Retired Presbyterian missionary, daughter shot dead in Kenya

by Global Ministries | published on Oct 10, 2014

A retired missionary for the Louisville-based Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been killed along with her daughter after a carjacking in Kenya, the denomination reports.

Presbyterian missionary Lois Anderson, who served for four decades in Kenya and Sudan, and her daughter, Zelda White, were shot in a village a few miles from Nairobi on Jan. 27.

The carjackers escaped with the vehicle but soon abandoned it, the Presbyterian News Service reported, quoting international news reports. Police said that two of the suspected carjackers were later killed by police.

Anderson had retired with her husband and fellow missionary, Bill, to South Carolina, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported on January 30. White had earlier lived with her husband in Kenya, and the Andersons had traveled to east African country from their South Carolina home for a family gathering, said Doug Welch, the Presbyterian church’s area coordinator for Africa.

“The Andersons are known across east Africa for their decades of service to the church, especially in the area of theological education,” Welch said. “They are known through much of the PCUSA for their unending commitment to God’s mission and their selfless presentation of the work that God called them to.”

Welch, a former PCUSA missionary in Africa, noted: “The mission community is an extended family and the family shares deep grief over this tragic news.”

Anderson and White were traveling in a US embassy vehicle and were relatives of an embassy employee.

In a separate incident on Jan. 27, Geoffrey Chege, the regional director of aid agency, CARE International, was shot dead in a carjacking attempt near one of Nairobi’s most upscale suburbs, the aid agency reports. He was returning from a prayer meeting with his wife, who was not hurt. Kenyan-born Chege would have turned 57 in March.

Written by Ecumenical News International
Tuesday, 30 January 2007