Birth: 21-09-1925
Home Calling : 07-12-2016
Native Place : Hertfordshire
Country: England
Place of Vision: Africa
Helen Roseveare served as a medical missionary in Congo during one of the most chaotic periods in the nation’s history. The yearning to become a missionary arose in her at a very early age when their Sunday school teacher once told them about India. While at Cambridge University, she accepted Christ during a student retreat. At the end of the retreat, Bible teacher Graham Scroggie wrote Philippians 3:10 in her Bible, and told her “Tonight you’ve entered into the first part of this verse- ‘That I may know Him.’ My prayer for you is that you will go on through the verse to know ‘the power of His resurrection’ and ‘the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death.”” She felt an increased sense of missionary calling and told God “Make me more like Jesus, whatever the cost.”
In 1953, at the age of 28, Helen stepped into North-Eastern Congo. There she established a hospital and training centre for nurses. In 1955, she was transferred to run an abandoned maternity and leprosy center in Nebobongo which she later developed into a hospital. She was given the name ‘Mama Luka’ after Luke, the biblical physician.
After the independence of Congo, a civil war broke out in 1964, during which she was not only imprisoned and cruelly beaten but also brutally raped. Upon her release after five months, soon she overcame the shame of being sexually assaulted and used this experience to encourage others who had been through similar experiences. Through her ministry, many found physical, emotional, and spiritual healing.
In 1966, she came back to Congo and served there till 1973. Rest of her life she served as a missionary advocate and authored several books. She, who viewed her sufferings as minor sacrifices before the great sacrifice of Calvary, considered it a privilege to partake in Christ’s sufferings in a small way.
