Page 178 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

A History of the Church in Africa

missionary, did a very commendable work in Calabar and in Iboland
from 1876 until her death in 1915. She was a common, working class
young woman who was profoundly affected by the evangelical revival
in Scotland. In her local church, she heard missionaries plead for more
workers for Africa. Her brother responded and volunteered to join the
Calabar Mission to Nigeria. However, his untimely death when Mary
was about twenty-five and the news that David Livingstone had died
persuaded her to become a missionary. Tucker provides some insight on
Slessor’s philosophy of missionary work:

Mary was convinced that pioneer work was best accomplished by
women, who, she believed, were less threatening to unreached
tribes than men.… For the next quarter of a century and more,
Mary would continue to pioneer missions in areas in which no
white man had been able to survive. (161)

Evidence indicates that she lived very simply, at times in a mud hut
without European conveniences, in order to share the message of Jesus
Christ. By the time she died, many changes were occurring on the
mission field around her. Most important, however, was the dramatic
increase in missionary work as Christianity advanced in Nigeria.

Other West and Central Africa Countries

In the early part of the nineteenth century, the Baptist Missionary Society
started a work among the former slaves of Jamaica. Earlier, some Jamaican
Christians had pleaded for a mission to Africa, their place of origin. In 1843,
the society responded and sent Jamaican missionaries to Fernando Po and
to the Cameroonian mainland. It was a small but significant beginning.

Shortly after the mid-nineteenth century, missions leaders targeted
another country in the region for evangelization. The American
Presbyterian Church sent missionaries to Gabon in 1861.

The Roman Catholic Church was successful in establishing missions
in many West African countries. One group called the “Holy Ghost
Fathers” was especially successful in planting Christian churches and
doing social work. The Portuguese favored the Catholic mission in places
like Angola and Mozambique; the French also leaned toward Catholicism.
Although the French faced the challenge of Islam in Senegal, they

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