Africa’s Own Children

“You will be my witnesses, at home and to the ends of the earth.” — from Acts 1

Samuel grew up and became a teacher. He was the very first student at a new college in Sierra Leone called Fourah Bay. He started writing down words in Yoruba, the language of his childhood.

In 1841, the British government sent three steamships up the great Niger River, deep into Africa. They wanted to stop the slave trade and to share the good news of Jesus. Samuel went with them as a missionary.

On the river, a terrible fever broke out. Almost all the Europeans became ill, and many of them died. But most of the Africans on the ships stayed well.

Samuel wrote a letter to the missionaries in London. He said that Africa would be helped most of all by “her own children.” He meant that Africans could live in places where Europeans got sick, and could speak the people’s languages. They should be trained and sent to tell their own people about Jesus.

Two years later, in 1843, Samuel was made a minister of the Church of England in London. When he came home to Sierra Leone, he preached to a crowded church. Many people had never seen an African minister before! Then he did something new: he held a church service in Yoruba. He said that standing there, he felt like a baby learning to speak his own language.

Jesus told his friends to tell people about him, starting at home. You do not have to travel far to do that. You can start with the people around you.

Dear Jesus, help me to tell the people around me about you, starting right where I am. Amen.