Susi and Chuma

“By faith Abraham obeyed and went out, not knowing where he was going.” — from Hebrews 11

In 1863 the government called the expedition home, and David went back to Britain. There he had more sad news. His eldest son, Robert, had gone to America and joined an army in a war there, and in 1864 Robert died as a prisoner.

In August 1865 David left Britain for the last time. He wanted to find where the great River Nile began, and to see the roads of the slave trade for himself, so that he could tell the world. He said he would go as a missionary, and do his map-making along the way.

With him went Chuma and Wikatani, now young men, and a man named Susi, who had worked on the Zambezi expedition. The road they followed was a slave road, and everywhere they saw sad signs of how cruelly the captured people were treated. David wrote it all down, so that people at home would know. Along the way, Wikatani found his own family, whom he had thought were lost for ever, and David let him stay with them.

Then, in January 1867, two porters ran away in the night and took David’s medicine box. Without his medicines, he wrote, he felt as if he had been given the sentence of death. After that he was often very ill. But he did not turn back.

In March 1869, at the town of Ujiji, he was close to dying, and Susi and Chuma nursed him back to health. Later his feet were so sore that he could not walk for months. Most of his helpers had gone, but three stayed with him: Susi, Chuma and a young man named Gardner. They found food and cared for him. Lying in a hut, with nothing else to read, David read the whole Bible through four times.

Susi and Chuma were real heroes. Staying with a friend who is weak and sick, when it would be easier to leave, is a beautiful way to love God and to love people.

Dear God, thank you for faithful friends like Susi and Chuma. Help me to be a faithful friend, and to stay close to people who need help. Amen.