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Editor’s Note: This continues a series of articles on Congregational Missions (Click to see more articles on this theme!)

(c) 2008 Phil Corr, Ph.D.

On a March day in 2000 I gripped a lever, set my legs, and pulled back. I had just “printed” a page of Hawaiian alphabet material. I was visiting the mission printing museum at Lahainaluna (up the hill from Lahaina) on Maui in the state of Hawaii.

The material that follows in this article is drawn from the “Printing and Bibles” section of the “Bible Translation” chapter in my dissertation. After providing the introductory paragraph, I will focus on the printing efforts of the Congregational missionaries in Hawaii.

In some respects the process of printing the Bible was as complicated as translating it. Every aspect–taken separately or together–reflected complexities of relationship and technology: establishing printing establishments on the field, finding and sending qualified printers, purchasing and transporting presses, establishing readable type, securing quality paper, training indigenous workers, running the presses and distributing the Scriptures. No single study has examined the prodigious efforts, on a world scale, made by missionaries to establish printing presses.

During its first twenty years, the Hawaiian mission employed at least five printers, with Elisha Loomis being the first and most important. Loomis brought with him a second-hand Ramage press, which was used in Honolulu for six years and later at Lahaina. For health reasons, Loomis had to return to the United States where he printed Hawaiian books, including Scripture portions, for the American Bible Society. After Loomis’s departure, the operation at first lagged, but then more work was performed on the press in six months than in the previous two years.. On occasion, Hiram Bingham (missionary leader and Bible translator) supervised the printing in Honolulu.

Loomis and those after him printed so much material, including Scripture portions, that in less than three years after commencing printing a new font of type was needed. In addition to a new font, a call went out for enough paper to print 20,000 copies of the Gospels.

Loomis and other missionaries in and from Hawaii repeated their urgent pleas for better quality and quantities of paper. In 1830, a general letter estimated that 600 reams of paper and 500 pounds of type would not be enough to produce the demanded New Testaments and, within years, the entire Bible. At times, Hawaiian royalty provided paper to the missionaries.

The material printed by the Board did not sit neglected on shelves. Many times, especially in Hawaii, printing lagged behind demand. Missionaries viewed translation of the Bible as only the first stage in the work of Bible distribution. They distributed Scripture portions, New Testaments and Bible; some they sold, others they gave away. Working closely with Bible Societies, the missionaries and their assistants distributed parts or all of the Bible.

Missionaries and administrators viewed printing establishments as evangelistic in nature. In Hawaii and elsewhere the translation, printing and distribution of the Bible aided the preaching of the Gospel.

Writing about Hawaii, missionaries observed: “In a country that so recently was wholly destitute of books and translations of scripture, it is perhaps, not easy to conceive how greatly our printing-press may be made to facilitate the work of preaching in a foreign tongue, besides its direct aid to the recent missionary in acquiring the language.”

Can you imagine how thrilling it would have been to be a Congregational missionary printer? To wake up every morning and know you had the glorious task of printing the written Word of God for people in their mother tongue, as well as to expedite the learning of that language by those who had come to serve?

In our day, translating and printing tie in so much in with computers. So many skills are needed and so many people are needed to bring their abilities to bear on this vital task. Are you praying that the Lord of the Harvest would send forth laborers to assist in this endeavor? Are you open to the possibility of your going in order for God to use your gifts in this area?