Rudolf Lechler

Rudolf Christian Friedrich Lechler
Missionary to China
Born	(1824-07-26)26 July 1824 Hundersingen, Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Germany
Died	29 March 1908(1908-03-29) (aged 83) Germany
Education	Home Education
Title	Evangelist, Mission Administrator
Spouse(s)	Auguste Nordstadt
Parent(s)	Gottlob Lechler

Rudolf Christian Friedrich Lechler (Chinese: 黎力基) (26 July 1824 – 29 March 1908), was a German Protestant Christian missionary to China, and is one of early leaders of the Basel Mission evangelizing to the Hakka people. Lechler spent 52 years in China. The Basel Hakka Mission that he administered was responsible for establishing over 51 mission stations, 56 schools with over two thousand members. Lechler is known today for administering to the early Hakka Christian church and, together with his mission coworkers, facilitated in the resettling of Hakka Christian communities fleeing from persecution to Southeast Asian countries of which new congregations such as the Basel Christian Church of Malaysia and the Lutheran Church in Malaysia and Singapore were subsequently formed. Lechler appreciated China's cultural heritage and was able to preach in several varieties of Chinese, including Mandarin, Hokkien, and Hakka, the last of which he knew well enough to help prepare a Romanized Hakka edition of the Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Luke. Today the Hakka Christian community is estimated to have 150,000 members worldwide.

Lechler was born on 26 July 1824 to pastor and Pietist Gottlob Lechler. He initially joined the merchant industry as an apprentice. During this time, an illness in which he contracted resulted in his Christian faith being strengthened and in 1844 committed himself to becoming a missionary by entering a Mission school run by the Basel Mission. It was during this time that he became acquainted with Theodore Hamberg During this time, the missionary Karl Gützlaff began touring churches in Western Europe and calling for missionary work to begin on the inland areas of China where no Westerner had ventured before. The Rhenish Missionary Society and the Basel Mission heeded the call and arranged for Theodor and Lechler to set sail for China, arriving on March 19, 1847.