Daniel Comboni would not accept defeat: he was determined to continue to work for the evangelization and redemption of the African slaves. He believed he was born for this.

At the age of 17, when still a seminarian, he made a promise to consecrate himself to the evangelization of Central Africa and he prepared for his future apostolate by learning languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, French and English.

After his first experience in Southern Sudan he realised more than ever before the need for evangelization and development. Since many missionaries had no resistance to sickness at that time and Africans brought to Europe were also getting sick and even dying, he spent time  reflecting on how this obstacle could be overcome: the methods formerly used were obviously not working, there must be another way of bringing the Good News to Central Africa.

In September 1864, “while praying at the tomb of St. Peter in Rome, during the beatification of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, there burst upon me like a flash of lightening the idea of drawing up a new Plan for the Christianisation of the poor black peoples. The individual points of the Plan came to me from on high like an inspiration”. This became his Plan for the Regeneration of Africa. Its aim was clear: “Let us all work together without any other incentive than that of winning more souls for Christ; let us take each other by the hand; one be our wish; one be our aim, one the commitment of all those who love Jesus Christ: to win for him the unhappy Africa. 

This plan re-echoed the principle of other missionaries: To save Africa with Africa. It could have been implemented by taking Africans to Europe, training them and then sending them back to Africa. However, Comboni’s methodology would be different: the training had to be in Africa, not in the interior where Europeans could not survive, but along the coast where both Europeans and Africans could safely live. After this illumination, he felt heartened to plan for the evangelization of Central Africa.

He went around Europe, especially Austria and France to get support and managed to persuade others of his idea: while in France he met Mgr. Charles Lavigerie, then Bishop of Nancy. This meeting was important for both men. Comboni’s Plan for the Regeneration of Africa is thought to have contributed to Lavigerie’s own missionary vocation in the years immediately preceding his appointment to the See of Algiers. His strategy of evangelization, the intention that Africans should become apostles and themselves regenerate their own countries was based on an idea which came from Comboni, who presented a stirring “Petition on behalf of the Black Populations of Central Africa” to the First Vatican Council (1870) and in 1872 was entrusted by Pope Pius IX with the mission of Central Africa as its first Pro-Vicar Apostolic.

In 1867 he had founded the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus (Verona Fathers) and in 1872, the Comboni Missionary Sisters (Verona Sisters). Cardinal C Lavigerie started his “Institute of Missionaries for Africa” and the “Missionary Sisters of Lady of Africa” (White Sisters) in 1869.