Mary Slessor grew up in the slums of Dundee, Scotland. Her father was an alcoholic. Money was scarce. By the age of eleven, she was working in a jute mill â twelve-hour shifts in a factory that would make modern health inspectors faint. It was hard, repetitive, soul-crushing work.
The Noise of the Loom
The jute mills of Dundee in the 1870s were deafening. Workers communicated in shouts and gestures. The air was thick with fibres. Mary tied knots and sorted yarn alongside women who'd been doing the same thing for decades. Nothing about the setting suggested it might become the location of a life-changing encounter.
But Mary was a reader. During her breaks, she devoured whatever she could find. And one day, she overheard older women at the mill talking about missionaries in Calabar, West Africa. They were discussing the work of a man who'd gone out there and died. It was ordinary workplace conversation â the kind of thing you half-hear while eating your sandwich.
Something Landed
Mary couldn't explain why that overheard conversation gripped her. It wasn't a supernatural voice. It wasn't a vision. It was two women gossiping about a missionary she'd never met, in a country she'd never heard of, during a lunch break at a jute mill. But something landed.
She started asking questions. She started reading about Calabar. She started attending a local mission church â not because of a dramatic conversion but because a conversation she wasn't even part of planted something she couldn't shake.
From Mill Worker to Pioneer
Sixteen years after that overheard conversation, Mary Slessor sailed for Calabar. She spent thirty-nine years in what is now Nigeria, working in regions no European had entered, stopping the practice of killing twins (which were considered cursed), and becoming so trusted by local communities that the British government appointed her a magistrate.
All because she overheard two women talking at a mill.
What This Means for You
Mary Slessor's calling didn't arrive through a sermon, a prayer meeting, or a dramatic sign. It arrived through someone else's conversation that she happened to overhear in a noisy factory. If that's how God works, then every conversation around you â at work, in a cafe, on the street â could be carrying something meant for you. The question is whether you're paying enough attention to catch it.
