From the Slums of Dundee to the Swamps of Nigeria
Mary Slessor grew up in the slums of Dundee, Scotland, in the 1860s. Her father was an alcoholic. By the age of eleven, she was working in a jute mill to support her family, labouring from six in the morning until six at night. Her mother was a devout Presbyterian who filled the house with stories of missionaries in faraway lands.
When Mary read about the death of David Livingstone in 1874, something shifted inside her. She was twenty-six when she sailed for the Calabar region of Nigeria in 1876, sent by the United Presbyterian Church. Nothing in Dundee could have prepared her for what she found.
Into the Jungle
The other missionaries stayed in the coastal settlements. Mary went inland — deep into the rainforest where no European woman had gone before. She learned the Efik language, discarded her shoes, and slept in mud huts. The jungle terrified the colonial administrators. Mary called it home.
She walked through forests where leopards stalked at night. She crossed rivers infested with crocodiles. She once stared down an armed chief who was about to execute a group of prisoners, stepping between the warriors and their captives with nothing but her voice and her conviction that every life mattered.
The jungle was dangerous. It was also the place where Mary experienced God most directly — in the quiet of the canopy at dawn, in the faces of the children she rescued, in the strength that came from somewhere beyond herself during moments of extreme crisis.
The Twins She Saved
In the region where Mary worked, twins were considered a curse. Newborn twins were routinely killed or abandoned in the bush. Mary spent decades fighting this practice, personally rescuing twins and raising them in her home. She adopted every child she could reach.
By the time she died in 1915, the practice of killing twins had been virtually eliminated in the areas she served. The British government awarded her the Order of St John of Jerusalem. She had no interest in medals. She wanted the children alive.
What This Means for You
Mary Slessor did not encounter God in a cathedral. She found him in a jungle that most people were afraid to enter. If you are facing something that frightens you, consider that the wild and difficult places might be exactly where God intends to meet you. The jungle was not an obstacle to Mary's faith. It was the ground where her faith became real.