Fifteen thousand eight-hundred sixty-five kilometers. That's nearly 10,000 miles in the non metric world. Seems like the long way around to get from Atlanta to Nairobi, doesn't it? It is.
For missionaries, getting to the field is one of their largest expenses and one of the most time consuming. So, donated SkyMiles round trip to Dubai = $140. Round trip ticket from Dubai to Nairobi via Ethiopia = $850. Thirty-three hours later...I was in Nairobi - exhausted but eager to begin my mission.
Seems like a along time, I thought. Not really. History put my journey into perspective. Early missionaries often embarked on a grueling journey; by land and by sea, that took them months to get to their mission site.
A young Dr. John Ludwig Krapf, a German missionary of the Church Missionary Society, departed France on February 6, 1837 and did not arrived at Abyssinia (modern day Ethiopia) until December 1837. A journey of nearly eleven months. The famous doctor arrived nearly four years prior to the Scottish Missionary, David Livingston, who arrived in South Africa in 1841.
After several years work along the coast he landed, in 1844, at the island of Mombasa, Kenya with his wife, Rosine, and their newborn child. Dr. Krapf was the first Protestant missionary to establish a mission station on the eastern mainland of Africa.
"He at once plunged with characteristic ardour into the study of the Suahili language, of which there was neither grammar nor dictionary; and on June 8th, a day he always considered one of the most important in his life, he began a tentative translation of the Book of Genesis, with the aid of the Cadi of Mombasa. Scarcely had he begun, however, when, in the mysterious providence of God, a heavy trial was permitted to fall upon him. On July 1st he was attacked by fever, and on the 5th his wife took it still more severely. The very next day Mrs. Krapf s confinement took place; and on the 9th it became apparent that God was about to call her spirit to Himself. She called the Mohammedan attendants round her, and earnestly besought them to believe in Christ the Son of God, in whom, in that hour of anguish, and in the prospect of immediate separation from husband and babe, she could rest with perfect peace. Krapf was lying close by prostrate with fever, and when she breathed her last, it was only by a great effort that he was able to rise and satisfy himself that she was really dead, or afterwards follow the beloved remains to the grave, in which they were laid in the presence of the Governor, the Cadi, and other leading inhabitants of the place.
A day or two after, the motherless infant succumbed also to the fever; and, wrote Krapf, "I was obliged by the climate to conduct this second victim of the king of terrors to the grave of my beloved Rosine as soon as possible." "My heart and body," he wrote in a private letter, "wept for many days."
As he thus twice crossed the estuary to bury his dead on the mainland, he little thought that close to that solitary grave would rise, thirty years afterwards, a prosperous missionary settlement. For the Frere Town with which we are now so familiar is built on that very mainland opposite the island of Mombasa, within a few hundred yards of the white tombstone that marks the spot where rest the bones of Mrs. Krapf and her new-born babe. [See a picture of the grave, from a sketch by Lieut. Gordon, R.N., in the C. M. Gleaner of August, 1879.]
But he could see in that grave the pledge of future triumphs of the Gospel in Africa, and he wrote home to the Committee his memorable and often quoted message:--
"Tell our friends that there is on the East African coast a lonely grave of a member of the Mission cause connected with your Society. This is a sign that you have commenced the struggle with this part of the world; and as the victories of the Church are gained by stepping over the graves of many of her members, you may be the more convinced that the hour is at hand when you are summoned to the conversion of Africa from its eastern shore."
The Missionary Career of Dr. Krapf. London: Gilbert and Rivington, 1882.
My work in East Africa began on that same Island of Mombasa. I've seen that white tombstone that marks the beginning of the missionary struggle for the conversion of souls in East Africa.
And I realize...that my work, our work, is easy compared to those obedient and courageous servants who came before.
"Jesus paid much too high a price
For us to pick and choose who should come
And we are the Body of Christ
If we are the body
Why aren't His arms reaching
Why aren't His hands healing
Why aren't His words teaching
And if we are the body
Why aren't His feet going
Why is His love not showing them there is a way
Jesus is the way"
If We Are The Body - Casting Crowns
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