The memory of the Universities Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) was honored last week in Malawi at the site of its second mission station in the country.
The memory of the Universities Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) was honored last week in Malawi at the site of its second mission station in the country. In 1861 the Rt. Rev. Charles Mackenzie, the Rev. Henry Scadamore and Dr. John Dickson answered the call from Dr. David Livingstone to evangelize Nyasaland and help stamp out the slave trade. They frist settled in Magomero, but after Mackenzie’s death from malaria in 1862 moved to Chikwama on the Shire River in 1862. Illness would claim their lives within two years. Joining the Bishop of Southern Malawi on the dias, District Police Superintendent MacMillan Nyirongo urged Anglicans not to neglect the mission given to them by the UCMA. “The Church should look beyond the commemoration. It should rather look at the mission and services the Missionaries brought and then build on that,” he said, adding, “the Missionaries did not only abolish the slave trade but also brought development and we should strive to carry on with that.” The Rt. Rev. Alinafe Kalemba concurred with these sentiments, saying the church’s work should address the needs of the whole man — spiritual and temporal — and encourage humanitarian and economic development for the region.
