Mary Slessor, Missionary in West Africa
11 January -- Commemoration
If celebrated as a Lesser Festival,
Common of Missionaries, page 503
Mary Slessor was born into a working-class, Presbyterian
family in Aberdeen in 1848. As a child in Dundee, she was
enthralled by stories of missions in Africa. For years, she
read diligently as she worked in the mills, and eventually,
in 1875, she was accepted as a teacher for the mission in
Calabar, Nigeria. Her fluency in the local language,
physical resilience and lack of pretension endeared her to
those to whom she ministered. She adopted unwanted
children, particularly twins who would otherwise, according
to local superstition, have been put to death. She was
influential in organising trade and in settling disputes,
contributing much to the development of the Okoyong people
with whom she later settled. She died, still in Africa, on
this day in 1915.