The Redeemed Life of Lena Clark, Christian Missionary in the Congo Free State

Abstract

I give an account of the development of church and humanitarian activity in Leopold II’s Congo Free State as it shaped the life of a Congo-born woman, Lena Clark. In her movements between Africa, Europe, and America, and in and out of mission service, Lena Clark’s life captures the motivations, frustrations and ironies of religious and humanitarian interventionism in the Congo. Circumstances surrounding her controversial departure from missionary service reveal pressures felt by Protestant missions in central Africa as locally based critics under public and political scrutiny. Lena Clark’s story reveals new questions on Protestant missions and humanitarian campaigning.