Switzerland has a complex identity, with its trilingual population and its traditional separation into Protestant and Catholic cantons. All three language areas have tended to orientate themselves to the main metropolitan cultural centers: Germany, France, and Italy. Mission history is no exception.
The Basel Mission (BM), largely though not exclusively Germanophone, was founded by the urban elite in Basel, who recruited young men from rural Pietist families, gave them special training and sent them abroad as missionaries. The Mission Suisse en Afrique du Sud (M…