Peter Cameron Scott was born in Scotland to Christian parents. In 1873, he and his friends heard D. L. Moody sing to the people at his meetings. It brought tears to Scott’s eyes when they sang Jesus Loves Me. Scott’s family was very poor and when his sister died, they moved to America and settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attempted to seek out an Opera singing career but his parents would not let him. At the age of twenty-two in 1889, he joined the Christian Alliance Training Institute in New York, run by Albert Benjamin Simpson who was the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination.

Scott did not finish school because he felt an urgency to preach. Consequently, in 1890, he was ordained and commissioned by A. B. Simpson to go to Congo. His brother joined him a few months later, only to die and be buried by Scott. Scott was struck down by tropical diseases which forced him to retire to England to recuperate. During this time, he read widely about missions. In 1895, his dreams were received and enlarged when he and a group of missionary enthusiasts formed three organizations: the Pennsylvania Bible Institute, the Central American Industrial Mission, and the Africa Inland Mission.

That same year, Peter Cameron Scott, along with seven other people, sailed to East Africa and first settled at Nwazi, Kenya. Within a year, Peter Cameron Scott died from the dreaded Black Water Fever at the age of 29.

Scott never married. Later on, his whole family went to Africa to do mission work, although they could not keep up with the rigors of missionary life and eventually resorted to other vocations.

Scott is remembered for his diligence and single-mindedness, having walked 2,600 miles in one year and having installed missionaries in four locations in his one year of missionary work in Kenya.

Bela B. Kalumbete

Bibliography

D. Anderson, *We Felt Like Grasshoppers * (Crossway Books, 1994), 17-22.

G. Anderson, ed., Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1998), 608.

John Baur, 2000 Years of Christianity in Africa (Nairobi, Kenya: Paulines Publications Africa, 1994), 256.

A. Scott Moreau, ed., Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2000), 860.

K. Richardson, *Garden of Miracles * (Africa Inland Church, 1968), 21-36.

Mark Shaw, The Kingdom of God in Africa (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1996), 192, 217.

This article was researched and written by Bela B. Kalumbete, a Project Luke Fellow associated with the Africa Inland Church, Tanzania.