Kumm’s passion for the people of the Sahara drew him to travel further and further into the desert. In early 1899, Kumm travelled to the oasis of Fayum. His companions were the well-known English evangelist Henry Grattan Guinness – one of the founders of the North Africa Mission – and his daughter Lucy. Lucy was, herself, quite well-known in London as a Christian writer and editor. Her pen aflame for the gospel, Lucy edited the “Regions Beyond” magazine and wrote pleading appeals for the unreached peoples of China, India and Arabia. By the time Lucy met Karl Kumm, she had already served the Lord in Tasmania, East London and India.
As missionary historian J Lowry Maxwell wrote, “Indeed it was hardly to be wondered at that the two drew together, for do not fire and heat ever keep company the one with the other?” Karl and Lucy were married in Cairo in February 1900 and within two years their combined passion for the spread of the gospel in what was then called ‘the Soudan’, gave rise to the Soudan Pioneer Mission. In 1904, the name was changed to Sudan United Mission to reflect the new unified effort between the Kumms and the like-minded Christians who had joined the effort, and by the end of that year the first four pioneer missionaries had travelled to what is now Nigeria. Karl Kumm was amongst them as SUM’s leader and founder. Lucy remained in England and continued to use her pen to advocate for the work of SUM while Karl opened new areas for the gospel in Nigeria. Together, they launched a work amongst the unreached of Africa that is still thriving today.
SUM would go on to renamed Action Partners, before becoming Pioneers UK.
COCIN, the Church of Christ in Nations (formerly Nigeria) traces its roots to the work of Karl and Lucy. Today it has over 8 million members.
