by James Ray – Executive Editor

“I have seen, at different times, the smoke of a thousand villages–villages whose people are without Christ, without God, and without hope in this world.”
– Robert Moffat (1795–1883)

Robert Moffat, from Scotland, arrived in Cape Town, Africa, as a missionary in 1817. Moffat pioneered mission stations in the interior and translated the Bible into the language of the local tribes. David Livingstone married Moffat’s oldest daughter, Mary. It was Moffat’s statement (above) that inspired Livingstone to become a missionary to Africa to follow the “smoke of a thousand villages.”

Since Moffat and Livingstone, there have been hundreds of men and women who have gone to Africa with the Gospel. The generation of Moffat and Livingstone has long been in eternity. With every passing day, a new Africa is born, and smoke rises from thousands of places to which the sound of the Gospel has not echoed.

Mary and I returned from Uganda, Africa, with a new, wider vision. Many provinces in Africa have not changed much from the days of Livingstone at least out in the vast countryside among the villages. Most of the people walk everywhere. One of our missionaries took us to a village to see a woman who walks five miles one way to attend his church. Most of the villages in Uganda have no running water or electricity in their mud huts. They live so far back in time, yet the missionaries are reaching them with the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the lives of native Christians, the church and Christ are the most exciting things they know. Some of the most dedicated men and women I have ever met are working in Africa. They are “angels” of God bringing light to a vast continent of darkness. Look carefully at the picture of some the missionaries serving with BIMI in Africa. They, too, have seen “the smoke of a thousand villages” and they have followed the vision. We must pray for them.

What Moffat saw in Africa was only a small representation of the need of the world. All across the world there are millions of villages and billions of souls who wait for gospel light. The following articles follow “the trail of smoke” throughout the villages and cities of Latin America.

James and Mary Ray with Ugandan believers.