Curtis Anderson and his wife Carol were living in Adana, Turkey in the ’90s when they heard about a building that once was a history school. This particular school had been involved with the American Board of Commissioners for foreign missions before it was turned into a school for women in the ‘60s. But the Andersons didn’t care about what the school had once been. They were only interested in the stacks of reports that had been found inside its walls.
American missionaries had sent in reports from their trips all around the world, datedated anywhere from 1850-1880, left behind to collect dust in the basement. The Andersons decided to take the reports with them on their travels, hoping that someday they would find someone interested in the information they held.
“This is from the 1800s…it’s probably meaningful to somebody,” Curtis said.”So we just carried that back on for the next almost 30 years.”
After retiring from his job in military construction in 2000, Anderson lived in Cambridge, Minnesota for 22 years, until moving to Arden Hills.. His wife, Carol, passed away in 2018. After moving to Arden Hills, he began taking classes at Bethlehem College of Seminary before deciding to enroll in a course at Bethel University.
It wasn’t Anderson’s first time as a student at Bethel. He had first attended in 1959, but at 84 years old, he came back as a junior. His student ID number is only four digits because when he first enrolled , Bethel had just started using a number system to identify students. Now he is back as a student in Amy Poppinga’s Modern Middle East class.
“I got sort of led into it just because it was just really interesting,” Anderson said.
Poppinga put him in contact with Bethel’s archivist, Rebekah Bain, and Converge – an organization previously known as the Baptist General Conference – who work along with the Bethel History Center to collect historic missionary materials. Anderson reached out regarding the materials he and his wife had found in Adana, asking if they were interested in them. They were.
Wednesday, Oct.16, Anderson met with Rebekah Bain, Bethel’s archivist, and Geoffrey Coombs, the leader of Converge’s Great Sea Initiative. The goal? To decide what to do about the volumes Anderson found of Missionary Harold. Missionary Herald is a serial publication from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. According to Global Ministries, the Missionary Harold was a way for missionaries in the 1800s to compile information about their travels and the countries they lived in. They collected information about the culture, economics and impact of the gospel on the places they were living. The historical value of the reports makes them a great addition to the History Center’s special collections. The special collections are rare publications that cannot be checked out but can be viewed through an appointment. Anderson, Bain and Coombs created a plan to put the reports in the library catalog so that they are accessible to students.
“Having the physical copies is really helpful because a lot of people prefer having physical copies as opposed to just the digital ones,” Bain said.
The reports are not a part of the archives yet, but Anderson is excited for them to be. He hopes that students and others will be able to learn from them. He and his wife kept the records with them under the assumption that they would be meaningful to somebody, and now they will get to be.
