Through the work of the Cowley Fathers' mission, and particularly the night school run by German missionary Baroness Paula Dorothea von Blomberg, he became a Christian. He and five others were some of the first converts, baptized in St Philip's Mission, Sir Lowry Road, on 7 March 1886. Shortly thereafter, Bernard (then about 25 years old) started work at St Columba's Hostel, which was run by the missionaries for African men. Within a few months he was sent to Zonnebloem College to train as a catechist. In January 1891, Bernard accompanied the new missionary bishop of Mashonaland, George Wyndham Knight-Bruce, as a lay catechist and medical worker among the Shona people in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).