My Dad, Keith Anderson

My Dad was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe on 25 November 1917, into a family of Congregational missionaries who had worked in southern Africa since 1800 with the London Missionary Society. His mother was Sheila Blyth from Beaufort West in the Western Cape and his father, William Anderson, was the fourth generation and had moved from South Africa to the west of Zimbabwe in 1915 to work for the LMS in Matabeleland. Dad was a fifth generation missionary and I was to be the sixth. He was second oldest of four brothers and four sisters (one who died aged seven). He grew up in a large rambling mission house that his father built in a remote part of the country near the Shangani River, a tributary of the mighty Zambezi. The seven children grew up speaking Sindebele and learning to love African people and their way of life. Dad was head-boy of his school, Milton High in Bulawayo, and joined the railways working as a bookkeeper clerk in 1937 until the outbreak of war in 1939. While at school he made a personal commitment of his life to Christ during a visit of Australian evangelist Lionel Fletcher and became a committed member of the Main Street Methodist Church in Bulawayo.

From the start of his Christian life he had strong principles, one of which was refusing to take up arms, and when called up in 1939 at the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the Southern Rhodesia Medical Corps, serving in Burma and Kenya, and he became a staff sergeant there. While in Nairobi, he was attracted to the evangelistic work of the Salvation Army and  became a soldier in about 1944. Determined to follow the leading of God he left for London at the end of the war in 1945 to be trained as a Salvation Army officer. After the International Training College he began a series of appointments as corps officer (pastor) in north London.

In June 1948 he married Captain Gwenyth Starbuck, daughter of Salvation Army officers, Colonel Thomas and Lily Starbuck. Gwen had worked in the air raid shelters in London during the war and became secretary to the Chief of the staff, Commissioner John J. Allan, after whom I was named. They had two children, Allan and Carol. Gwen’s dad had died in 1950, so Keith and Gwen continued working in London, although Dad was rearing to return to his native land and the African sun as a missionary officer. In 1953 they finally left the UK for Zimbabwe and had their first appointment as Training Officers at Howard Institute, Chiweshe, about 50 miles north of Harare.  This was followed by appointments as Divisional Officer for Lomagundi (in Chinhoyi), Mazabuka in Zambia, and back to Howard as Training Principal in 1962, then to his home Bulawayo as Regional Commander for Matabeleland, interspersed with furlough visits to the UK every five years. Among those trained by Mom and Dad was Commissioner Gideon Moyo, later Territorial Commander for Zimbabwe.

My father, like his father before him, was a strict disciplinarian. I admired his physical strength and independent determination to do what he was called to do. He served in the Salvation Army for sixty years, never counting his life dear to himself nor seeking greatness, power or authority, always faithful and obedient to those over him. In 1971 he was promoted to Brigadier and appointed Officer Commanding Zambia at the Command Headquarters in Lusaka. This was followed by an appointment to Johannesburg as Field Secretary for South Africa, a position he held until 1980. He was again near his family, and as I was then in the neighbouring city of Pretoria we saw each other often. My Dad and Mom were the inspiration for my own love for Africa and its peoples, and I followed their desire to see African leaders emerge, being involved in theological education since 1978.

Just before retirement Keith took a short appointment at IHQ in London while my mother cared for her ailing mother, who was a widow for 35 years until her death in 1985. My dad had two relief appointments alone on the Atlantic Ocean island of St Helena. After retirement in 1985 they moved to live with us in Pretoria, moving again with us in 1988 to our new educational centre at Tshwane Christian Ministries. For two years, my father acted as bookkeeper for our interdenominational mission and became a full-time grandfather to Matthew and Tami. He loved his three grandchildren very much, never too busy to spend quality time with them, visiting his daughter Carol and granddaughter Janine in North America on three occasions. He prayed for his children and grandchildren daily. 

When our family moved to Birmingham in 1995, four years later Dad and Mom moved back to the UK to be near their family and because of their failing health. They were now in their eighties. The last five years were the most difficult of Dad’s life, as he watched his wife and partner of almost six decades slip away into a locked-in Alzheimer’s world, and he fell apart.  He had the great joy coming with me to dedicate his great-granddaughter Samantha in Florida in 2002, his last trip abroad. His own struggle with Parkinson’s and dementia eventually claimed his physical life. But even in the fraught last five years he remained faithful to his calling as an evangelist, towards the end walking around Ivyhouse Home wearing his Salvation Army tunic, and always with his beloved Bible and Songbook in his hand.

While celebrating Mom’s 90^th birthday on 14 April 2006, shared with family and friends, little did we know that he was less than a month away from the end of his earthly life on 13 May 2006. His life was lived in service to God and the Salvation Army in southern Africa. My Dad was a good man, a gifted evangelical preacher, a diligent administrator, a loving and generous father and grandfather, and a faithful and caring husband to the end. He loved, shared with, and cared for my mother for 58 years in sickness and in health. This old soldier gave his life to Africa, our ‘Dad’, ‘Grandpa’ and ‘Papa’.

Ishe komborera Afrika. Nkosi Sikelel’i Afrika. The Lord bless Africa. As Dad would often say at the top of his voice, 'Hallelujah'!