(1919) Sisters to America

Travels after the War

After the war ended in 1918 travel restrictions were relaxed Margaret and Edith took the first available ship, a Canadian ship, Empress of Russia, for North America. The ship was used as a troop transport during the war.

Hedvig and Johan Alfred were on the SS Stockholm.

Hellen Colldén

Now 20 years old Hellen Colldén worked in her sister's bakery in Göteborg and later started her own bookbinding business. A committed Christian she had been wondering what else she could do with her life. Her family had always been interested in the work of preaching the Word of God to the unsaved in foreign lands. During the high festivals1 (högtider) her mother asked a few missionaries or pastors home as guests although their place was small and therefore, with guests, it was crowded.

Hellen's older siblings were teachers in the Sunday School and were junior leaders. They also donated gifts and prayed for foreign missions. At the beginning the family had no idea that Hellen's twin brother, David, "harbored a missionary call" as she put it. Hellen became impressed with the importance of serving God in missions during church services and mission conferences. "It was mainly the missionaries' inspiring talks that I felt a calling to become a China missionary."

Both Hellen and her brother decided to go to seminary. Their mother had no financial means to pay for both of the twins to go on for more education.2 David did go on to high school. His job in Svenska Kullager Fabriken (SKF), a factory in Göteborg that made ball bearings 3 and the business wanted him to learn Russian so that he could work in Russia.

[Above 2 paragraphs or parts of them should probably go into year 1920, because David did not tell his family what was on his mind till then.]

Before her time in Bethel Seminary Hellen had a time of preparation by the evangelist Ida [sp? - first name unclear in document but probably Ida] Andersson [from the] west coast area. Hilda Hassel, a very knowledgeable evangelist, was the leader for their Christian meeting and activity.

Pastor Viktor Hugo 4 on behalf of Linnéakyrkan (Linnéa church) to Bethel Seminary [more text]. Besides the two year mission courses Hellen took extra classes at the same time in mission history from teacher Anders Olof Hammar, and English language from Pastor Hellström's daughter Mia. [Vikor Hugo (870 - 1926) was pastor of Linnéakyrkan from 1917-1922.

China

In China Kaomi's first medical clinic opened.

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Footnotes