The Saints and Martyrs of Africa 	February 20
Africa is not a country, but a continent of many countries. Each country has had its saints, and most countries have had martyrs. We may most helpfully think in turn of the countries of North Africa, West Africa, of East and Central Africa and of Southern Africa.
Besides the unnumbered, unnamed saints, the church in North Africa in the early centuries had its great leaders like Tertullian, Cyprian (see 13 September) and Augustine (20 August), and many martyrs, like Perpetua and her Companions (7 March), who died rather than deny their faith. Islam spread through North Africa in the Middle Ages. One response of the church to Islam was the crusades, but a truer Christian response was Ramon Lull’s “crusade of love”, a determination to take the gospel of God’s grace to North Africa. In countries like Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Libya, Christians today are a very small minority, courageously seeking to bear witness to their Lord.
In West Africa, Roman Catholics preached the gospel in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but the church did not survive. Then came the impact of the missionary movement of the nineteenth century when, largely because of malaria, West Africa was called the “land of the white man’s grave”. In twenty years, fifty men and women sent by the Church Missionary Society died there - but others soon took their places. Missionaries like Mary Slessor and Africans like Samuel Crowther shared in preaching the gospel, and thousands of ordinary Christians became evangelists to their own people. In recent decades, the church has grown strongly, with a witness of word, of teaching through Christian schools, and of loving service to the sick and handicapped.
East and Central Africa was opened up to the gospel by those who went as missionaries and explorers like David Livingstone. They faced great hardships in travel, the opposition of Arab slave-traders and others, and the threat of endemic diseases. Bishop Hannington in Uganda suffered a martyr’s death, as did many of the first Ugandan Christians (see 3 June), including the “boy martyrs”, who, rather than deny their newly-found Saviour, were willing to be put into the fire. In the twentieth century, many African Christians have suffered for their faith, including those in Kenya in the 1950s, who paid with their lives for their refusal to take the Mau Mau oath of racial hatred, and Archbishop Luwum (see 17 February) who died for daring to oppose Idi Amin’s tyrannical rule. In recent years the church in East Africa has had many great leaders, like Bishop Festo Kivengere, who have brought to the church in the west the challenge of simple faith, radical discipleship, and sacrificial service: ingredients for the rapid growth of the African church.
In Southern Africa, pioneering work was done by the Moravians in the eighteenth century. Other missionary agencies followed. In these days we honour especially those who, like Bishop Trevor Huddlestone, Alan Paton and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, fought in the name of Christ against the injustice of apartheid. Linked with them, we remember that John Osmers and Michael Lapsley of our New Zealand church suffered grievously by their involvement in that same struggle.
For Liturgical Use
The church in Africa has had many martyrs, from those in early centuries who refused the state’s demand that they deny their faith, to those in Kenya in the 1950s who refused to take the Mau Mau oath of racial hatred, and to Archbishop Luwum who died on the orders of Idi Amin in 1977. We commemorate the unnamed saints, whose simple faith, zeal in evangelism, and loving service have caused the church to grow rapidly in Tropical Africa. We remember the courageous witness of Christian minorities in North Africa and those who in Southern Africa struggled against the injustice of apartheid.
Sentence
I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, says the Lord, to give drink to my chosen people, so that they might declare my praise.	Isaiah 43:20,21
Collects
Living God,
from the sands of the Sahara to the rain forests of Rwanda,
your word has been proclaimed and your glory revealed
in the lives of your saints and martyrs;
bless Africa,
guard her children,
guide her rulers,
give her peace,
and bring all her people to glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Creator God,
we praise you for the great renewing church of Africa,
for its growth and its leadership;
give us grace to listen and to learn.
Psalms	87	127
Readings
Isaiah 61:4-9		Renowned among the nations
Hebrews 11:32-12:2		A cloud of witnesses
John 17:18-23		For their sake I consecrate myself
Post Communion Sentence
The one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.		Philippians 1:6