‘Mama’, known in the Congo as ‘Mama Mangwete’ and then ‘Mama Mokili’, was born Edith Rebecca Stevens in Tring. She had the courage, confidence and conviction of the Victorian culture and the Baptist Christian faith into which she was born. This led to marriage with a Baptist Missionary, and to a quite extraordinary life for a lady of her time. Aged twenty seven, Edith Rebecca journeyed up the River Congo in 1893 to join her first husband, the Reverend Walter ‘Mangwete’ Stapleton. Hers was no mythical journey into the Heart of Darkness but a very practical expedition by which she meant to carry her faith to those whose souls she believed remained in darkness. For over forty years she befriended and served these people, through sickness and danger - and a great deal of joy.Fortunately, Edith Rebecca had the keen observation of the gifted writer. In her many letters to family and friends and her contributions to the ‘B.M.S Quarterly Notes’ she wrote vividly of what she..
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