Julius Stursberg
Engelbert Julius Stursberg (born March 27, 1857 in Dahlhausen an der Wupper , † October 4, 1909 in Java ) was a German Protestant theologian and from 1883 to 1909 head of the Neukirchen Mission .
Life
Born as the third son of the cloth maker Christian Julius Stursberg and his wife Christiane Stursberg, b. Spieker, Stursberg lost his parents at the age of 15. During the development of his parents' business, which he carried out himself with quickly acquired commercial knowledge, he consciously turned to the Christian faith. Stursberg obtained his Abitur in 1876. Then he enrolled as a student of theology and philology in Leipzig. Due to mental overwork, Stursberg suffered life-threateningly from bleeding from the lungs. After his recovery, which did not fully restore him, he studied in Strasbourg and Tübingen . He completed his last year of study in Bonn in 1880 , with the completion of his first theological exam in Koblenz .
Since Stursberg did not want to hold a pastor's office, the offer of a teaching position at a mission school in Neukirchen on the Lower Rhine came in handy , and he accepted this offer. Stursberg was just 23 years old when he started his service in Neukirchen in September 1880. He was reportedly an excellent teacher who could teach vividly and vividly.
In 1883, after the early death of Pastor Ludwig Doll , Julius Stursberg took over the overall management of the Neukirchen orphanage and mission institution as a mission inspector . He successfully transformed it into the Neukirchen Mission , directed it according to the principles of the Faith Mission Movement of Hudson Taylor and his China Inland Mission , and maintained its leadership until his death.
His talent for languages and his love for the oriental languages - he learned Aramaic and Arabic out of pure interest - made it possible for Stursberg to learn the local language, Swahili , on his missionary trips to East Africa . The following Neukirchen missionaries had a Swahili grammar written in German by Julius Stursberg in their luggage.
plant
Julius Stursberg used several donations, some of them earmarked, to found a higher Christian school in Neukirchen. On April 25, 1906, he opened the "Evangelical Higher School in Neukirchen" as a secondary school for boys without Latin. In this school, today's Julius-Stursberg-Gymnasium, both gifted orphans and other children should be able to be taught.
Fonts (selection)
- Father Emde, the watchmaker from Surabaja. A story from the beginning of the Java Mission, presented to its friends . 1889
- Commemorative sheets from the history of the orphanage and mission institution in Neukirchen . 1897
- J. Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission: German mission friends presented to strengthen their faith . 1897
- Ferdinand Würtz. Missionary and missionary pioneer in Pokomoland in British East Africa . 1910
Web links
- Festschrift for the 100th anniversary (PDF; 5.8 MB)
- Siegfried Schnabel: History of the Neukirchen Mission. An overview by decades (PDF; 176 kB) on the Neukirchen Mission homepage
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bernd Brandl : The Neukirchen Mission. Your story as the first German faith mission . Cologne, Rheinland-Verlag, 1998.
- ^ Homepage of the JSG Julius-Stursberg-Gymnasium
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Stursberg, Julius |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Stursberg, Engelbert Julius (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German Protestant theologian, missionary and head of the Neukirchen Mission |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 27, 1857 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dahlhausen |
| DATE OF DEATH | 4th October 1909 |
| Place of death | Java |