Healing in Africa

Colin C M Campbell, PhD

January 2024

Some years ago, I was invited to visit an Anglican diocese in East Africa, 

where the church membership is growing at a rate of 25% each year. As I

was traveling with the local bishop, I asked him to explain why the Gospel

is spreading so quickly in Africa. He said, “All Africans believe in a Creator

but he is remote. Many live in fear of evil spirits and witchcraft. We explain

to them that God promises to be with them in this life and at the last. “

When we reached our destination, I was invited to accompany the bishop

and the elders on a pastoral visit to a sick parishioner. We entered a dingy

hut, filled with smoke from a fire with a cooking pot. As my eyes focused, I

was able to discern the body of a man on a rough bed who appeared to be

in the last stages of consumption. As we approached, the figure rose

emitting a piercing shriek, with a look of such terror as I never hope to see

ever again. He stumbled towards me leaning on a stick. The bishop was a

very sophisticated Westernized individual but, at that moment, the façade

slipped, revealing the helplessness of one for whom this scene was all too

familiar.

I motioned sick man to be seated, placed my hands on his head and said,

“Mungu anapende wewe.” (“God loves you.”) Immediately, I felt an

overwhelming sense of love; and power travelled down my arms through

my hands. I began to weep, pulled him upright and hugged him. Then, with

my arm around his shoulders, we walked out into the bright sunlight as the

elders looked on dumbfounded. I left some money with his wife and we left.

When I returned to Canada, I wrote to the bishop to ask how my sick friend

was. I received news that he had been healed. However, as I know that

Africans are very tactful, I was doubtful so when our bishop went to visit, I

asked him to ask about my friend. On his return, he informed me that, when

he reached the village, a man came running out from the crowd, asking

about the “Mzungu” (European) who had prayed for him, telling our bishop,

“Mimi mgonjwa sana lakini sasa nzuri.” (I was very sick but now well”.)

In closing, it is worth mentioning my visit to the house of one of my

boyhood heroes, the medical missionary explorer, David Livingstone. On

the walls were irons from the Arab slave trade and some quotations from

his diaries, written about this evil practice, when he was alone and suffering

from bouts of tropical illness. They are very moving. “All I can say in my

solitude is, may Heavens rich blessing come down on anyone who will help

to heal this open sore of the world. If my disclosure should lead to the

suppression of the slave trade, I shall regard that as a greater matter by far

than the discovery of all the Nile sources together.”

When Livingston died, two Africans, Chuma and Susi, carried his body

hundreds of miles to Mombasa, where it was met by a British gunboat and

returned home.

At this time of strained relations, I find it comforting to recall the courage of

a very great Christian man, who so loved the African people that he

devoted his life to their liberation from sickness and slavery and was so

loved by them in return, that they returned him to his people, at great

personal sacrifice, and maintained his home as a shrine to his memory.