ADVENTIST WOMEN OF THE PAST

Every year, March in the United States and some other countries is Women’s History Month. Living in Europe, we have no obligation to follow this tradition, but it inspired us in the EUD Women’s Ministries Department to find out more about European women who have made an impact in the past. After all, March 8 is International Women’s Day, so it is fitting to think of women and their contribution to the world. That is why we will be presenting short sketches of Adventist women who lived and worked to spread the Gospel. They said, “I will go” when they felt called by God to fulfill their part of the mission to reach the world.
To read the complete article, go to the Adventist online encyclopedia:
encyclopedia.adventist.org/article
Haseneder, Maria (1901–1995)
Shortened version of the original article by Chigemezi Nnadozie Wogu
Haseneder was born on October 2, 1901, in Zürich, Switzerland. Not much is known of her family background and childhood. In 1925 she enrolled as a student at the Waldfriede Adventist Nursing Training School in Berlin.
Dessie, Ethiopia
In 1928 she was called to go to Ethiopia. She first settled at the mission located at a city outside Addis Ababa, near the Kabana River. Because of the rainy season, she stayed in Addis Abba until the rainy season ended before proceeding to the Dessie mission station, where she then worked. While she waited, Haseneder assumed responsibility of the girls boarding school. She started teaching in the day school, and at the same time, she studied Amharic.
When she eventually got the opportunity to move to Dessie, Haseneder made the long trip on mules and caravans with a missionary family, Dr. and Mrs. George C. Bergman.
As a team, Dr. and Mrs. Bergman together with Haseneder set to work. The first operation was conducted in the storeroom of Mrs. Bergman on a man suffering from elephantiasis. The success of this operation apparently opened up the local people to come and seek medical help. Six months later a small hospital was inaugurated. This hospital offered “the only medical help to inhabitants in a radius of about 150 miles.”
After a few patients came for treatment, tragedy struck. A severely ill man was admitted for treatment. However, he died. His death drove the patients away.
In the meantime, Haseneder went to teach at the boys school in Addis Alem. While there, she would go to the markets to talk especially with the women and tell them stories of Jesus Christ with the help of Picture Rolls. As a result, many learned to read and write. Around 1932, after she left Dessie, she was made director of the girls school in Addis Ababa.
Back to Europe
In the fourth year of her missionary work in Ethiopia, Hasender fell ill and returned to Switzerland. Though sick in Europe, she categorically wanted to go back to Africa since she cared about the unfinished work in Ethiopia. She claimed, “I was in Europe, but my heart remained in Africa.” With this type of mindset, she went ahead to prepare herself for further studies. She took a course in tropical medicine in Antwerp, Belgium. From 1933 to 1937 she worked at the Lake Geneva Sanitarium, Gland, Switzerland. While there she was engaged to a German who became an Adventist. The man, however, died.
Belgian Congo and South Africa
After Haseneder recovered, she returned to the mission field in the spring of 1937. This time Ruanda-Urundi (Belgian Congo) was her destination; she served as a nurse in the Rwankeri mission station, joining fellow missionaries Mr. and Mrs. Henri Monnier to run a clinic. When a girls school was later opened that year in Gitwe, Haseneder was asked to run it. Later she was transferred to Songa mission station. It was during this missionary stay that she adopted a baby boy whose mother had died.
Sometime later in 1942 Haseneder moved to Nokuphila Hospital in Johannesburg as a surgical nurse and part-time instructor of nurses. She was there until July 1946, when she returned to Switzerland to take care of her aged mother.
Belgian Congo: 1957–1961
From 1948 to 1957 Haseneder served in the German Swiss Conference as assistant medical secretary and director of the welfare work. In 1957, after Haseneder, at the age of about 56, had indicated interest to return to Africa as a missionary, she was called to travel as a missionary to Ngoma Mission Hospital in the north of Ruanda-Urundi. After a brief period at Ngoma Mission Hospital, she went to work at Songa Mission Hospital and later in a leper colony in Songa. In 1960, as a result of the civil unrest in Congo, the Adventist missionaries were evacuated from Congo through Salisbury to Rhodesia (Zambia), where Haseneder also took care of lepers. In 1961 Haseneder requested to go home on permanent return. This time it was for retirement.
Later Life
Haseneder did not return to Switzerland immediately. She decided to take the opportunity to fulfill her lifelong dream of traveling by ship to India from Durban, South Africa. She spent a year (1962–1963) in India working as a nurse in a leper colony before returning to Switzerland. Her last years were spent in the Oerlimatt Seniors Home in Krattigen. She died on June 16, 1995, at the age of 94.