The Bible in the world. v.10 1914
Report of a Tour by Archdeacon Dennis
WE started from Onitsha on Oct. 8th, and travelled via Owerri to Bende, the headquarters of the Ibo Mission which the Primitive Methodist Missionary Society has recently commenced.
At Bende we were warmly welcomed by the superintending missionaries, the Rev. F. W. and Mrs. Dodds, with whom we stayed four days.
Thence we proceeded to Bonny, via Olodi, Okpala (on the Imo river), and Okrika. We spent a busy and useful week at Bonny, Archdeacon Crowther having carefully prepared the Christians for our coming, and arranged for sermons, meetings, and test examinations in the reading of the Union Ibo New Testament.
He helped us much during our stay at Bonny, and accompanied us to Opobo, where we were the hospitably treated guests of the Rev. J. A. Pratt for
four nights, and carried out with his hearty co-operation a programme similar in character to that drawn up by the Archdeacon for our visit to Bonny.
From Opobo we returned by way of Bonny to Okrika, and there made a week's stay, during which the Rev. J. M. and Mrs. Cole kindly entertained us.
The language of Okrika is not Ibo, but a dialect of Ijo. However, the majority of the people are of Ibo extraction, and nearly all speak the Ibo language as well as the Ijo. Sermons and addresses, whether delivered in Ibo or English, are always interpreted into Okrika Ijo, but the Union Ibo Bible is read in public worship and taught in the schools, just as at Bonny and Opobo ; while the Prayer Book and Hymn Book in Bonny Ibo are used.
The congregations to which I preached at Okrika were even larger than those at Bonny and Opobo, numbering more than 1,000 souls.
On leaving Okrika we journeyed overland through Asa and Akwete to Azumini, which is on the borders of the Kwa (Ibibio) country.
Here we spent a thoroughly enjoyable, but all too short, five days with the large numbers of Bonny and Opobo Christians, who have established trading center's and built for themselves places of worship at Azumini and other places on the banks of the Aba river.
They do a great trade in palm oil and palm kernels.
