David Livingstone

David Livingstone was a remarkable missionary and explorer who sacrificially gave himself for the people of Africa. I have marveled at his life since I was a kid. However, when I went to Malawi, Africa in 2003, I realized just how important this great man was. I was walking from village to village sharing Christ with about 20 other African church leaders when the pastor of the church asked me if I had ever heard of David Livingstone. I smiled really big and said, “Yes, I have!” He continued, “You know, Mr. Livingstone is the reason my people are free.” I knew exactly what he meant. David Livingstone abhorred the slave trade and fought against it his entire life, drawing world-wide attention to its evils.

He was born into a poor family in Blantyre, Scotland March 19, 1813. His father sold tea and as he would make his distribution to customers, he always passed along the Gospel through Christian books and literature. Because his family was not wealthy, David began working in the cotton mills in 1823 at the age of 10. It didn’t take long to discover how brilliant of a mind God had given him. By age 22 he had studied Greek, Theology and Medicine at Anderson College and Glasgow University. By 1838, David knew his calling in life was to be a missionary.

He applied to the London Missionary Society and was accepted. At first, he set his heart on China. However, the Opium War of 1838 in China closed the door. Besides, God had other plans for China and those plans came through a young Englishman named James Hudson Taylor.

In 1839, everything changed for Livingstone. He was invited to hear Robert Moffat speak, the great missionary to South Africa. David was burdened by what he heard about Africa that night. Most notably, Moffat said, “I have seen, at different times, the smoke of a thousand villages – villages whose people are without Christ, without God, and without hope in the world.”

When David heard those words, the course for his life was set! At age 26, he left his home and everything familiar to him to sail the Atlantic Ocean for Africa. He would never be the same, nor would Africa!

He arrived in South Africa on July 31, 1841. He was appointed to the Kuruman Mission which was founded and operated by Robert Moffat, who inspired him to come to Africa. David never forgot those “1,000 villages” who had never heard of Christ. He consistently pushed north to find tribes to share the Gospel with. Once, he traveled as far as 700 miles north.

In 1843, he received permission from the London Missionary Society to establish his own mission. He chose the area of Mabotsa. People were receptive to the Gospel but one big problem is that it was infested with lions. David had heard that if a lion is killed in an area, the entire pack will move on. One day, he and an African instructor, Melbalwe, approached a lion to kill it. David shot it with his gun but the bullet didn’t kill the lion. While he tried to re-load, the lion pounced on him crushing his entire left shoulder. The lion mauled his left arm and bit Melbalwe through his thigh. Finally, the lion collapsed and died from the gunshot wound but not before it permanently ruined David’s left arm, he never regained use of it.

Even in this tragedy, we can see how God uses all things to work together for our good! Because of the wound he had to return to Kuruman to have his shoulder and arm tended too by no other than Mary Moffat, the young daughter of Robert Moffat. They found themselves attracted to each other and soon, David proposed to her. He left Kuruman after his shoulder had healed to go back to Mabotsa to build him and his future wife a suitable home. Mary and David were married in March 1844 with Robert Moffat performing the ceremony.

They remained in Mobatso for one year before they began traveling to explore more of Africa. In the spring of 1850 came one crushing blow. Their baby daughter died of malaria in Kologeng. Life as a missionary was hard and no one understood this more than Mary but it still didn’t ease the pain.

His family desperately needed a furlough, so he took Mary and their children to Cape Town, and sent them home to England for a rest on April 23, 1852. He was unable to accompany them but had planned to meet with them in England in a couple of years.

It was in November 1853 that Livingstone took his most famous journey. He and 27 Makololo men traveled 1,500 miles of jungle to find the West coast of Africa. This journey was treacherous as they battled terrible weather conditions, hunger, hostile tribesmen, crocodiles, snakes and other wild animals, not to mention sickness, dysentery and other fevers. Once they arrived to the coast, David met some ship captains who offered him a ride home to England. The 27 Makololo men were scared because they didn’t know how to get back home, David was their navigator! Livingstone turned down what seemed to be an offer of a life-time in order to lead the Makololo men back home. It meant so much to these African men that he would choose to travel those harsh conditions with them rather than go home to England. They were not used to such kindness and friendship. By the way, the ship that was to take David home to England sank in the middle of the Atlantic! Thank God that Livingstone didn’t take that ship!

Before leaving for England, he was determined to open up a passage to the Eastern coast of Africa just as he had done in the West coast. Sekeletu gave him 120 tribesmen to accompany him on this journey and what a journey it was! Only 50 miles into the expedition, he discovered a set of mighty waterfalls, which he named, “Victoria Falls.” He finally arrived in Quilimane and was ready to take his first furlough home. By this time, he was the first white man to ever travel the interior of Africa and to go coast to coast!

Livingstone had a mixture of emotions arriving in London. This was his first time home in 16 years. Many things had changed. First of all, his father had passed away while he was in Africa. He also learned that the London Missionary Society (LMS) had wanted to part ways with him as a missionary. In their opinion, he had abandoned the work of a missionary because it seemed he was focusing more on expeditions than mission stations. This really hurt David. He felt he was doing exactly what God had called him to do.

While the LMS has a great reputation and did tremendous work, it’s important to note here that people are not always going to agree with what God has called you to do. It is far more important to please God rather than man. Time proved that David was making the right decisions. While he lost his status with the LMS, he didn’t know the London Royal Geographical Society was interested in him. They presented to him their gold metal, their highest honor. He continued to receive honors on his first furlough home. Oxford University, Cambridge University and Glasgow University all awarded him honorary degrees. He was named by the British Empire as Britain’s Consul for the East coast of Africa, which meant a government salary, government backed funding and new equipment to work with in Africa. He was encouraged to write a book, so he wrote Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa which had great success. Don’t think for a moment that all this success went to his head. David was not comfortable speaking or writing. He was a missionary to African tribes and that was the only place he was comfortable!

At age 45, David, his wife and their youngest son returned to Africa in March of 1858. This would prove to be the hardest stage of David’s life. His wife’s health began to fail as soon as they landed. She and their youngest son remained with her father and mother at the Kuruman Mission Station while David and his team pushed further inland. On this expedition, there were multiple problems. For example, his team was no longer the tribesmen he used to travel with. Rather, they were white Englishmen who seemed to be more of a hindrance than a help. The boat given to them by the government was always slow and hard to maintain. David’s younger brother traveled with him and he didn’t have what it took to be a missionary nor an explorer. This led to a strained relationship for the next 6 years. Not to mention, Mary delivered a baby girl born November 16, 1858, which David didn’t even know he had until she was 1 year old. Life was very, very difficult as a missionary in Africa.

In January 1862, Mary had finally rejoined her husband deep in the continent of Africa. She herself had been quite busy. Once her health regained, she left Kuruman and took their youngest son and new born daughter back to England to stay with the rest of her children. She made her way back to South Africa and met her husband in Zambezi. You can imagine the joy of their reunion after a four year separation from one another. However, their joy only lasted 3 months as Mary became very ill in April. Sadly, she passed from this life on April 27, 1862. It was the hardest season of David’s life. At 49 years old, he was a widower. David buried her under a massive baobab tree at Shupange. 18 years David and Mary were husband and wife, of that 18 years, they were together only half of the time.

In all of this discouragement, there were many, many successes in David’s ministry. At last, in the 1860’s he was able to establish a mission station in the interior of Africa. This was one of David’s dreams. He also discovered Lake Nyasa, the Shire River and Lake Shirwa during this time period.

While still trying to cope with the death of his beloved wife, tensions were beginning to grow as slave trade was increasing and the Portuguese of the East coast were trying to destroy David’s ministry, even lying to local African’s that they were children of Mr. Livingstone and then trapping them as slaves. He decided to return home to England to spend much needed time with his children. One of the saddest lessons David’s life teaches us is that he didn’t spend enough time with his family. That was his one regret in life and one that I hope we all will consider. What will eternity be if we win the world to Christ but lose our own families?

When David came back to England, he found out that his mother had also passed away and that one of his sons, Robert, had gone to America to fight against slavery in the American Civil War. He died in battle and is buried at Gettysburg Cemetery.

While David’s life had changed dramatically over the last few years suffering much loss in his family, he knew he had one more expedition in him. So, the London Royal Geographical Society planned and sponsored one last expedition that would last from 1866-1873.

He didn’t have much contact with the outside world through these years. It had even been rumored that he had been killed in Africa. While he wasn’t dead, he did come close. At one time, an African Tribesmen threw a spear at him missing his head by an inch; the spear did cut the back of his neck. An enormous tree fell and missed him by only a few feet. He suffered malaria, dysentery, sores, loss of blood, and hunger. At one point, Arab slave traders destroyed all his mail and plundered all his supplies. At this point, David was at his lowest point.

But on October 26, 1871, an Englishman came bursting through the African bush. It was none other than Henry Stanley! Out of his mouth came the now famous line, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” Although it was J.B. Bennet of the New York Herald that sent Mr. Stanley to find David at all cost to confirm if he was dead or alive, we know it was the Lord that sent Mr. Stanley to Dr. Livingstone! Henry stayed the entire winter with David and later said, “I was converted by him, although he had not tried to do it.”

Henry promised to send David fresh supplies along with a new team of men from Zanzibar Island. They arrived in March of 1872. The new party began to move toward Lake Tanganyika and Lake Bangweolo. This would be David’s last trek through Africa. They reached the South side of Lake Tanganyika and mapped all the way to the day before his death.

They made camp that night and by this time, Dr. Livingstone was so weak he couldn’t walk. He was suffering from dysentery and malaria. At 4am on May 1, 1873 they heard a strange noise. His team found him dead on his knees inside his hut.

The African’s carefully prepared his body. They removed his heart and buried it under a beautiful mulva tree in Zambia, knowing that David’s heart belonged in the soil of the continent he fiercely loved. They carved a wooden monument for him. To preserve his body, they filled it with salt and laid it to rest in the sun for 14 days. At the end of those two weeks, they carefully wrapped his body in cloth, enclosed it in the bark of a Myonge tree and sewed it all into a thick sail cloth. They attached it to a large pole and the African men carried his body, along with his journals, for 9 months across 1,000 miles of African soil to the Island of Zanzibar to deliver him to the British government.

I had the privilege of visiting our brothers and sisters in Zanzibar in September of 2009. I went to host a pastor’s conference for 200 pastors and to meet with the persecuted church leaders on this Islamic island. They took me to St. Mary’s Church in Stonetown. There, they have displayed the monuments to slave trade and a wooden cross made from the Mulva tree where David’s heart is buried. Once again, opening my eyes to the impact he made on Africa.

His body was shipped to London in February 1874. It arrived April 15, 1874 and he was buried in Westminster Abbey along with the Kings and great men and women of Britain on April 18, 1874. At his funeral were his children, Mr. Henry Stanley, many of his close friends in Africa and Robert Moffat, who began it all with is speech in London when David was a mere 25 years old!

Listen to how David summed up his life by his own words, “God had only one Son, and he made that Son a missionary. If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice.”