Firstly, I would like to thank Professor Allan Anderson for his patient supervision of my work during this thesis. In 2011 when I was talking in his office about a different kind of thesis, he dropped into the conversation that there was not yet any academic biography on W.F.P. Burton. So it was that Anderson lit the blue touch paper. His nudges and hints at lines of enquiry ever since have been an immense encouragement.
I was so grateful that I went to spend a full day with Des Cartwright in his home in 2011, eight months before he died. He had never met me before. I came away not just with some specific knowledge and a wad of documents, but I had imbibed a love for digging deep into new archival material and a readiness to challenge orthodox readings of pentecostal history. I so regret it was never possible to go back and talk further with him.
Ngoy Shalumbo was someone I knew throughout the eighties as my local pastor at Kipushya. I am grateful to him for making the ninety-mile journey from Kipushya to Kabinda on a bicycle just to see me in 2011. He told me all that his father, Shalumbo, had ever told him. He died in June 2016 and will forever be remembered for his patient listening ear by the people of Kipushya.
Walter Hawkins was a great friend of my father’s and someone I had known all my life. He died in 2015. Visiting him in his early nineties at the end of 2012 and seeing him continuing to paint African scenes (as Burton had first suggested he did in 1944) was a pleasure. He had frustrated the cause of pentecostal historiography by not releasing some archival material. I am so grateful that he allowed his daughter to pass on to me the correspondence that he had been keeping. This enabled a significant part of chapter six. He had earlier passed on material to Des Cartwright, which enabled chapter two to be written.
Ngoy Mbesengye died in 2015, no one knew his age. As far as I know he remained cynical towards the gospel throughout his life. He was an enormous help with information about Shalumbo and the early
Claude Kapenga is a former student of mine from Kipushya. His own love of history has been a great help. He has been ready to drop everything and pursue any line of enquiry that I have asked him to. I am especially grateful to him for his idea to fly from Lubumbashi to Kalemie to talk with an aged Ngoy Mbesengye, his talking with Otaniele Beseka’s daughter Yumba Blandine, his talking with Nsenga Nkunka about his friend Ephraim Kayumba and his phoning an aged Stéphane Makaba in Lulungu to talk about the killing of two CEM missionaries. I enjoyed many meals with him talking about pentecostal history in Lubumbashi.
Lunches with Neil Hudson have been regular occurrences for the last twenty years. It’s always good to pick his brain about anything. He has been an attentive ear when talking about Burton. It was in a conversation with Neil that I found myself talking for the first time about Burton’s frustrated idealism. That conversation gave some direction to this book.
I am grateful to the many Congolese who were willing to sit down and talk with me about Burton: Monga Ngoy in Brussels, Ilunga Kazembe travelling from Mwanza to spend an afternoon and an evening with me in Luamba and Yumba Mukuba already in Luamba. Others have been of help talking about Shalumbo: Daniel Mikoso, meeting both myself and Claude Kapenga on my behalf in Lubumbashi; Ngoy Kilumba and Nkongolo Ebondo, grandchildren of Shalumbo, for talking in Kabinda. Ngoy Bilolo allowing me to take his own archival material in Kabinda was also a great help. Nsomwe Kitengie Parson with his dream of setting up a Basongye heritage centre in Kabinda was also helpful as too as was the late Kiungu Nsamba who described the very first Brethren missionaries arriving in Mitombe.
CEM missionaries I have contacted have helped with this book. Roy and Marion Leeming probably have no idea as to how important was their passing on to me correspondence between Burton and David Lillie. It opened up a whole new avenue to investigate. Dave Garrard’s help has been especially useful to make sure I eventually had access to CEM archives when this was not initially opened up to me. David Womersley, Edmund and Heather Rowlands have also talked with me and I am grateful to them for answering questions about certain details.
Penultimately, I must thank my brother Leslie, for his patient reading through the whole book and for his knowledgeable insights from his own past experiences of life in the world of Pentecostalism in Congo and Britain. This included a decade as a trustee of the Congo Evangelistic Mission. He has always been there ready to help and for that I am more grateful than he realises.
Finally, Philippa, Jon and Lauren, Jess and Ben know me better than anyone else. They have all seen me pre-occupied at times and missed out on my time and attention, but have never challenged my love for them. They all have a wonderful sense of humour that has kept me grounded in my own idealism, but kept me too from overplaying my frustrations.