Congolese Chief and Supporter of Methodist Mission Head of a village of the same name in the Belgian Congo, noted as a warrior and enemy of Europeans in his early days, Wembo Nyama received Bishop Walter Lambuth and his party in his village in 1912. Impressed by Lambuth as a man of his word, the...
Category: <span>Kasai Annual Conference</span>
Category: <span>Kasai Annual Conference</span>
Martin, Edith (1900-1979)
Mama Yema in the Congo Growing up in Harrison, Arkansas, Edith wanted to become a missionary and serve in Africa. After graduation from Peabody and Scarritt Colleges in Nashville, Tennessee, she was commissioned in 1931, and spent the next thirty-six years in Zaire (Congo) involved in Christian education, women’s work, social evangelism, directing schools and...
Springer, Bishop John McKendree (1873–1963)
Founder of Methodism in the Congo Although Methodist missionaries ventured into the Belgian Congo before John Springer, notably Bishop William Taylor with the Methodist Episcopal Church in the late 1800s, Springer’s enterprising evangelistic explorations in the early 20th century are credited with the founding of the present-day United Methodist Church in the Democratic Republic of...
Gilbert, John Wesley (1865-1923)
CME Pioneer of MECS Congo Mission John Wesley Gilbert, a minister in the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church (CMEC) and professor at Paine College, accompanied Bishop Walter Russell Lambuth on his exploration trip to establish a Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS), mission in the Congo. Both in 1865, Gilbert, who held B.A., M.A., and D.D., was...
Cannon, James (1864-1944)
MECS Bishop Who Supervised Mission in Congo, Brazil, and Mexico The name James Cannon, Jr., usually conjures up vivid and often unflattering historical images. One thinks, for instance, of the militant crusader for prohibition during the Progressive era, the political preacher who campaigned against Al Smith in the presidential election of 1928, and the beleagured...
Minga Hospital
Mission hospital dedicated to caring for mothers The first missionaries sent to Africa by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS), made Wembo Nyama their home base in what was then a colony of Belgium, “Congo Belge.” In each mission station it founded, the MECS sent a missionary director and a women’s work director, usually a...
Taylor, William (1821-1902)
Methodist Episcopal missionary bishop, mission theorist, and holiness advocate Born to Stuart and Martha (Hickman) Taylor in Rockbridge County, Virginia, Taylor was converted in 1841 at a Methodist Episcopal camp meeting. Appointed a Methodist missionary to California (1849), he ministered without salary to Native Americans and Chinese immigrants, and to the sick and the poor....