Eliza Davis George, 1879 – 1980

Eliza Davis George, 1879 – 1980

Missionary, Educator, and Church Planter

Eliza Davis George was born in Texas to two formerly enslaved parents. Though brought up in a Baptist home, it wasn’t until Eliza was 16 years old that she accepted Jesus as her Lord.

While studying to become a teacher at Central Texas College, Eliza heard God call her to become a missionary to Africa after attending a prayer meeting for the nations. Despite the resistance from the missions board for a young African American woman to become a missionary, Eliza held tight to her calling and cultivated a deep life of prayer, often interceding all night for the unsaved in Africa, until she boarded a ship that took her to Liberia.

Eliza and another missionary opened up a school in central Liberia, where there were few schools, churches, or missionaries, called the Bible Industrial Academy. Within two years they had over 50 students and saw over 1,000 people accept Jesus as their savior.

Eliza based her ministry on the discipleship model - she would teach, train, and deploy people to go and do the same in other villages. By the 1960s, almost 50 years after arriving in Africa, the Eliza Davis George Baptist Association had planted twenty-seven churches in Liberia.

Eliza returned to Texas at the age of 99 and passed away a year later, leaving behind a legacy that could only be possible by a person willing to count the cost and whole-heartedly follow Jesus to save the lost.

“My African brother is calling me; Hark! Hark! I hear his voice . . . Would you say stay when God said go?” – Eliza Davis George