View entry
Name: COPE, L. M.
First Date: 1925
Profession: Friends' Africa Industrial Mission
Area: Kisumu
Book Reference: Red 25, Hut
General Information:
Web: Towards the end of C19, US Friend Willis Hotchkiss went to the American Friends Board of Foreign Missions (AFBFM) to propose a mission in Kenya. It would be an ‘industrial mission’, combining evangelism with income development and vocational training. He was sure that a successful mission had to do more than evangelise.
AFBFM could not help, so he returned to his old college, the Friends Bible Institute, in Cleveland, Ohio. There his vision inspired student Arthur Chilson, and soon they were busy gathering support. In 1902 they and a third missionary, Edgar Hole, were ready to go to Kenya to set up the Friends African Industrial Mission.
Kenya was then under British rule, so after they had travelled on the new railway from Mombasa to Kisumu, on Lake Victoria in the far west, they went to see the British District Commissioner. He helped them identify a 1000-acre plot at Kaimosi, still a key focus for Kenyan Friends today, and an ideal location for the mission. At 5500 feet, the climate was comfortable, and the land was fertile and well forested, with ample water. The Luhya peoples they hoped to reach were close by, but Kaimosi itself was almost uninhabited.
They recruited a team to work with them, and soon the mission took shape. They built houses and roads, and a sawmill, with a dam to power it. Soon they began a school and a clinic. Hotchkiss didn’t stay long, but other missionaries came from the US to join Chilson and Hole, including their wives, and by 1904 there were four missionary couples – the Chilsons, the Holes, doctor Elisha Blackburn and his wife, and Emory and Deborah Rees.
For several years there were only 10 or so converts, mostly mission employees, though the industrial side grew. But these early converts, such as Yohano Amagune, soon became missionaries themselves. Amugune returned to his home at Chavakali, and set up a church and school there. Quakerism began to take root.