The Mother From Far Away with K.A. Ellis
In this week’s episode, Karen Ellis is going to share the story of an incredible woman named Maria Fearing. Maria’s story will inspire you to set aside excuses and serve the Lord with gladness. We pray that this episode challenges you to use whatever God’s given you to build his kingdom. In our Women of the Faith series, we are talking about women from church history who will encourage us to trust our God who does not change.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Tell us about your personal connection with Maria? When did you first learn about her?
During what time period did Maria grow up?
Where did she hear about God? When did she know that she belonged to him?
Why was it her dream to go to Africa? When was she able to go? How would she get there?
Tell us about the missionary couple she met while she was sewing dresses. What happened next?
How did she stand up to injustices in the Congo?
How did Scripture strengthen and embolden her?
How did she bring the gospel to those who needed it?
In what way did Maria become a mother to many?
TWO QUESTIONS I ASK EVERY GUEST
What are your 3 simple joys when it comes to studying church history?
What figure from church history has had the greatest impact on your journey with Jesus?
NOTES & QUOTES
Maria Fearing
Born July 26, 1838 near Gainesville, Alabama to parents Mary and Jesse. Her family was enslaved and worked on a plantation, where she heard and learned the gospel.
Maria was 27 years old when she was set free at the end of the American Civil War. After being emancipated, she worked as a seamstress and teacher and purchased her own home.
In her 50s, Maria went as a missionary to the Belgian Congo with her church congregation and William Henry Sheppard as the first African-American-led mission teams. She sold her home to help pay for her trip to Congo. Maria was literate and helped to translate the Bible into a local language. She also helped rescue many children from brutality and enslavement and cared for them in the Pantops Home for Girls in Luebo.
“She never had biological children of her own, but God satisfied that longing and made her the mother of many.” The children gave her the name “mama wa mputu” which means “mother from far away”.
The church encouraged her to retire in her 70s and retired in Selma, AL as a teacher. She was honored by the Presbyterian Women’s Hall of Fame, which was unusual for an African American woman to receive that kind of honor in the South. She died at age 99 on May 23, 1937.
There are people all throughout history whose names we will never know. There are so many ordinary people who mark major events in the NT who we will never know. But do we care if our names are written in the history books or in the Lamb’s Book of Life? All our stories and details are written in that book. He knows and he sees.
Unseen saints encourage us to walk forward in faith: “The Christian life is like a bullseye” and in the center is the only Christian who has lived it perfectly, Jesus Christ. As we study all these people around the bullseye, how do we live our lives closer to that bullseye?
Learning to interrogate: how do I leave behind as little bad things as possible? With the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, how do we bring others forward to the kingdom of Christ and pass helpful things along to the next generation?
We have a handful of Maria’s surviving letters. Behind her efforts to create an entire grammatical system for the tribe they were working with Congo, is a discipline that was exemplary of African Americans before the turn of that century. This team had a concept of whole-life education that honors God, not just academics. Staying up by candlelight with no electricity to complete a language for a people shows how hard they worked to honor this group of people that God had created. So different from us who waste so much time.
“God, give me the same passion and discipline to get up and do what I’m supposed to do” in contracts, promises, and evangelism. Our time is limited.
What do I want to spend the rest of my life doing? “I really want to be about the Lord’s business and I wish I had known this 20 years ago.”
How did the Scriptures strengthen and embolden Maria for the work set before her? Practical theology stands out. Maria and those like her would read the book of Acts and walk out her door and see that it happened.
There are so many ways to be a biblical Christian woman. We have a commonality in Christ, but there’s a diversity in how he allows us to express the way he’s called us to live. The Lord shapes us according to how he’s gifted us. We can afford each other the latitude to be who God has made us to be.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
What did you take away from learning about the life of Maria Fearing?
What do you learn about God through the life of Maria Fearing?
How are you spending your time? What would it look like to “be about the Lord’s business” in your day-to-day life?
Taking into account your current season of life, what are you passing along to the next generation and how can you do this unto the Lord?
Do you care more about your name being recorded in history books or in the Lamb’s Book of Life? Explain.
IMPORTANT NOTE
Journeywomen interviews are intended to serve as a springboard for continued study in the context of your local church. While we carefully select guests each week, interviews do not imply Journeywomen's endorsement of all writings and positions of the interviewee or any other resources mentioned.
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