Also another noble traveller, John von Müller, brought a former Oromo slave from Egypt to Germany, Ganame (later called “Pauline Fathme”), who became a key figure for the first Protestant German Oromo mission. From 1855 to 1927 the biography of this pious young lady was reprinted several times, together with calls to open a mission in “Ormania” (as the Oromo regions were called by German missionaries). The first one to try was Johann Ludwig Krapf, who was convinced that the Oromo were similar to the ancient Germanic tribes. He hoped, that a Christian reform movement could start with them and later encompass whole Africa, similar to Germany, from where once Protestantism had started. Krapf started to translate the New Testament together with his assistant Berki during his stay in Ankober in Shoa (1840); much later in 1866, after the establishment of a mission in Ethiopia and the Sudan, he could retake this work: His colleagues sent a former Oromo slave, Rufo, to Württemberg, whom they had purchased at the border town Metemma. In fact both were successful in completing the New Testament’s translations, which were immediately sent to Ethiopia.

After the failure to open a mission in Beni Shangul and Gubbe in 1867, in 1871 the missionary Johannes Mayer got the permission by nigus Menilek to establish an Oromo mission in Shoa, Menilek wishing their christianisation. Helped by other missionaries, including the German-speaking Gebru Gobbaw Desta (the well-known diplomat and intellectual kentiba Gebru), they could stay in their missionary station “Balli” until 1886. Another German Oromo mission was established again in 1927 by the Hermannsburg Mission in Wollega, which was facilitated by the close relationship between the regent ras Teferi and the missionary family Flad.