Page 206 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

A History of the Church in Africa

One aspect of the mission’s work was to minister to liberated slaves.
The Church Missionary Society established Freetown in Mombasa in
1875. This was the direct result of British ships bringing people who
had been liberated from Arab dhows (Arab lateen-rigged boats). By the
1880s, other Christian villages had been established to care for these
former slaves. Naturally, the Arabs resented this turn of events and
threatened to harm missionaries and residents. Shaw provides details of
their reaction: “In 1883, a Giriama Christian evangelist and teacher at
Fulodyo, David Koi, was killed by Arabs and beheaded for his witness to
Bwana Isa. He became Kenya’s first martyr” (1996, 190). In spite of the
opposition, the church community grew within a short time to more than
two thousand members.

Uganda
As we learned earlier, Livingstone inspired Stanley to explore Africa,
and he was also very enthusiastic about the effects of Christianity in
Africa. When he returned to explore Africa and arrived in Uganda, he
found a developed kingdom—the Buganda—with a ruler, Mutesa, who
was very intelligent and open to the Christian message. Stanley helped
convince the kabaka (king) that Christianity was superior to Islam. As
Anderson notes:

Mutesa’s intelligence and progressive spirit so struck Stanley that
he spoke to him about Christ, translated the Ten Commandments
into Swahili, and echoed Mutesa’s call for a pious and practical
missionary. (1977, 18)

Stanley also sent some correspondence to England that called for
missionaries. In addition, he left an African teacher, Dallington Muftaa,
who had been trained by the UMCA in Zanzibar, to teach Mutesa and
his chiefs.

The Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.) responded quickly, and
Alexander Mackay was one of the first recruits. Mackay was a gifted
preacher who declared the truth of Scripture with boldness. Anderson
records that Mackay “told the C.M.S. central committee that within
six months they would surely hear that some of them had died. ‘But,’
Mackay said to the hushed committee, ‘when that news comes, do not

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