What traces do we leave behind as missionaries? How can we ensure that our archives continue to grow in a responsible and sustainable way?

These are the questions archivists put to missionaries today, heirs to a rich oral tradition and men sent out across the world. As European and American missionary fathers gradually withdraw from the mission field, handing over responsibility to younger generations, they leave behind decades of accumulated archival records. The question is what today’s missionaries must do to ensure that this legacy continues to grow in a way that is both responsible and sustainable.

One of the first answers is simple: write.

The Latin proverb Verba volant, scripta manent — “Words fly away, written words remain” — captures the importance of keeping a written record. A missionary who writes becomes an author of his own history and helps preserve the history of the peoples he has served. He leaves traces that enable future generations to reconstruct the past, creating a valuable resource for archivists and researchers yet to come.

Archives: More Than a Collection of Documents

What is an archive? It is not merely a repository of documents, but a living memory that carries the stories of human lives.

Letters, mission reports, postcards, church plans, photographs and notebooks: every archival box preserves a fragment of life. These documents were rarely created with the intention of becoming historical records. Time, however, transforms them into a heritage of lasting value.

The letters of Melchior de Marion Brésillac, founder of the Society of African Missions (SMA) in 1856, provide a striking example. Preserved almost by chance, they now enable us to understand the spirit that shaped the Society’s foundation.

Yet memory is fragile. Historical records may contain gaps; some periods remain silent, forgotten or poorly documented. During my internship in Rome in July 2025, I consulted the file relating to the SMA mission in Liberia between 1980 and 2000. It was empty and silent. This is understandable, given that Liberia was experiencing civil war during that period. Yet SMA missionaries were present and carrying out their work.

Their activities were part of the mission’s history, but the available records did not tell their story. This raises an urgent question: how can we prevent the experiences of today’s missionaries from disappearing from the historical record?

What Can Today’s Young Missionaries Do?

Every missionary today should make a conscious effort to record the ordinary events of daily life, without feeling the need to produce a literary masterpiece. Documenting everyday experiences requires consistency and repetition, and it can be reduced to three practical habits.

First, keep a journal or, at the very least, write regular notes.

Record encounters, decisions, celebrations, pastoral visits, visits to fellow missionaries, funerals, epidemics, cultural festivals, local events, and economic or political crises. The aim is not to produce literature, but to document the daily life of a missionary community. Fifty years from now, researchers may turn to these notes to understand the period in which we lived and served.

Second, document your work through reports and correspondence.

Even brief reports are valuable. Preserve correspondence with the Generalate, the Province, the District, the local community and the diocesan bishop. Such exchanges provide a record of missionary activities and decisions. They may also offer practical insights into present-day challenges, since many of the problems faced by missionaries in the past continue to confront us today.

Third, preserve and caption photographs.

Whenever possible, identify who appears in a photograph, where and when it was taken, and why the event or occasion matters. Send copies to the archives. A modest photograph with an accurate caption is far more valuable than a beautiful but unidentified image.

The need to document everyday life has become urgent. A generation that does not write risks contributing to the disappearance of its own history and memory.

For archives to remain both sustainable and responsible, two principles must guide our efforts. They must be sustainable, because preserving memory requires consistent effort rather than occasional activity. And they must be responsible, because documentation is never entirely neutral. We must respect the dignity of people photographed, seek their consent whenever possible, and avoid stereotypical or reductive portrayals. This is part of our social responsibility: practices that may have been accepted in the past can no longer be considered acceptable today.

From Oral Tradition to the Written Word

For Africans, the challenge also has a cultural dimension: the transition from orality to writing.

African societies have long entrusted their collective memory to spoken words, storytellers and elders. The well-known saying, “When an old man dies, a library burns,” expresses the immense value of this oral heritage. Yet spoken memories can disappear with those who carry them.

Moving from an oral culture towards a stronger culture of writing does not mean rejecting or diminishing this rich inheritance. Rather, it means giving it a more durable form. Recording lived experiences allows future generations to read, examine, question and transmit them.

In the past, missionaries such as Father Augustin Planque requested reports and ethnographic objects to preserve knowledge about the peoples they evangelised. Today, African and Asian missionaries have an opportunity — and a responsibility — to document the history of their own Churches through their own perspectives and experiences.

This is an important shift. Those who once appeared mainly as the subjects of missionary reports can now become the authors and custodians of their own historical narratives.

A Digital World in Which Everything Can Disappear

The twenty-first century is increasingly digital. The paradox of our time is that we have never produced so many images and messages, yet these records have never been so vulnerable.

A postcard kept in a drawer may survive for centuries. A photograph stored on a mobile phone, by contrast, can disappear because of a technical failure, theft, a closed account, a computer virus or a routine software update.

The growing number of images generated by artificial intelligence adds another challenge, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish authentic historical evidence from fabricated material.

These developments underline the importance of proper archival practices. Digital documents must be backed up and stored securely. Printing important records may also be appropriate, while photographs, reports and correspondence should be transferred regularly to an established archival service. Producing documents is not enough; we must also ensure that they remain accessible and authentic over time.

Building a Stronger Future for Our Archives

How can we address the gaps, omissions and silences in our archives? Three practical measures deserve particular attention.

1. Provide training in archival practices.

Archival awareness and documentation could be incorporated into formation programmes at the propedeutic stage, in houses of philosophy and theology, and during orientation sessions for missionaries newly arriving in the mission field.

2. Provide the necessary tools.

Missionaries need access to secure storage facilities, a standard template for quarterly reports and a central email address or other reliable channel through which they can submit photographs and documents. Good intentions alone are not enough; practical systems must make documentation straightforward and sustainable.

3. Build networks and improve access.

Archival collections should be connected through collaborative networks and, where appropriate, made accessible to researchers. An archive remains alive when it is consulted, studied and used to deepen our understanding of history.

What Will Future Generations Find?

A hundred years from now, someone may enter a quiet room in search of traces of our time. Will that person find regularly maintained journals, carefully preserved reports, well-documented correspondence, properly identified publications and photographs with meaningful captions? Or will they encounter a vast historical void?

The answer depends on each missionary who chooses, day after day, to take a few minutes to write, caption and preserve what matters.

These modest actions will determine whether the history being lived today can truly be told tomorrow. Preserving missionary heritage is not the responsibility of archivists alone. It is a shared responsibility, beginning with every missionary who recognises that the experiences of today are the history of tomorrow.

Cyrille HOUENOU, SMA