Welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history. On this episode we are talking about Robert Moffat. He was a Scottish missionary to

Africa. He was a Bible translator and he was the husband of Mary and their oldest

daughter their first child was named Mary and that

daughter went on to Mary another missionary to Africa, none other than the legend David Livingston.

But back to Robert Moffitt, he was born in Scotland in 1795.

He moved to England and he worked as a gardener in the town of High Lay, pretty much right in between

Liverpool and Manchester.

He soon felt the call of God to be a missionary and he applied to the London Missionary Society.

The London Missionary Society was founded in the same year that Moffitt was born. It came about through

correspondence between John Ryland and the missionary to India, William Carey.

The London Missionary Society began with a handful of donors and a handful of missionaries

and they were assisted by a ship's captain who offered his services to take missionaries to these far-flung lands, Gratas.

Well, in 1816, the London Missionary Society commissioned Robert Moffitt and sent him off to South Africa.

He and his wife Mary and their first daughter Mary would eventually settle and work among

the Botswana people.

These were not easy years at all.

The times were very difficult, very challenging,

full of trials and dangers for the Moffat family.

Moffat records times of going without food

and there was even one occasion

where they went without water for a couple days and at the end of that time

Moffat could not even speak.

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