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Anna Kempe retired i Munsala

Anna lived as a little girl in a small village that belonged to the church of Munsala in Nykarleby. She also returned here when she retired from her worklife as missionary in India, more than forty years later. Here is a metalsign where the swedish text tell about others from the village of Munsala who also worked and lived in foreign countries. Many left as emigrants for America, but not as many chose India. Only a handful of persons chose this route. About emigrants to United States of America and to Canada there are already many books written, to be found in local libraries.

The Anna Kempe book will soon have a local store. I am working on a website about this right now.

The website will be in both english and swedish.

From Nykarleby to Vörå

In Brännars village, when she was retired in Finland, Anna continued to walk. Once she wanted to go for a very long walk to Brännars village where her brother's son worked as a teacher. Martin Kempe had three children and was the schoolteacher in this village in Vörå.

Anna wanted to walk all the way, but somebody picked her up in his car som she did not have to walk the whole route she had planned.

She kept herself in good condition also in old age, it seems.

The cottage is by a lake, abandoned today but it is possible to go downhills to get a closer look at the lake and a beachmeadow in front of it.

About the Anna Kempe book in swedish

Anna Kempe learned to write and read swedish in this schoolhouse

Anna Kempe was one of the first girls who could go to school and learn to read and write. The school is called "Anders Svedberg's school" because Annas uncle Anders Svedberg had planned and participated in the building process of the schoolhouse. He worked first as teacher here, and became later a member of parliament. He is still today considered as a very important historical person in his home parish.

Anna had a long way to walk from her home in order to be able to study in this sschool. She walked also in wintertime. Maybe that is how she could later manage so well in the mountainous region of Himalaya where she later in her life worked. She had from youth a good condition and could sustain hardships. She continued in her retired years the same habit of walking for many hours.

A missionary station from 1905

Anna Kempe left for India in 1909 the first time. This house och missionary church has a text on the wall that says it was built four years earlier,  in 1905. It is still a very nice church in need of only small restauration. There are not so often gatherings there, but the area around it is very suitable for bicycle tours. It is not situatied in Anna's home parish Nykarleby, but in Vörå, she also visited here, when she was very young and had not yet become a teacher.

Inside is a photo collection of missionaries that has left for different destinations.

Many of them seem to have been more interested in music than Anna Kempe and show in the photos many fancy instruments, that they have gathered during their worksessions in different countries.

Mission, a magazine free of charge

There are several associations, churches and congregations that work with missionaries and projects abroad today. Read more about Baptists 

For example this one: Finska missionssällskapet who also supported Anna Kempe.

They have now a campaign about sport and active semester together with the Mission magazine.

For instance they suggest biking or walking and giving away the magazine to people around you, much like the way Anna Kempe worked in India with the christian magazines of her time.

Mission today

Tidningen Mission / a magazine / periodical about how to sponsor children. "Mission" can be ordered free of charge and you can read more about becoming a sponsor for a child. When Anna Kempe worked in India, there was of course no internet, so she wrote letters on paper. Sometimes the letters arrived in Finland weeks or months after she had sent them. But some of them as well as photos are today preserved in an archive in Helsinki. Today it is also easy to find internetpages about the region where she worked. But in her lifetime, people back home, here in Finland had no coloured photos to look at, her letters with descriptions of her life and people she met was surely interesting reading for them.

Several different organizations or associations for mission in other countries supported Anna Kempe.

Finska missionssällskapet was one of them.