Chapter 27 · 7 min read
Appendix B: Chapter-by-Chapter Study and Reflection Guide
“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves.”
— James 1:22, ASV
This guide is for personal reflection, small groups, or a reading course of about twenty weeks. Its purpose is not to make Mary Slessor an object of admiration, but to let her life hold up a mirror in which readers can examine their own discipleship under Scripture. Groups may find it helpful to begin each session with the chapter’s opening verse and to end with prayer. Some chapters raise hard questions about mission, power, and culture. They are meant to be discussed honestly, not settled quickly.
Introduction - The Legend and the Letters
Central idea
The real Mary Slessor, as her letters and the records show her, is more interesting and more useful than the legend.
Scriptures to revisit
Reflection
1. Why do Christians like legends about their heroes? 2. What is lost when a life is simplified?
Chapter 1 - A Wild Lassie
Central idea
A childhood shaped by a drinking father and a praying mother taught her to trust a heavenly Father when her earthly father failed.
Scriptures to revisit
Psalm 103:13-14; Proverbs 20:1; Acts 16:31.
Reflection
1. Is there a prayer you have prayed for years without an answer? 2. What does it mean to “leave it with Him”?
Chapter 2 - Fourteen Years at the Loom
Central idea
Long, hard years of work formed endurance and an understanding of the poor that God later used.
Scriptures to revisit
Lamentations 3:27; Colossians 3:23; Psalm 119:105.
Reflection
1. How do you regard work you did not choose? 2. What might God be forming in you through it?
Chapter 3 - Taming the Roughs
Central idea
She learned to speak among the people rather than above them, and to stay where she was when she wanted to run.
Scriptures to revisit
Mark 12:37; 1 Corinthians 9:22; 2 Timothy 1:7.
Reflection
1. Where do you meet people “as one of themselves”? 2. What fear is deciding what you do?
Chapter 4 - “Pray for Me!”
Central idea
A mission first imagined by freed African Jamaicans called a factory girl who answered, “Here am I; send me.”
Scriptures to revisit
Isaiah 6:1-8; Matthew 9:37-38; Matthew 27:22.
Reflection
1. What surprised you about the origins of the Calabar mission? 2. What are you doing with Jesus?
Chapter 5 - Learning Calabar
Central idea
She learned the language, the laws, and the fears of the Efik, and learned not to be in a hurry.
Scriptures to revisit
Reflection
1. How would you answer the man selling rum? 2. Where is impatience harming your work for God?
Chapter 6 - Bereft
Central idea
The deaths of her mother and sisters freed her, painfully, to go where no one would worry about her.
Scriptures to revisit
Psalm 73:25-26; 2 Corinthians 1:3-4.
Reflection
1. How has grief changed the direction of your life? 2. Whom might you now comfort with the comfort you received?
Chapter 7 - “Father!”
Central idea
She walked into Okoyong afraid, able to pray only one word, and stayed.
Scriptures to revisit
Reflection
1. What “Okoyong” are you afraid to enter? 2. What does it mean that courage rests on presence, not feeling?
Chapter 8 - Ma Eme
Central idea
Her closest ally never became a Christian, yet made much of the saving of life possible.
Scriptures to revisit
Proverbs 17:17; Luke 10:25-37; Genesis 18:25.
Reflection
1. How do you honour kindness from people who do not share your faith? 2. What does it mean to leave such questions with “the Judge of all the earth”?
Chapter 9 - The Poison Bean
Central idea
Her greatest victory over the ordeal was partial and costly, and it showed that the people themselves longed to be free of the old customs.
Scriptures to revisit
Psalm 82:3-4; Proverbs 31:8-9.
Reflection
1. When have you had to accept a partial victory? 2. Are there people around you trapped in a system they cannot break alone?
Chapter 10 - Twin-Mothers
Central idea
She took up children whom their parents had been taught to fear, and learned over time to help families keep them.
Scriptures to revisit
Psalm 27:10; Isaiah 40:11; Mark 10:13-16.
Reflection
1. Who are the “cursed” people in your society? 2. What did Mary come to believe, late in life, about taking twins away from their mothers?
Chapter 11 - Laid on the Altar
Central idea
She wanted to marry, but would not take back a life already given to the people of Okoyong.
Scriptures to revisit
Reflection
1. What have you laid on the altar that you are tempted to take back? 2. Can singleness be a calling rather than a loss?
Chapter 12 - “The Woman’s God”
Central idea
Peacemaking in Okoyong took patience, humour, knitting, and a clear line she would not cross.
Scriptures to revisit
Matthew 5:9; Romans 12:18; Ephesians 2:14.
Reflection
1. Where could you be a peacemaker this week? 2. What did you make of her sending the runaway slaves back?
Chapter 13 - Consul and Gunboat
Central idea
She used British power to stop killings, and the story raises hard questions about justice and borrowed authority.
Scriptures to revisit
Micah 6:8; Romans 13:1-4; Psalm 146:3.
Reflection
1. When is it right for Christians to rely on the power of the state? 2. What is lost when justice depends on one strong personality?
Chapter 14 - Smallpox and Silence
Central idea
Years of loss, loneliness, and no visible fruit did not destroy her contentment in God.
Scriptures to revisit
Habakkuk 3:17-18; 1 Corinthians 3:6-7; Psalm 30:5.
Reflection
1. How do you measure success in your service? 2. Can you be “satisfied” without being “triumphant”?
Chapter 15 - Not by Might
Central idea
She walked through the door a punitive expedition had opened, while insisting that the land belonged to its people.
Scriptures to revisit
Reflection
1. How should Christians think about missions that followed conquest? 2. What did Wilkie mean by the “peaceable means of the Gospel”?
Chapter 16 - First Fruits
Central idea
After fifteen years she saw baptisms in Okoyong, and at Itu a former slave girl and two boys began a church.
Scriptures to revisit
John 4:35-38; Psalm 103:1-5; Galatians 3:28.
Reflection
1. Whose sowing are you reaping? 2. Who are the unnoticed Manas in your church?
Chapter 17 - “I Dare Not Go Back”
Central idea
Her refusal to retreat strained her relationship with the Church and opened the Enyong Creek.
Scriptures to revisit
Luke 9:57-62; Hebrews 11:8; Isaiah 30:21.
Reflection
1. When is holy stubbornness right, and when is it pride? 2. What would you do if your church told you to go back?
Chapter 18 - On the Bench
Central idea
She sat as a magistrate to get justice for women, in an imperfect court with imperfect methods.
Scriptures to revisit
Isaiah 1:16-17; Deuteronomy 16:18-20.
Reflection
1. How do we pursue justice through imperfect institutions? 2. How should we treat famous quotations whose source is doubtful?
Chapter 19 - Children of the Desolate
Central idea
A single woman raised a large family and planned a way for women to live free.
Scriptures to revisit
Isaiah 54:1; Psalm 68:5-6; Psalm 113:9; James 1:27.
Reflection
1. How can the church be a family for the solitary? 2. What did you notice about Jean’s shilling a week?
Chapter 20 - Ikpe
Central idea
Old, ill, and in pain, she began again, and was given strength one day at a time.
Scriptures to revisit
2 Corinthians 12:7-10; Isaiah 40:28-31.
Reflection
1. What would it mean for you to “begin” today in weakness? 2. How do you respond to failures like the Ikpe twin?
Chapter 21 - A Poor Exponent of Faith
Central idea
Her faith was real and mixed with doubt, and her Bible was full of honest arguments with God.
Scriptures to revisit
Mark 9:14-29; Romans 8:26; Psalm 42; Luke 17:10.
Reflection
1. Which of her Bible notes spoke to you? 2. Is your faith more honest, or more comfortable?
Chapter 22 - The Time of the Singing of Birds
Central idea
She died among her own people, with her daughters around her, trusting that “not one precious thing can ever be lost.”
Scriptures to revisit
Song of Solomon 2:10-13; John 11:25-26; Psalm 116:15.
Reflection
1. What did her last letters reveal about her? 2. How would you like to be found at the end?
Chapter 23 - Everybody’s Mother
Central idea
Her legacy is both real and mythologised; what remains beyond dispute is her love.
Scriptures to revisit
1 Thessalonians 2:7-12; Mark 14:3-9; 1 Corinthians 13.
Reflection
1. What in her life would you like to imitate, and what would you avoid? 2. To whom are you giving not only the gospel but your own self?
Chapter 27 complete
Appendix B: Chapter-by-Chapter Study and Reflection Guide