Martti Rautanen

Rautanen's family lived in the village of Tikanpesä in the parish of Novasolkka (Russian: Новоселки, romanized: Novoselki) in the Yamburgsky Uyezd of Saint Petersburg Governorate.

He spoke several languages included Finnish, English, German, Dutch, Russian, Latin and Greek; he later learned Otjiherero and Oshindonga.

The Finnish missionaries managed to start work primarily in the southeastern territory of the Ondonga tribe.

[2] Rautanen worked in Ovamboland over 50 years acting as the director of a missionary station established in Olukonda in 1880, translating the Bible, and very patiently educating the local populations.

Rautanen's 'testament' for the Ovamboland people was a selection of texts published posthumously with the title Travel Rod in 1934.

[4] Shortly prior to his death, Rautanen received an honorary doctorate in theology from the University of Helsinki.

She was the daughter of the German missionary Franz Heinrich Kleinschmidt; the couple had nine children, many of whom died at an early age due to malaria.