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| Founded | 1895 |
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| Founder | Peter Cameron Scott |
| Type | Evangelical missions agency |
Area served | 13+ African nations |
| Website | AIM International site, AIM USA Site, AIM Canada Site,AIM Europe Site |
Established in 1895, Africa Inland Mission (AIM) is a Christian mission sending agency focused on Africa. Their stated mission is to see "Christ-centered churches established among all African peoples." [1] AIM established the Kapsowar Hospital in 1933.
Africa Inland Mission had its beginning in the work of Peter Cameron Scott (1867–1896), a Scottish-American missionary who served two years in the Congo before being forced to seek medical care in Britain in 1892 because of a near-fatal illness. While recuperating, he developed his idea of establishing a network of mission stations which would stretch from the southeast coast of Africa to the interior's Lake Chad. He was unable to interest any churches in the idea (including his own), but managed to captivate several friends in Philadelphia. In 1895 they formed the Philadelphia Missionary Council.
More important than specialized training, AIM found acceptance among tribal people based on Christian commitment and moral standing. The council was headed by Rev. Charles Hurlburt, president of the Pennsylvania Bible Institute, the organisation which provided most of the mission's workers in its very early years.
On August 17, 1895, AIM's first mission party set off. The group consisted of Scott, his sister Margaret, and six others. They arrived off the east African coast in October, and in little over a year they established a network of mission stations which would eventually stretch from the southeast coast of the continent to the interior's Lake Chad.
The mission had four stations — at Nzaui, Sakai (Kenya), Kilungu, and Kangundo, Manyatta, all in Kenya. Additional workers arrived from Canada and the United States and the small group expanded to fifteen.
In December 1896, Peter Scott died of blackwater fever. The mission almost disbanded the following year when most of the workers either died or resigned. The council began to take more responsibility for the work and appointed Hurlburt director of the mission. He and his family moved to Africa and for the next two decades he provided strong, if not undisputed, leadership for the headquarters, established in 1903 at Kijabe, Kenya.
After Kijabe, AIM expanded to Mataara (1908), Kinyona (1911), and a dispensary (today a hospital) in Kapsowar (1933). [2] [3] Of the Kikuyu who showed interest in the mission and its activities, many were from what would be considered the bottom rungs of society, lacking property and power, including ahoi (landless tenants) and people who were neither mbari nor riika leaders and unlikely to be so in future. [4] The AIM provided such people with an alternative route to power and status, just as others were being closed off, offered a refuge for some from the egregious aspects of domination by colonial chiefs and their colonial masters, and also furnished an opportunity for what some regarded as a more satisfying spiritual life within the Christian faith. [2]
From Kenya, the mission expanded its work to neighboring countries. In 1909, a station was set up in what was then German East Africa and later became Tanzania. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt pulled some strings, persuading the Belgian government to permit a mission station in colonial Congo. Work began in Uganda in 1918; in French Equatorial Africa (Central African Republic) in 1924; Sudan in 1949; and the islands of the Indian Ocean in 1975. Besides evangelism, workers of the mission ran clinics, hospitals, schools, publishing operations, and radio programs. The Rift Valley Academy was built at Kijabe for missionary children. Scott Theological College in Kenya helped train African church leaders. The churches founded by the mission in each of its fields were eventually organised into branches of the independent Africa Inland Church which continues to work closely with the mission today. [5]
Africa Inland Mission's stated mission is see "Christ centered Churches established among all African peoples." Their goal is to introduce Jesus Christ to those who have never heard of him. AIM seeks to help new believers grow strong and healthy in their faith and to see new believers enfolded into a maturing church. The organization aims to invest in the lives of current and future church leaders so they can effectively affect the lives of others who can in turn reach out to the vast population of Africa and beyond. The Mission Handbook gives AIM's goal "to plant maturing churches...through the evangelization of unreached people groups and the effective preparation of church leaders." [6]
A part of Eastern Africa, the territory of what is known as Kenya has seen human habitation since the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic. The Bantu expansion from a West African centre of dispersal reached the area by the 1st millennium AD. With the borders of the modern state at the crossroads of the Bantu, Nilo-Saharan and Afro-Asiatic ethno-linguistic areas of Africa, Kenya is a truly multi-ethnic state.
Rift Valley Academy (RVA) is a Christian boarding school located in Kijabe, Kenya run by the African Inland Mission. It was founded in 1906 by Charles Hurlburt.
A Christian mission is an organized effort for the propagation of the Christian faith. Missions involve sending individuals and groups across boundaries, most commonly geographical boundaries, to carry on evangelism or other activities, such as educational or hospital work. Sometimes individuals are sent and are called missionaries, and historically may have been based in mission stations. When groups are sent, they are often called mission teams and they do mission trips. There are a few different kinds of mission trips: short-term, long-term, relational and those that simply help people in need. Some people choose to dedicate their whole lives to mission. Missionaries preach the Christian faith, and provide humanitarian aid. Christian doctrines permit the provision of aid without requiring religious conversion. However, Christian missionaries are implicated in the genocide of indigenous peoples. Around 100,000 native people in California, U.S., or 1/3 of the native population, are said to have died due to missions.
Indigenous churches are churches suited to local culture and led by local Christians. There have been two main Protestant strategies proposed for the creation of indigenous churches:
OMF International is an international and interdenominational Evangelical Christian missionary society with an international centre in Singapore. It was founded in Britain by Hudson Taylor on 25 June 1865.
Kijabe is a town in Kenya.
The Church Mission Society (CMS), formerly known as the Church Missionary Society, is a British mission society working with Christians around the world. Founded in 1799, CMS has attracted over nine thousand men and women to serve as mission partners during its 200-year history. The society has also given its name "CMS" to a number of daughter organisations around the world, including Australia and New Zealand, which have now become independent.
The Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa (AFM) is a classical Pentecostal Christian denomination in South Africa. With 1.2 million adherents, it is South Africa's largest Pentecostal church and the fifth largest religious grouping in South Africa representing 7.6 percent of the population. Dr. Isak Burger has led the AFM as president since 1996 when the white and black branches of the church were united. It is a member of the Apostolic Faith Mission International, a fellowship of 23 AFM national churches. It is also a member of the South African Council of Churches.
John William Arthur was a medical missionary and Church of Scotland minister who served in British East Africa (Kenya) from 1907 to 1937. He was known simply as Doctor Arthur to generations of Africans.
Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) is a Presbyterian denomination headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. In Kenya, 10% of the population is Presbyterian. It was started by missionaries from Scotland, most notable of whom was Dr John Arthur. It has its headquarters in Nairobi South C.
Kikuyu is a town in Kiambu County, Kenya, which grew from a settlement of colonial missionaries. The town is located about 20 km (12 mi) northwest of central Nairobi. It is about 20 minutes from Nairobi via a number of routes, including a dual carriage road, and has a railway station on the Mombasa – Malaba Railway Line. The town is named after the Kikuyu/Gĩkũyũ people, the major ethnicity that settled in the area. As of 2019 the total population is 323,881.
Peter Cameron Scott (1867–1896) was a Scottish-American missionary and founder of Africa Inland Mission.
The predominant religion in Kenya is Christianity, which is adhered to by an estimated 85.5% of the total population. Islam is the second largest religion in Kenya, practised by 10.9 percent of Kenyans. Other faiths practised in Kenya are Baháʼí, Buddhism, Hinduism and traditional religions.
Kalamba is town found in Makueni Constituency Makueni County in Kenya. The town was started as a mission station of Africa Inland Mission in 1895 by Peter Cameron Scott. In Kalamba, there is final resting place for Peter Scott.
Lari Constituency is an electoral constituency in Kenya, located forty kilometers from Nairobi along the Nairobi-Nakuru highway. Lari is located in the Western part of Kiambu County. The constituency was established in 1966. Lari borders Kinangop to the North, Limuru to the South, Githunguri and Gatundu North constituencies to the east and Naivasha Constituency to the west. Lari is one of the 12 sub-counties in Kiambu County, and is further divided to five wards each electing a representative to the Kiambu County Assembly.
The National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), (in Swahili, Baraza kuu la makanisa nchini Kenya) is a fellowship of Protestant churches and Christian organisations registered in Kenya. It is currently Chaired by the Africa Brotherhood Church (ABC) Archbishop Dr. Timothy N. Ndambuki. Its motto is "For Wananchi" which means "for citizens" (Wananchi meaning citizens in Swahili): This motto has been exemplified in NCCK's long involvement in public service, advocacy, and social responsibility in Kenya. It is a member of the Fellowship of Christian Councils and Churches in the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa.
The campaign against female genital mutilation in colonial Kenya (1929–1932), also known as the female circumcision controversy, was a period within Kenyan historiography known for efforts by British missionaries, particularly from the Church of Scotland, to stop the practice of female genital mutilation in colonial Kenya. The campaign was met with resistance by the Kikuyu, the country's largest tribe. According to American historian Lynn M. Thomas, female genital mutilation became a focal point of the movement campaigning for independence from British rule, and a test of loyalty, either to the Christian churches or to the Kikuyu Central Association, the largest association of the Kikuyu people.
The Congo-Balolo Mission (CBM) was a British Baptist missionary society that was active in the Belgian Congo, the present day Democratic Republic of the Congo, from 1889 to 1915. It was the predecessor of the Regions Beyond Missionary Union (RBMU), established in 1900, which today is called World Team.
Hulda Jane Stumpf was an American Christian missionary who was murdered in her home near the Africa Inland Mission station in Kijabe, Kenya, where she worked as a secretary and administrator.
Marion Scott Stevenson was a Scottish missionary with the Church of Scotland Mission in British East Africa (Kenya) from 1907 until 1929.
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