Carried Home by Faithful Hands

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” — from Psalm 116

In August 1872 David set off again with Susi, Chuma, a boy named Majwara, and new helpers such as Jacob Wainwright, who had been freed from slavery as a boy. For weeks they waded through swamps, sometimes up to their chests. David grew so weak that his friends carried him on a bed of poles.

At the end of April 1873 they reached Chitambo’s village. Around midnight he called Susi, who helped him find his medicine. Then, as Susi remembered it, David told him that all was well, and he could go now.

Before dawn, the boy Majwara, who always slept at David’s door, saw him kneeling by his bed with his head in his hands, as if he were praying. Later he saw that David had not moved, and fetched the others. David had died in the night, probably on 1 May 1873. His friends believed he died praying, as he had prayed every day of his life.

His friends chose Susi and Chuma as their leaders, and decided to carry David home for his own people to bury. They buried his heart in Africa, under a great tree, and Jacob carved David’s name on it. Then they carried his body, carefully wrapped, about a thousand miles to the coast. When an English officer told them to bury him where they were, they said no.

In April 1874 David was buried in Westminster Abbey. Jacob Wainwright helped carry the coffin. The grave says that David was “Brought by faithful hands over land and sea.” In 1886 Susi was baptised, and took the name David.

A month after David died, the great slave market at Zanzibar was closed, and a church was built where people had once been bought and sold. Today there are great churches, led by Africans, in the lands he walked.

Jesus said that a seed must fall into the ground before it can grow. David did not live to see the fruit of his life, but God did.

Dear God, thank you for David Livingstone and all his faithful friends. Help me to be faithful to you and to the people you give me, all my life. Amen.