Meeting the modern-day missionaries

There are more Christian missionaries in the world today than ever before. Len Williams, whose father was a missionary, finds out what draws people to this calling

Christian missionaries have had a significant influence on the world (Getty/iStock)

One of my earliest memories consists of my brother and my parents and me lying on the floor of our home one day, as gunfire rumbles nearby. We’re lying in an internal corridor just in case an explosive hits the outside of the house. I’m dressed in a homemade Superman outfit, red pants over blue trousers and T-shirt.

It was 1990 and I would have been about two-and-a-half. Our home was in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, and the gunbattle raging somewhere near the house was a precursor to the country’s horrific genocide which broke out in April 1994. That was when we left.

The reason I have this specific early memory is due to my father being a missionary with the UK’s Church Mission Society (CMS) between 1986 and 1994. My dad, a great linguist, was leading a local team to translate the Bible from its source material (ancient Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic) into Kinyarwanda, the language spoken in Rwanda.