Mutombo Katshi

Abstract This chapter focuses on Gilbert’s 1911–1912 mission to the Belgian Congo with Bishop Walter Russell Lambuth of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS), using evidence from the preserved typescript of Lambuth’s diary and the surviving fragments of Gilbert’s now-lost diary. The chapter begins by tracing the origins of the joint interracial mission of the MECS and the Colored Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church, including Lambuth’s early interest in Africa, the arrival of several Zulu students at Paine College, and Gilbert’s desire to find a new purpose for Paine College as a missionary training school. From there, the chapter traces Gilbert’s 28,000-mile round trip from Augusta to the Congo and back again, including nearly a thousand miles on foot through the Kasai region of central Congo. The chapter offers new insight on Gilbert’s relationships with famed African American Presbyterian missionary William Henry Sheppard and with Bishop Lambuth. It traces Gilbert and Lambuth’s trek from the Presbyterian mission at Luebo in search of a spot to locate a Methodist mission and explains how the two Americans made contact with Chief Wembo Nyama who invited them to found a mission in his territory. The chapter pays particular attention to Gilbert’s study of African languages and to his relationships with the African people he met.