Local pastor publishes ninth biography
It takes a great amount of time and dedication to immortalize a person’s life onto a page. Even more so when such great moments have vastly impacted history around the world.
Vance Christie, a former pastor at the Evangelical Free Church of Aurora, has spent 24 years dedicating his life towards writing biographies of notable people and their legacies within Christian work alongside his 25 years serving his congregation.
On July 26, Christie received a hard copy of his latest book, “David Livingstone: Missionary, Explorer, Abolitionist.” The biography tells the extensive life of the missionary from Scotland who dedicated his life’s work to spreading the Christian faith across both Europe and many regions in south-central Africa from 1840-1873.
“Christian Focus Publications are headquartered in Scotland, but I’ve had the opportunity to write a few works for them.” Christie explained.
“They actually asked me if I would have interest in writing a volume about Livingstone,” the author said.
Having previously written biographies about Christian leaders such as Andrew Murray, David Brainerd, Adoniram Judson and more, it was an opportunity Christie couldn’t pass up.
“I knew him exclusively as a missionary, for my limited acquaintance with and growing up, but what I discovered is reflected in the subtitle there,” Christie explained.
He noted that Livingstone was not only a very influential missionary, but that he also was an explorer and abolitionist when it came to slavery.
His legacy goes beyond into his explorations that gave insight into the geography, fauna, cultures and wonders from the southern regions of Africa that were a mystery before his time. From his discoveries and missionary work in Africa, Christie pointed out that Livingstone was a leading voice that contributed to the freedom and abolition of slave trade routes in Africa, pushing the British Empire to stop the slave trade and slavery altogether in both its commonwealth and colonies.
To build his biography, Christie researched previous sources dedicated to the documentation of Livingstone’s life. Among them being Livingstone’s own books that he wrote about his findings during his missionary work in Africa.
In addition to using recovered letters written by associates of Livingstone or Livingstone himself, Christie discovered the complexity of who Livingstone was.
“Livingstone had quite the sense of humor,” Christie said. “And he lived through such extremely difficult circumstances, almost continually, that there’s a lot of heaviness in the book, heavy circumstances, difficulties that he was working through.”
The primary focus Christie had when creating his biography was to go through as much thorough detail about Livingstone’s life as possible. From the sources that carry Livingstone’s memory, he wanted to create a biography that truly highlighted not only the prominent moments in Livingstone’s life, but to capture the moments that define Livingstone.
While his previous eight works each took two years to research and write, Christie dedicated six years to writing the biography of Livingstone.
“He was just full of good humor and recounting incidents from his travels that people found very entertaining,” Christie said. “So to put that together in the depiction of one person, is a challenge.”
One of these intriguing stories has to do with the origin of a iconic line often associated with Livingstone.
“He was destitute, because supporters from Britain, friends in the government had been sending him support to provide him with supplies. But caravan after caravan who were given the responsibility to get supplies to him, they pilfered virtually all his goods before they could get to him. And there was no one to prevent that.” Christie recounts.
“So he ended up absolutely destitute, very poor health at Ujiji,” Christie continued. “And all of a sudden, this American journalist, Henry Morton Stanley, shows up with a huge caravan and with all kinds of supplies that he brought for Livingston. And when Stanley first met, Livingston, those were his opening words: ‘Dr. Livingstone, I presume?’”
Christie spoke in awe about a moment in Livingstone’s life he enjoyed writing about; a chapter within his book where Livingstone speaks before Cambridge University students to encourage pursuits in missionary work.
Returning to Africa
“He ended his address to the effect of ‘I’m returning to Africa. I leave it to you.’ Basically, he was saying to come behind me and help meet the needs in Africa. And he finished his address, and he sat down and the gallery where he was speaking to -- the whole student body -- just erupted in cheers and the reports are that they had never actually seen a speaker received with that degree of goodwill and that kind of an emotional response.”
Noting that Livingstone was often accused, both during his lifetime and in the years since, of abandoning his missionary work to pursue exploration and abolition, Christie said his heart was touched to hear of the response to the missionary’s message.
“In his heart of hearts, he always considered himself a missionary first and foremost, and some people accused him of forsaking his missionary call to carry out these long explorations,” Christie said. “He was a missionary, even when he was exploring or speaking out against slavery.”
One of the individuals Christie credited with having a major influence on his research and writing of the biography is his wife, Leeta.
“She read through the book with me,” Christie said. “And that was kind of like a final editing that both of us were looking and trying to pick up on anything that wasn’t quite right. And then, now that the book has come out, she’s reading it again. I mean, how can you beat support like that?”
In another note of appreciation, Christie spoke in thanks to his congregation at the Evangelical Free Church for allowing him the time to pursue his writing.
Christie’s years of research into the life of Livingstone will continue to be put to use in the months ahead. He said his publisher has asked him to write a book about the missionary for a series of children’s books it is publishing.
Christie will be hosting a book launch event for his newest edition at the Senior Center in Aurora at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 17. All are welcome to attend.