He and Steudner reached Khartoum in 1862 and there joined the party organized by Alexandrine Tinné and her mother Henriette Tinne-van Capellen, who then had just returned from a White Nile journey to Gondokoro.
He returned to Africa in 1852 with five new missionaries, established a mission among the Bari tribe at Gondokoro, and in 1854 another among the Dinka or Jangeh people at Angweyn (Heiligenkreuz).
The first European to visit the community was the explorer Samuel Baker who traveled there in 1863 from Gondokoro on the White Nile, crossing the Kinyeti River en route.