This week’s famous Kentucky Christian is Martha Cross. Her
story may trigger conversations in your youth groups and children’s church about
perseverance.
Martha Cross emigrated to Liberia with her husband, Alexander, and their seven-year-old son, James, in 1853. They were the first missionaries
to Africa sent from Kentucky by the Disciples of Christ. Theirs was an
interesting story. Alexander was an enslaved barber. Both Martha and James were
free people of color. They attended the Ninth Street Christian Church in Hopkinsville,
Kentucky. The church decided to purchase Alexander and to fund the family’s
expenses to join the Kentucky Colonialization Society. This obliged them to
leave the United States. The church paid for their passage on the ship, Banshee,
as well as for the cost of a piece of land and their expenses for the first year.
Unfortunately, both Alexander and James died soon after arriving in Africa due
to a tropical disease. Martha stayed. Eventually she married another
missionary.
Ask your students how they think Martha Cross must have felt
after sailing across the ocean to a land she did not know to start a new life
for herself and her family. Then ask how they think she may have felt after
both her husband and her son died. She knew some people who had been passengers
with her on the Banshee but she was left grieving and alone. What would
your students have chosen to do? Would they have stayed in Liberia or would
they have tried to return to Kentucky? Why? If they had been listening to her
praying, what do they think she would be telling God? How do people keep going
when it seems like life is against them to steal their future, hope and
destiny?
By Lesley Barker ©2021
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