Page 201 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

Evangelical Missions and African Initiatives

perhaps lies somewhere in between these two views. While his influence
on African missions was immense, he was “not the ‘super-saint’ so
many of his early biographers created” (Tucker, 147). According to A.
F. Walls:

As an explorer, Livingstone ranks with the greatest. He walked
further—across what is now South Africa, Botswana, Zambia,
Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania and Eastern Zaire…but a
mastering motive for his journeys was that they could drain “the
open sore of Africa”, the Arab slave trade. (quoted in Dowley, 563)

Livingstone was born in Blantyre, Scotland and raised by a godly family.
He received a good education and became a medical doctor. Appointed
by the London Missionary Society
to be a missionary to South Africa,
he was assigned to Moffat’s station
at Kuruman in 1840. He soon found
that relationships with missionaries
and Boers were a challenge; so, he
began to look beyond the station
and developed relationships with
Africans outside the compound.
By 1843, he established a mission
station at Mabotsa, approximately
200 miles north. At about this time
Livingstone was mauled badly by a
lion while he participated in a hunt.
Although he was fortunate to survive,
he carried the scars on his left arm Figure 10.1—David Livingstone
and shoulder for the rest of his life.

In 1844, he returned to Kuruman to propose marriage to Mary
Moffat, and she accepted. They were married in 1845 and set up their
home at Mabotsu, but before long they moved to Chonwane, forty
miles to the north. In due time, children were born to the family. In
time, the explorer instinct became dominant in Livingstone’s life. He
began to look to the north and his travels took him to the Lake Ngami
area. When he found a river flowing into the lake from the north, he
wrote: “What think you of a navigable highway into a large section

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