Dr. Albert Schweitzer’s first arrival in Africa16th April 1913

50 years ago the Secretary of Dr. Schweitzer’s Hospital Fund, our Vreni, helped Schweitzer celebrate the 50th anniversary of the hospital.

This shows how some of us knew him then, in 1962/63.

But the story today starts with this monument in Colmar, which captured the young Schweitzer’s childish imagination and made him think of Africa.

The 21 year old Schweitzer decides to live the academic life until he’s 30, and then to endeavour to seek a way to serve without having to use words.

The house master and professor of theology with his students at Strasbourg University.But in line with the promise he made to himself aged 21, he now decides in addition,

to study medicine there, in order to go to Africa as a doctor.

Whilst studying the organ with Widor in Paris, and by now an authority on J. S. Bach, Schweitzer gives organ recitals to raise funds in order to finance a new hospital in Africa.

Now ready to go to Africa as a doctor, Schweitzer gives his last sermon to his congregation at St. Nicolai in Strasbourg on the 9th of March 1913.

The text is ( Philippians 4. 7. ): “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds

through Christ Jesus.”

On Good Friday 1913 Albert and his wife, Helene, leave Guensbach, and on the 16th April they arrive at their destination deep in the tropical jungle on the

banks of the river Ogowe.

White clothes reflect the heat of the sun. The task ahead of them is daunting.

Within hours of their arrival the first patients have to be seen in a disused chicken coup.Improvisation is the order of the day.

The couple’s first residence 100 years ago.

Their house has a good view over the river and the hospital buildings are down at the river’s edge close to the landing stage.

Construction work has to start immediately.

The Mission Station in 1913.Some months after the Schweitzers’ arrival the hospital is taking shape.

But Schweitzer never loses sight of the bigger, global, humanitarian picture.

Whilst deep in thought on one of his many boat trips to see patients up and down the river, the full significance of “reverence for life” for the future of humankind becomes clear to him.

Eventually his work becomes well known and he is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952.Here he is enrobed in preparation to receive an Honorary Degree at Cambridge University on the 22 October 1955, the same year in which he received the Order of Merit from the Queen.

Except when in the operating theatre, wherever he is, in and around the hospital, some animal or other is never far away.

First up in the morning and last to extinguish the paraffin lamp at night, we would often see him late at night, aged 88, trying to keep up with his global correspondence.