Missions

Course: History of Modern Missions

Section Three:  India, China and Africa

Lesson 8.

Lesson Title:   Foreign Missions to Africa

 

Introduction:  Struggle for Africa

·        European Imperialism

Western Empires - Colonialism

Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Italy.

 

Main Points:

1.      Development of Missions

·        David Livingstone (1813-1873).  Explorer and Missionary.

In 1841 went to Kuruman to missionary Robert Moffatt (1795-1883).

Married the daughter of Robert Moffatt - Mary Moffatt (1820-1862) in 1845.

Mary Moffatt died of malaria on April 27, 1862 in Shupange (lower Zambezi).

 

  • His most successful journey - followed Zambezi River to the coast.

Last journey – tried to find the source of the Nile.

 

  • Livingstone was brought to public attention by the journalist Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904) who set to find him in the heart of AfricaStanley met Livingstone with the famous statement ‘Dr. Livingstone I presume’.  Stanley's meeting with Livingstone took place at Lake Tanganyika (Nov. 10, 1871). 

Stanley was converted through Livingstones witness.

 

 

  • Livingstone died on May 1, 1873, in Chitambo, present day Zambia.  

His heart and intestines were cut out and buried where he died in Africa.  

The inscription says May 4, 1873. The natives miscalculated the date when Livingstone died.

His body was brought to England and buried in Westminster Abbey.

Livingstone’s grave is at Westminster Abbey – ‘to abolish the desolating slave trade of central Africa’.

 

THE INSCRIPTION ON LIVINGSTONE’S TOMB IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY SAYS:

‘BROUGHT BY FAITHFUL HANDS

OVER LAND AND SEA HERE RESTS DAVID LIVINGSTONE, MISSIONARY, TRAVELLER, PHILANTHROPIST,

BORN MARCH 19. 1813 AT BLANTYRE, LANARKSHIRE,

DIED MAY 1, 1873 AT CHITAMBO'S VILLAGE, ULALA. (sic – should read ‘Ilala’)

FOR 30 YEARS HIS LIFE WAS SPENT IN AN UNWEARIED EFFORT TO EVANGELIZE THE NATIVE RACES, TO EXPLORE THE UNDISCOVERED SECRETS, TO ABOLISH THE DESOLATING SLAVE TRADE OF CENTRAL AFRICA,  WHERE WITH HIS LAST WORDS HE WROTE,

"ALL I CAN ADD IN MY SOLITUDE, IS, MAY HEAVEN'S RICH BLESSING COME DOWN ON EVERY ONE, AMERICAN, ENGLISH, OR TURK, WHO WILL HELP TO HEAL THIS OPEN SORE OF THE WORLD"’

 

 

 

·        Livingstone and trade

Livingstone believed that African needed the spread of the gospel and the spread of trade routes.  He directly linked the advance of the missionary with the advance of trade.

 

 

 

 

2.      The Arab slave trade in East Africa

 

 

 

  • Slaves captured in Malawi and Mozambique, the Bahr El Ghazal region and in areas of Ethiopia

 

 

 

  • East African slave markets:  Zanzibar, Kilwa and Quelimane.

 

 

David Livingstone: Missionary Travels and Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambezi

´

‘Two of the women had been shot the day before for attempting to untie their thongs.  One woman had her infants brains knocked out because she could not carry her load and it; and a man was dispatched with an axe because he had broken down with fatigue those taken out of the country are but a very small section of the sufferers.  We never realised the atrocious nature of the traffic until we saw it at the fountain head.  'There truly Satan has his seat.'  Besides those actually captured thousands are killed and die of their wounds and famine, driven from their villages by the internecine war waged for slaves with their own clansmen and neighbours, slain by the lust of gain, which is stimulated, be it remembered always, by the slave purchases of Cuba and elsewhere.`

 

 

 

  • Slaves were taken by ship to Turkey, India, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Iraq, Iran and to the islands of Pemba, Reunion and Madagascar.  

 

 

 

3.      Rise of Independent nations in Africa from 1960’s.

·        The rise of Independent African nations – the church in Africa had to be indigenous.  Missionaries who had built well had produced local leaders and pastors.   Missionaries associated with colonial empires.

Teddy Hodgson and Elton Knauf killed in Congo Nov. 23, 1960 (C.E.M)

 

·        Elim missionaries massacred - Rhodesian East Highlands, June 23, 1978.

 

 

Summary:

1)     The explorations of David Livingstone made the church more aware of the need to develop missions in Africa.

2)     The pioneer work of C.T.Studd in the Congo led to the formation of the Worldwide Evangelistic Crusade.  Studd emphasised the soldier mentality.

3)     The rise of independent African nations in the 1960’s and 1970’s showed the essential need to train local leaders and pastors.