McConnell’s Marvellous Moustache (notes on history)

If you receive our newsletter by snail mail, you’ll see the face of someone on the envelope – someone with a simply marvellous moustache. Yes, it’s McConnell’s Marvellous Moustache.

It was 1891. Canada was only 24 years old. A new student movement, with its roots in the Haystack Prayer Meeting, was just taking off, with 6200 new volunteers for missions in just that year. Dr. David Livingstone had died in Africa only 18 years earlier, and James Hudson Taylor (who actually influenced the founding of Camino Global) was expanding the China Inland Mission.

A new mission had been formed just the year before, with a goal to reach Central America with the Gospel – the Central America Mission (now known as Camino Global).

The man with the moustache was William McConnell. He was from – and of course, it starts with an M too – Minnesota!

William travelled ahead to Costa Rica, with his wife Minnie and three young boys arriving later. The McConnells were Camino Global’s very first missionaries.

You can actually read a report from William online. It’s from the very next year, when the McConnells were still exploring a new mission field. Check out: My Visit to Talamanca and the Indians