Missionary Biography

In its early years, Duluth was a gold mine for lumber barons. Men were employed as lumberjacks and worked like beasts, only to be tossed aside like used equipment when no longer needed. The grand forests were raped for their prime timber, the balance burned wastefully. The men were coarse and hard, but they had to be to survive. More than any other people that ever lived in our land, these old-time lumberjacks could truthfully say, "No man cared for my soul." That is, until God sent three men to the great Northwoods of our country - Frank Higgins, John Sornberger, and Al Channer.

Sarah Thebarge, a Yale-trained physician assistant, nearly died of breast cancer at age 27, but that did not end her deeply felt spiritual calling to medical missions in Africa. Risking her own health, she moved to Togo, West Africa - ranked by the United Nations as the least happy country in the world - to care for sick and suffering patients. Serving without pay in a mission hospital, she pondered the intersection of faith and medicine in her quest to help make the world "well".

A single woman missionary, Becky Ruland, vividly writes about death defying adventures in communist nations where she lived for 14 years. From the challenges of learning Russian to understanding how to live cross-culturally in spiritually dark lands, Becky's words tell the stories of real people.

In a remote valley north of Kabul, in August 2010, American peacemaker Dan Terry and nine other aid workers were attacked and killed in an event that made worldwide headlines. Why would one man take his family, follow faith and calling into the political and religious maelstrom of Afghanistan, and through years of war and strife believe he could make a difference? In Making Friends among the Taliban, childhood friend Jonathan Larson retraces Dan's nearly 40 years in Afghanistan, and through interviews and eye-witness accounts, relays Dan's incredible way of daily living.

Miriam Therese Winter, an award-winning musician and four-time Catholic Book Award-winner, shares her experiences of becoming a Sister, working with starving children in Ethiopia and with refugees in Cambodia, of exploring the mysteries of India and the wonders of God in her own backyard, of having breast cancer and having hope. She also illumines new aspects of community, Eucharist, the word and spirit, water and the stars, spiritual blessedness, and much more.

Riley Unlikely is the inspiring story of Riley Banks, who first traveled to Kenya at age 13, and has been back every year since, bringing backpacks of school supplies and hygiene kits for young girls, developing relationships and friendships, and is currently, as a young millennial, raising money to build a complete learning complex in Kibwezi, Kenya for those who have nothing.

The stories in the chapters that follow aren't chronological. They're not a history of how I found myself living on the side of a mountain in Mexico, and I'm not sure that would interest anyone but my mother and her friends anyway. Instead, I've mined my journals for those moments when God used the very people I thought I was in Mexico to lead, to lead me instead. Time and again I've been led to trust God, with my little mustard seed of faith, to see how he not only shows up in our circumstance - but he shows off!

Saint? Missionary? Scientist? Explorer? The titles given to David Livingstone since his death are varied enough to seem dubious—and with good reason. In view of the confessions in his own journals, saint is out of the question. Even missionary is tenuous, considering he made only one convert. And despite his fame as a scientist and explorer, Livingstone left his most indelible mark on Africa in an arena few have previously examined: slavery. His impact on abolishing what he called “this awful slave-trade” has been shockingly overlooked as the centerpiece of his African mission. Until now.

Byang Kato grew up in Nigeria in a family devoted to juju, a religion of magic and superstition. Although from a young age he planned to become a juju priest, his encounter with missionaries and the gospel changed that. In this book, Simonetta Carr tells how the eager young Byang devoted himself to learning about Jesus and sharing Him with others.

The winners of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting tell the astonishing story of Mary Clarke. At the age of 50, Clarke left her comfortable life in suburban Los Angeles to follow a spiritual calling to care for the prisoners in one of Mexico's most notorious jails. She actually moved into a cell to live among drug kingpins and petty thieves. She has led many of them through profound spiritual transformations in which they turned away from their lives of crime, and she has deeply touched the lives of all who have witnessed the depth of her compassion.

Have you ever been betrayed by the very people you entrusted with your life and soul? Growing up in a devoutly Christian family, you would never expect the leader of the flock to be the one to rip away your innocence, but that is just what happened to the author as a 15-year-old girl. In Silent No More, she shares her first-hand account of the abuse, the aftermath, and her path to freedom. Writing to encourage other victims of sexual abuse to overcome their experiences, The Missionary illustrates the heartbreaking circumstances of her own abuse by her church pastor and how Jesus continues to heal her emotional and spiritual wounds.