclopedia.adventist.org/assets/pdf/article-CHRM.pdf Alfred Matter was born in the German town of Göttingen May 19, 1886, to a Swiss father and a German mother. He had five sisters. After his basic schooling, Alfred went to Switzerland where he worked for a while in a Neuenburg hotel. His fascination for cars led him to become an auto-mechanic early in his life, pursuing this profession in England. A little later, he was hired as a driver by a doctor who with his family was on the way to New Zealand. There Alfred served as a driver and mechanic for three years. Conversion - While Alfred was abroad, his mother in Germany heard about the Adventist message, and joined the church. This left Alfred, a convinced Catholic, much distressed. Consequently, he returned home, but did not succeed in persuading his mother to change her mind. Besides, Alfred also found that while two of his sisters remained Catholic, three other sisters were enthusiastic about their mother’s newfound faith. The Adventists in the family tried so hard to convince Alfred about their new belief, possibly contributing to Alfred’s leaving the home. Eventually, he moved back to London hoping to continue his former job at the car factory. However, God did not give up on Alfred. About that time an Adventist preacher named Homer Russell Salisbury held a series of Adventist lectures in London. Alfred’s mother sent his address to Pastor Salisbury asking him to do whatever he could for her son. Alfred saw this as harassment. Yet he thought he could use the opportunity to find and refute what Adventists believed. To help him in his cause, he approached a Roman Catholic priest of German origin. He pleaded with this priest to help him prove his mother and relatives wrong. He wanted the priest to help him develop counter arguments for each point the Adventists came up with. But the priest was not so pleased with the idea. The priest advised him to be a good Catholic and break all connection with the “heretics.” But Alfred wanted to use reason and logic to refute Salisbury and his Adventist teachings. However, after several meetings with Salisbury and with the priest, Alfred became convinced that Adventists were right in their faith and doctrine. In 1910, Alfred decided to go to study at Friedensau Seminary, Germany, to prepare for ministry. There he got baptized in 1912. Missionary to Kenya and Rwanda - While at Friedensau, Alfred met Elizabeth Nawrotzky, a nurse in Friedensau Sanatorium. Two years later, in 1914, they got married. Shortly after, before the outbreak of World War I, the Matters were sent as missionaries to Kenya, their first mission station being Kanyandoto, South Nyanza. During World War I, the Matters along with other missionaries were interned for two years. In 1921, Matter with Henry Monnier founded the Rwankeri mission station in Ruhengeri in northern Rwanda. The mission station was located close to the volcanic Mount Karisimbi and housed a flourishing mission with outdoor stations, schools, and hand-craft workshops, including weaving. In April 1923, after their furlough, Alfred and Elizabeth Matter with their son returned to Rwanda. In their company was Alfred’s sister Maria Matter from Luzern. That same year the brother-sister team opened a dispensary in Rwankeri, with Alfred’s wife Elizabeth serving as a midwife. In addition, Matter opened a mission school where over 100 young people enrolled. The Matters remained in Rwankeri until 1929 when they moved to Gitwe mission station. In 1931, after serving for a year in Gitwe, Matter and a colleague, Dr. J. H. Sturges founded a mission station and a hospital in Ngoma (today Mugonero), South of Kibuye on the shores of Lake Kivu. Three years later Matter built a large stone church that still reminds Adventists of his pioneering mission work in that region. These three stations–Rwankeri, Gitwe, and Ngoma-- developed further and became the Adventist missionary centers of Rwanda where Adventists stand as one of the largest Protestant churches today. Mission in Congo In 1943 Matter moved to the Belgian Congo (now Zaire) and founded the Rwese station in Lubero. He also worked as the architect/ “chief builder” of other mission stations at Songa Kamina and Nebassabei poko. Still, Matter made it a point to return to Ngoma, where he did most of his ministry. During Congo’s war of independence in 1960, Matter remained the only Adventist missionary in Nebasa, Congo. When threatened by rebels, “He invited them into his house; hosted and subdued them with his kindness.” In Bigobo near Kongolo, Matter worked among the Bambuti Pygmies of eastern Congo (Kinshasa). The only Adventist family in Bigobo, the Matters found life somewhat lonesome, and work among the pygmies formidable, as the pygmies were treated as outcasts by the rest of society. In fact, the colonial system classified the Congolese into three groups: the évolués (civilized), the indigènes (uncivilized), and the “non-classified.” The pygmies “were counted among this last group of disabled and useless persons for the economic purposes of the colony.” Nevertheless, Matter broke away from such unacceptable and unchristian prejudice in order to bring the Adventist message to the pygmies of Congo.Later Life and Legacy Matter wanted to spend his life in Rwanda (Muyange at Ngoma), but his failing health made him return to Europe in 1964. Nevertheless, he and Elizabeth left a missionary legacy that was carried on by their family. Their son Alfred A. Matter, Jr. (1916-1995) served as a missionary in Rwanda and the Belgian Congo (Zaire) from 1941 to 1966. From 1976 to 1978, Matter, Jr. also helped in the implementation of the “Kasai-project,” the largest single evangelistic program in Adventist mission history. Their other son, Gerhardt L., lived in Rwanda. Their daughter, Tabea E. Matter, spent 20 years as a missionary in Rwanda. Alfred Matter died September 17, 1967, at Neanderthal near Mettmann, Germany. Elizabeth Matter died in 1968.