AFRICAN-AMERICAN MISSIONS’ HISTORY
This month let’s seize the opportunity to honor African-America
Missionary history.
Carter G. Woodson, a noted African-American historian
earned his PHD in history from Harvard. He created Negro
History Week in 1926. 50 years later it became a month-long
celebration. It was President Gerald Ford who decreed Black
History month a National observance February 1976.
Some comment this date was given to us in compromise
because February is the shortest month of the year. However,
Woodson chose February to coincide with the birthdays of
Fredrick Douglass – slavery abolitionist (February 14) and
President Abraham Lincoln – signer of the Emancipation
Proclamation (February 12)
“Without a history a people group stands in danger of being
exterminated.”
In spite of enslavement, beatings, lynching, no acre and no mule ……
AND STILL THEY WENT
1770s. John Marrant, a free black from New York City, was already ministering cross-culturally, preaching to Indians.
By 1775 he had carried the Gospel to the Cherokee, Creek, Catawar, and Housaw Indians.
1782. George Liele,
a former pastor of First African Baptist Church Savannah, Georgia, upon hearing that the British were declaring peace with the colonies, indentured himself to a British officer in order not to be re-enslaved by his former master’s heirs. He and his family moved to Kingston, Jamaica. After two years he had paid back his indenture and was able to devote all of his energy to preaching. With four other former American slaves, he formed the First African Baptist Church of Kingston. In ten years the church grew to over 500 members. George Liele is considered to be the first American missionary.
1815. Lott Carey,was born a slave in Virginia and was America’s first missionary to Africa. He became the pastor of the 800 member African Baptist Church in Richmond, Virginia and let in the formation of the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society. Carey and his wife, teamed up with Colin Teague and his wife and son, sailed for Sierra Leone. After establishing their mission among the Mandingoes, Carey moved to Liberia.
1823. Betsy Stockton
applied to the American Board of Missions and went to Hawaii. She is recognized as the first single woman missionary in the history of modern missions. She served as a domestic assistant and conducted a school. Prior to going to Hawaii, she lived in the household of the president of Princeton College and while there had read extensively in his library. She was well qualified to teach.
Known as the Colored Evangelist, Amanda Smith (1837 – 1915) was born one of 13 children of her parents.
Even as a slave she learned to read and write. She became known as a gifted preacher and member of the African-American Methodist Episcopal Church. She traveled and ministered aboard ships to England, Africa, Ireland, Scotland and India. She returned to American and established an orphanage in Chicago
February 16, 1922 --
About this date, Jamaican-born Montrose Waite received a letter from the Christian and Missionary Alliance mission board saying they wanted to send him as a missionary to Africa. Waite had won the battle against prejudice and rejection and even friends who urged him to the stay in the U.S., his adopted country. Waite would serve as a missionary in Sierra Leone and Liberia and would be instrumental in the founding of the Afro-American Missionary Crusade (1947) and the Carver Foreign Missions organization.
Dr. William Sheppard
~Dr. Wm. Sheppard went to the Congo in 1821, becoming head of the American Presbyterian Congo Mission among the Bakuba tribe, going 1200 miles inland.
~He built churches, ay schools and homes for children rescued from slavery.
~His wife published the first book and hymnal in Bakuba language.
TABERNACLE OF PRAISE
VERY FEW AFRICAN-AMERICAN CHURCHES HAVE LOCAL AS WELL AS GLOBAL MISSIONS PROGRAMS.
TOP (12 YEARS OLD) SUPPORTS:
OVER 15 LOCAL MINISTRIES SENDING MONEY AND VOLUNTEER WORKERS,
8 FULL TIME MISSIONARIES AND HAS ITS OWN GLOBAL MISSIONS DIRECTOR (MIN CHRIS SCOTT – ORCHESTRATING IN 2018 EIGHT GLOBAL MISSION TRIPS.
