“Dr. Livingstone, I Presume?”

“Like cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.” — from Proverbs 25

In 1871 David reached a big market town called Nyangwe, beside a wide river. On market days hundreds of people, most of them women, came to buy and sell. On 15 July 1871 something terrible happened there. Men working for a slave trader began shooting into the crowd, and many people were killed. It was the saddest thing David ever saw.

He could not stop it. All he could do was pray, and write down what he had seen, and send it home. People in Britain were shocked when they read it, and it helped to close the great slave market at Zanzibar.

David went back to Ujiji, sick and very thin. Then one day Susi came running as fast as he could. He had seen an Englishman! A young newspaper writer, Henry Morton Stanley, had marched from the coast to find David, because many people thought he was dead.

Stanley later told how he walked up to the pale, grey-bearded man, took off his hat, and said, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” And David said yes, with a kind smile. Only Stanley wrote the words down, and he told it in slightly different ways, but the two men really did meet at Ujiji, late in 1871.

Stanley brought food, medicine and letters from David’s children, and David began to get better. Stanley said the old man kept telling him he had brought him new life. They spent about four months together, and Stanley saw that David’s faith was quiet and real.

Stanley begged David to come home, but David would not leave until his work was done. When they parted in March 1872, Stanley turned away weeping. Five days later, on his birthday, David wrote, “My Jesus, my king, my life, my all; I again dedicate my whole self to Thee.”

God sent help at just the right time. And David, old and tired, gave his whole self to Jesus again. You can give yourself to Jesus again every day, too.

Dear Jesus, you are my king and my all. Thank you for sending help when I need it. Today I give my whole self to you again. Amen.