Missionary Biography

Hearing God's call to serve as a missionary in the French-speaking world, Joe Portale responded with excitement, boldness, and humility. His lifelong dreams were being fulfilled, and the land God had promised was within reach. But the journey was not easy. From spiritual forces in France to the perilous Sahara desert to war and poverty in Southeast Asia, Joe and his ministry team persevered through many challenges. Their successes and failures provide a roadmap for all who would respond to God's call, an instructive account of pursuing one's life vocation and ministry.

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.

Thoughts on the Jungle Trail is the story of the Maxey family in Papua Indonesia. It is a story of adventure, challenge, tragedy, and victory as they worked among remote tribal people. It is the local people's story as well. You will hear Nomarlok tell of his first encounter with the White people, and Oa'dak tell of the day the people came to kill the Maxey family, and Amene tell his stories of war and cannibalism. This audiobook will inspire fellow pilgrims to press on. As you listen, marvel at the sovereignty of God and how He is building His people in Papua Indonesia.

Leaving Western culture and their German home far behind, Amiira Ann and her husband, Chris, responded to the prompting of God to move to one of the most thoroughly Muslim cultures on earth, Yemen. The 9/11 attacks in the United States created the dangerous backdrop for reaching out to their Yemeni hosts with the love of Christ. With a commitment to work in relief and development, they would find, despite the threat of death, that their hearts would be forever knit together with this people so different from themselves.

He contemplated suicide as a boy when he developed a debilitating disease. He was constantly hounded and hunted which forced him into hiding for months at a time. He was arrested and beaten severely. He was kidnapped by one of the most dangerous cults in the world. This is the true story of Brother Shen, one of the most significant Christian leaders in the world today as the head of China Gospel Fellowship. It is his story in his words.

For Charlynne Boddie, the missing words in her vocabulary are impossible and ordinary. Her life is an adventure, an adventure in God. No Appointments Necessary is an uplifting and engaging challenge to the ordinary and impossible, capturing snippets of real-life adventures that define the way Charlynne lives her life. There are no strangers in Charlynne’s world. With almost no arena off-limits, her amazing testimonies are each predicated on her vibrant responses to hearing and obeying the voice of the Lord.

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.

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.

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.

When she was a young girl, Jadie (and her missionary family) experienced a brutal attack while on the island of Palau in the South Pacific. That one hellish night left her physically, emotionally, and spiritually damaged. Jadie had the choice to live the life of a victim or to walk the hard road of healing that leads to wholeness in Christ. Though she faced physical injury, emotional scarring (including avoidance, memory loss, and regression), and spiritual attacks, Echoes of Darkness is a story of hope.

Darla’s story of how she rescued street children and transformed their lives by the power of God’s love will grip your heart. Agape’s Children is the heartwarming story of how an ordinary woman responded when confronted by child beggars in Kisumu, Kenya.

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".

This short account of the three years the Ntumy family spent as missionaries in Liberia between 1988 and 1991 will leave you not wanting to stop until you have got to the end. His story will take you on an adventure into the Bible, showing how God's Word can be relied on and trusted even when you have nothing. You will be reminded of the power of prayer and fasting, of the miraculous working God, and that He will make a way where there is no way.

Dawn Passage is an inspiring odyssey of six people who turn a dilapidated schooner into a floating church to help evangelize on one of Earth's most beautiful regions: the Greek Islands of the Aegean Sea. Fast, engaging, and colorfully told, this true story places you onboard the schooner Morning Star as she sails 7,000 miles across two oceans, visits nine countries, and continues today in full-time ministry. Dawn Passage is a warm, riveting account of the extremes of physical dangers from the outside and personal challenges from within.

Moses never wanted to be a leader. Jonah ran away from his mission's call. And when Marcia Moston's husband came home with a call to foreign missions, she was sure God had the wrong number. His call conflicted with her own dreams, demanded credentials she didn't have, and required courage she couldn't seem to find. She promised to follow where God led, but she never thought the road would lead to a Mayan village on a Guatemalan mountainside.

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.

Stories of a Scrappy Missionary Kid invites you to join in on the adventures of Emmy Grace, who grew up as a third culture kid in Romania, became a travel nurse, and now continues to explore the world beyond her borders. She shares the humorous and heartwarming stories of faith, family, and friendships formed along the way. Emmy Grace retells her journey of growing from a shy child to a confident adult making friends, learning lots, and bringing hope to others on her many adventures and misadventures.

Join the captivating journey in "Who Are Missionaries David and Svea Flood?" as it unveils the inspiring story of a young Swedish missionary couple. From the serene streets of Sweden to the enigmatic African jungles, this book chronicles David and Svea Flood's extraordinary mission of faith and love. It's a tale woven with trials, triumphs, and the profound impact of their dedication to spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.

As a National Merit Scholar majoring in physics and mathematics at Rice University, Henry Rambow thought he was a rational person. But primed by years of Sunday School and haunted by a promise made as a terrified child, he nevertheless fell head over heels into a fundamentalist brand of Christianity. Confessions of a Rogue Missionary is an account of his struggle - and eventual failure - to reconcile his faith with reason. At times dryly humorous and at times sober and contemplative, the story begins when Henry is "born again."

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!