This
message was in response to our
message about Dr. Livingstone
______________
This is
a wonderful article. It reminded me of the tales
from my grand mother whose father had seen Dr Livingstone physically and helped
him to navigate the banks of the Zambezi river and Barotse plains in western
part of Zambia.
Our barotse
ancestors
named him "Munali" literally meaning a red skinned man because he
entered barotseland at the time when red maize which the natives called munali
was introduced by the foreign slave traders popularly known as
"Mambali".
Dr Livingstone
is
known as a heroic missionary who turned my home area Barotseland (now western
province of Zambia) upside down. Despite the swampy geographic nature of the
region which has very high mosquito population Dr Livingstone braved it all to
evangelize the areas.
He encountered the
Mambali while leading squads of slaves and cried at the sight of this ruthless
act.He sensitized the King, chiefs and the people until slave trade came to an
end in Barotseland.
My grand
mother used
to tell me that barotseland was like an open wound oozing with pus and Munali
(Livingstone) became the cure.
Pagan practices
such
as the killing of infants that started growing teeth on top, the burning of
suspected witches, burying alive of young people besides a dead king etc all
came to an end as a result of Munali's evangelistic work. Away from Barotseland
Dr Livingstone was the first white man to see the mighty Victoria Falls in a
City named after him in Southern province of Zambia the site where the United
Nations World Tourism Organisation(UNWTO) festival to be jointly hosted with
Zimbabwe will be held this year in September. Other than this, Munali's Heart
was buried under a native tree in Chinsali of the then Northern province of
Zambia.
This is
but a slice
of Dr David Livingstone's legacy in this part of the world. He was a heroic
missionary who was passionate for souls. A man who was ready to sacrifice all
for Christ. A social advocate, a loving and giving man of God. May his legacy
be an encouragement to all who care for the salvation of the Lost!
