Eighty six years ago the life of a remarkable man, who devoted his life to the evangelization of the AaWambo people, in particular the AaNdonga, expired in the humble parsonage of Olukonda. Martti Rautanen or 'Nakambale' - 'the one with the basket' - as he was called by the locals because his scull-cap resembled a small basket, is today still fondly remembered throughout the country of the OshiWambo-speaking peoples in northern Namibia.
Martti Rautanen was born on 10 November 1845 in Ingermanland, Russia. After a difficult childhood he attended the Training School for Missionaries in Helsinki and was ordained as missionary in 1868. Shortly afterwards, the Finnish Mission Society sent out seven young missionaries, amongst them M. Rautanen, and three laymen to the AaWambo people in northern Namibia. Soon after their arrival at king Shikongo shaKalulu's court at Omandongo in eastern Ondonga in July 1870, Rautanen commenced to Ongandjera in west Ovamboland to establish a mission station, which he called Rehoboth. In 1872, he married eighteen-year-old Anna Friederike Kleinschmidt of Otjimbingwe.