Dan Crawford

Daniel Crawford was born in 1870 in Gourock, Scotland. He grew up in a family of Brethren believers and was sent to the Glasgow school. As a young man, he was drawn to the idea of missionary work in Africa, and in 1888, at the age of eighteen, he sailed for the African interior. He traveled with a group of Brethren missionaries and settled in the land of Garenganze, in the region of Katanga, in the southeast of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was a vast and remote country, ruled by a powerful chief named Msiri.

He soon came to know the people and their way of life. He lived among them, ate their food, learned their language and sought to understand their thinking. In 1890, a fellow missionary, Frederick Arnot, left the region, and Crawford took over much of the work. He also lived through the death of Msiri, who was killed in 1891 during a confrontation with a Belgian expedition. The country was then absorbed into the Congo Free State, and Crawford had to adapt to the new rulers.

He is best remembered for living the life of the African village, and he deliberately avoided the Western comforts that other missionaries kept. He dressed in simple clothes, walked long distances and built a house of the local style at Luanza, on the shore of Lake Mweru. He said that he was learning to think as an African thinks, and he used the phrase Thinking Black as the title of one of his books. In that book and in Back to the Long Grass, published in 1922, he told of his experiences in a lively and vivid way. The books were widely read in Britain and America and led many to support the work.

He translated the New Testament into the Luba language of the region and trained African evangelists. He believed that African Christians should lead their own churches, and he gave them responsibility. The church that grew from his work was strong and has lasted. He spent more than thirty years in Africa, with only a few short visits home.

He was a man of strong views, and he was not always careful with the reputations of others. His writing sometimes carried the attitudes of his time and place, and a modern reader may find some of his descriptions patronizing. He also had a stormy relationship with some of his fellow missionaries and with the colonial authorities, whom he criticized for the treatment of the people. He suffered from illness and from the loneliness of the work.

He died on May 15, 1926, at Luanza, at the age of fifty-five. He was buried in the land that had been his home. His life shows how deeply a missionary can enter into the life of a people, and how the gospel may be heard in the language of the heart.