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courage...
sacrifice... faithfulness... |
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Unable to interest established missions in their vision,
the three set out,
following
God alone
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Africa
Three passionate and committed young men landed at Lagos, Nigeria in 1893. They ranged in age from 20 to 25 years. Each man had a vision to establish a Christian witness among the 60 million unreached people living in what was then known as the Sudan in sub-Saharan Africa.They were told it was an impossible dream.
Unable to interest established missions in their vision, the three set out, following God alone. Malaria overtook all three. Two of the men, Walter Gowans of Toronto, Canada, and Thomas Kent of Buffalo, New York, died of the fever. The third, English-born Rowland Bingham, returned to his home in Canada, ill, but still determined. Bingham made a second attempt to reach the Sudan, but once again came down with the fever and had to return home. Unable to return to Africa himself, Bingham sent out a third team. In 1902, the party successfully established a base 500 miles inland. From this base, the work of the Sudan Interior Mission began in Africa.
Africa Evangelical Fellowship (AEF) began its work in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1889 as the Cape (South Africa) General Mission under the leadership of Andrew Murray, Mrs. Martha Osborne, Spencer Walton, and George Howe. Starting from urban South Africa, missionary efforts spread into many of the other countries and people groups of southern Africa.
Asia
In 1893, off the southern tip of India, the Ceylon and India General Mission (CIGM) began work among Ceylon's Singhalese Buddhists and Tamil Hindus. From that island, the work begun by B. Davidson, D. Gardner, W. Mallis, and G. Wilson, all Englishmen, expanded into South India, later reaching across the subcontinent and eventually to the Philippines.
Also in 1893, Charles Reeve and M E Gavin left their homes in Australia after a Eurasian Christian from Poona, India, came to Australia in search of missionaries to work in his home area. Reeve and Gavin answered the challenge and set sail under the name Poona and Indian Village Mission (PIVM). In 1968, the two India/ South Asian missions joined to become the International Christian Fellowship (ICF).
South America
In 1907 New Zealander, George Allan, landed in Bolivia to minister to the Quechua Indians. Allan's Bolivian Indian Mission grew in the years that followed, spreading into Peru, and becoming the Andes Evangelical Mission (AEM).
Reaching the world together
In the 1980s, AEM, ICF, and SIM combined their unique skills and wide experience, and their common vision to reach the world for Christ and became SIM, Serving in Mission. In 1998 AEF merged with SIM. So AEF became a vital part of the Serving in Mission team.
Download an SIM history chartDownload a more detailed SIM history by Harold Fuller