Who Was Isobel Kuhn?

Posted on April 10, 2024 by Barbara Harper

Several weeks ago, the chapter I submitted to my critique group mentioned Isobel Kuhn a couple of times. I was surprised that several of the women in the group weren’t familiar with her.

In my early married life, the ladies’ group of the church we attended had a lending library. Isobel’s books were among the most often checked-out. She was as well known in that time and place as Elisabeth Elliot or Amy Carmichael. I believe that’s where I first heard of Isobel: I know that’s when I started reading her books.

Isobel was a Canadian missionary with China Inland Mission (founded by Hudson Taylor) to the Lisu tribe in China from 1928 to 1950, when forced out by the Communists. She and her husband, John, ministered in Thailand for just a few years until she was diagnosed with cancer. She died in 1957 at the age of 55.

She had grown up in a Christian home in Vancouver. In her book, By Searching: My Journey Through Doubt Into Faith, she writes that when she left for a secular college, her parents armed her with all kinds of arguments against modernism.

In one of her first classes, her professor asked if anyone still believed in heaven and hell, in Genesis, etc. Only Isobel and one other student raised their hands. The professor didn’t present arguments against the Bible: he only said, “Oh, you just believe that because your papa and mama told you so.”

On the way home from class, Isobel examined why she believed what she believed in light of what she was learning in her classes and concluded the professor was right: she only believed because of what her parents said. She determined to “accept no theories of life which [she] had not proved personally” (p. 7). She wouldn’t say there was no God, but rather that she didn’t know whether there was or not. Instead of seeking out the answer to such an important question, she determined that, since one can’t know, then it really didn’t matter what one did. She gave up going to church so she could sleep in on Sunday to rest up after parties and dances through the week. She set aside Bible reading, and she gave herself to the activities she had always been taught were “worldly.”

At first everything was pleasant and fun, but she discovered before long that nothing satisfied. One night she was so low that she even contemplated taking her own life. A groan from her father in his sleep in another room reminded her of the devastating effect suicide would have on her family. She prayed, “God, if there be a God, If You will prove to me that You are, and if You will give me peace, I will give you my whole life.”

The rest of the book tells how He answered that prayer. “To find that He is, this is the mere starting-point of our search. We are lured on to explore what He is, and that search is never finished, for it grows more thrilling the further one proceeds” (p. 94).

God led her to a few summer missions conference at The Firs. During one conference, she heard J. O. Frasier speak about the Lisu tribe he ministered to. Her heart was stirred, and eventually she felt led to go to China herself. Frasier became a mentor to Isobel and later to John.

The problem was Isobel’s mother. For all of her missionary work in the church, Isobel’s mother declared that her daughter would go to the mission field only over her dead body. Her mother wanted her to marry well and move in “good society.” The thought of her daughter depending on the charity of others was more than she could bear. Isobel consulted with Frasier, who gave her some sound advice.

Isobel’s second book, In the Arena, tells how God turned her mother’s heart, provided for Isobel to go to Moody Bible College, led her to her husband, John, and then led them both to China. She tells of different events in their family and ministry, then her cancer diagnosis.

Some incidents in Isobel’s life were highly influential to my own. Here are a few of them:

She had covenanted with a group of friends to read the Bible an hour a day for a year. She divided up her hour into two thirty-minute sessions. One day she got back to her room right before dinner. She hadn’t had her second session with the Bible that day and only had the next thirty minutes in which to do so. She had a program to participate in that night and a devotional she was supposed to give which she had not even started to prepare for. She knew she’d be dead tired when she got home: her class was supposed to clean up after the event as well. She debated whether to have her devotional time, go to dinner, or prepare for her talk. Finally she said, “Lord, I choose you.” And in the time with Him, she felt He gave her what to say for her talk.

When she was a little older and living in a noisy boarding house, she couldn’t find a quiet time to read her Bible. She asked God to wake her up at 2 a.m., when the house was quiet.

In her early married life, she joyfully set up her home with weddings gifts. She was excited to receive her first women guests. As she began to talk with them, one blew her nose and wiped the stuff on a her new rug. The other’s baby was allowed to wet all over another rug. Isobel knew that they were not being deliberately offensive: those were just the customs of the country people in that time and place. Yet, naturally, resentment welled up and she had a battle in her heart. She wrote, “If possessions would in any way interfere with our hospitality, it would be better to consign them to the river. In other words, if your finery hinders your testimony, throw it out. In our Lord’s own words, if thine hand offend thee, cut it off. He was not against our possessing hands, but against our using them to hold on to sinful or hindering things.”

Whom God Has Joined is a collection of essays about marriage. It was originally titled One Vision Only and published with biographical remarks by a Carolyn Canfield. I think later versions were published without Canfield’s remarks.

When John proposed, Isobel wrote, “John and I are of very opposite dispositions, each rather strong minded. Science has never discovered what happens when the irresistible force collides with the immovable object. Whatever would happen if they married one another?”

One incident she writes of here occurred when she was telling a story to friends. She was artistic and exuberant and commented that it was “pouring rain.” John corrected her, saying it was “merely raining.” She was indignant that her story was being interrupted by such a minor detail and said, “I didn’t stop to count the raindrops.” He replied that that was just what she should do. He felt she exaggerated and wanted to break her of it. He began “correcting” her prayer letters and stories and began to use the catch-phrase, “Did you count the raindrops?” It was discouraging and distressing to her and she felt it had a stilted effect on her writing. She tells how over time the Lord used this to help her husband appreciate his wife’s gift of imagination and expression and helped her to be more accurate. She commented on the need for prayer, bearing with one another, and forgiveness. “The passion for accuracy plus a sympathetic imagination which relives another’s joys and sorrows—that is double effectiveness. Either quality working unrestrained by itself would never have been so effective. But it cost mutual forgiveness and endurance to weld these two opposites into one!”

Another time, she and her husband had a sharp disagreement. Angry and resentful, she walked out of the house, not caring where she went, just to get away from it all. Gradually she came to herself and realized she was in a little Chinese village as darkness was nearing. In that time and culture that was not done: “good women were in their homes at such an hour.” She felt as if the Lord were saying to her, “You have not considered Me and My honor in all this, have you?” She felt convicted her that she had not even invited Him into the situation. She confessed that was true, asked Him to work it out, and went home. And He did.

One of my favorite pieces of Isobel’s writings was a chapter titled “A Sense of Him” in her book, Second-Mile People. I wrote more about it here. She tells of one particular friend who carried a sense of God’s presence and peace through everything she did, even laughing and chatting.

Her book Green Leaf in Drought is not about her at all, but rather about Arthur and Wilda Mathews, who were the last CIM missionaries to leave China after it fell under Communist rule. Even though they were not welcome, they were not allowed to leave for some time. I was moved by the hardships they endured, what they learned, and how God provided for them (my review is here).

Most of her other books are about their work in China and Thailand. Some of the people they ministered to became dear to me as well. I anticipate meeting them in heaven some day!

Through her mentions of J. O. Fraser, I read two good biographies of him: Behind the Ranges by Geraldine Taylor and a later one, Mountain Rain, by his daughter, Eileen Crossman.

Isobel’s writing style was engaging and relatable. She was transparent about her faults and foibles and the hard lessons she had to learn.

As I suppose could be said about anyone, I wouldn’t agree with every little thing Isobel said and did. But overall, she sought to follow, serve, love, and obey God. Her life inspired me many times over. If you’ve never read her books, I hope you will.

(Note: some portions of this post were taken from previous posts about Isobel.)

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

To Be a Clod

Posted on February 5, 2023 by Barbara Harper

Amy Carmichael was one of Elisabeth Elliot’s heroes, and both women are heroes of mine.

Recently a newsletter from the Elisabeth Elliot Foundation closed with this poem by Amy Carmichael, which Elisabeth had quoted in one of her radio broadcasts:

From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee,
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when I should climb higher,
From silken self, O Captain, free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.

From subtle love of softening things,
From easy choices, weakenings,
Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the Crucified;
From all that dims Thy Calvary,
O Lamb of God, deliver me.

Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay,
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire;
Let me not sink to be a clod;
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.

—Amy Carmichael

I first read this poem as a young adult. I may have been in college or a newlywed when I first read Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur by Frank Houghton. I couldn’t help but be inspired by Amy’s fervor, courage, and determination to follow God wherever He led her. She became a missionary to India. It might be more correct to say she made India her home for the rest of her life.

There’s something about youth that is inherently passionate. Most young people have a burning desire to make their lives count, to make a difference, to further a cause bigger than themselves.

But after several decades, we tend to get more settled, don’t we?

Being settled isn’t always a bad thing. Though I continue to learn and grow, I am more settled in my convictions, less like “children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:14).

I’m more settled in my self-image. I’ve never been super-model material, but I am okay with that now.

I’m more settled in my marriage. After forty-three years, my husband and I know each other pretty well. We’ve worked out our differences and learned to complement (and compliment) each other. We still find plenty to talk about.

But I hope I never become settled in the sense of complacency in my faith and walk with God, to let “easy choices” of “silken self” give way to the “subtle love of softening things.” We can be more inclined to do so as our physical capacity begins to decline.

I’ve often wondered at Amy’s use of the word “clod” in the next-to-last line. After the beautiful phrasing in the rest of the poem, “clod” seems like a jolt, like stubbing your toe on a rock. I would guess Amy probably did that on purpose.

A quick look in the dictionary shows that a clod is a lump, usually of dirt or clay. But it’s also a term used for an oaf or dolt. Amy may have meant the word in the latter sense. But I like to think of it as a lump, especially since she spoke of sinking to be a clod.

I’m not a soil specialist; I am not even a gardener. But when I think of a clod, it seems like it has three possibilities for its future.

First, it could erode. Wind and rain could chip off tiny bits of it until nothing is left.

It could get harder due to the sun beating down on it while it just sits there.

Or it could be tilled, broken up into useful soil again.

The last thought brings to mind Hosea 10:12: “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.”

The ways God has used me have changed over the years with age, health issues, life circumstances. I can’t (and don’t even desire to) do things I once did.

But that was true of Amy, too. After a fall, she became an invalid for the last twenty years of her life. How she ministered to others changed. But she still followed hard after God in her heart, met with people as she was able, wrote books, sent notes of encouragement to her coworkers and inhabitants of the orphanage and hospital on the Dohnavur complex.

Of course, age and declining abilities are not the only contributors to cloddishness. It’s easy at any age to settle into a cozy lump of inertia.

May God give us hearts soft and pliable to His leading and will rather than soft to comfort and pleasures.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Jesus Led Me All the Way

Posted on September 15, 2022 by Barbara Harper

I’ve mentioned before that Margaret Stringer is one of my favorite people. She was a missionary in Indonesia for forty years among former headhunters and cannibals. Though she had a variety of ministries among the people, one of her main jobs was reducing their language to writing, translating the New Testament into their language, and then teaching the people how to read.

The church we attended in SC supported Margaret. When she “retired,” she lived close enough to the church that she was available to come speak to the ladies’ group several times. She could have us laughing til we were in tears telling us about incidents that would have been quite scary when they happened to her.

Jesus Led Me All the Way is her second book about her time in Indonesia, the first being From Cannibalism to Christianity.

Margaret tells how from a very early age, she was sure God had called her to be a missionary. She had a hard time getting the first visa she needed, and it seemed like everyone brought up to her how Paul wanted to go to Macedonia in Acts, but God wouldn’t let him. Margaret wanted God’s will, whether that was Indonesia or somewhere else. But the delays and obstacles just made her more sure that Indonesia was where God wanted her. Later on the field, she was grateful for the hard time she had getting there because of the assurance it gave her that she was in God’s will.

She tells of her arrival on the field, early missionary life, learning the customs and language, getting adjusted to jungle food (like grub worms). She talks about how important it is to understand the world view of the people you’re trying to witness to.

It took a lot of patience to teach people who had not been taught before or hire helpers to learn the language when they had not had paying jobs before. If they wanted to go fishing instead of come to “work,” they did.

One chapter is on “People I Can’t Forget,” most of whom became part of the church there. It took much time and patience and prayer and overcoming many mistakes, but what a joy to see God open people’s eyes to His truth at last.

Margaret includes here one of my favorites of her stories. Once she was in an area where no house or huts were available, so she stayed in a small metal building with open windows (screens but no glass). Once when a terrible storm hit, rain blew in, destroying about 90% of her handwritten translation work. As she tried to salvage what she could and mop up the rest, she felt discouraged. She “fussed” with the Lord about dropping her down in the jungle and leaving her all alone. When she went to bed, something fell off the wall and hit her on the head. She felt like that was the last straw. She turned on her flashlight to see what had fallen. It was a plaque that said, “He cares for you.” She started laughing and said, “OK, Lord, I get it. Thank you.” She comments, “For some people, God speaks in a still small voice. Others of us, however, He conks on the head” (p. 125).

Margaret tells of difficulties in the translation work. She had to consider not just getting the words into Citak, but making them understood in their culture. For instance, they did not have a word for sister or brother—their words were older sister, younger sister, older brother, younger brother. That took some thought when dealing with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. All of their verbs incorporated time of day, so that had to be considered when translating narratives. The suffix “na” at the end of a sentence indicated the information was heard from someone else rather than witnessed directly. In Luke 11:11, when Jesus asks whether a father would give a serpent to his child when asked for a fish, they said, “Of course.” “The Citak people love to eat snake, and a good-sized python has much more meat on it than the average fish, so who wouldn’t want a snake instead of a fish?” (p. 205). they had to find a different word for a poisonous snake that conveyed the idea of the passage, that “no good father would give his son a poisonous snake when he asked for a fish.”

The Citak people had a big celebration day with invited guests, including dignitaries, when they handed out the completed New Testaments. One of Margaret’s greatest joys was seeing the Citak people’s joy at having the Word of God for themselves and their ability to read and understand it. But one of her greatest sorrows was when people from other villages with different dialects wanted the Bible in their language, too. She knew that it would take more time than she had left on the field to translate the NT for all the people there that needed it.

Margaret writes that the people “went from naked cannibals, without the Bible or ability to read, to 23 churches, and having the New Testament in their language. The journey was sometimes funny, sometimes frustrating, sometimes discouraging, sometimes dangerous, but always rewarding” (p. xvii). I’m thankful she shared glimpses of that journey with us.

Hudson Taylor and Maria

Posted on March 11, 2021 by Barbara Harper

Imagine a group of expats working in China in the 1850s. Two of the young people fall in love. The young man asks the girl’s guardian for permission to marry her—and receives a resounding “No.”

This was Hudson Taylor’s experience. He had come to China as a missionary in 1854. He had been interested in someone else back in England. After a lot of correspondence and angst, he finally accepted the fact that this woman would never consent to go to China.

A few years later, he met Maria Dyer. She and her sister were orphans under the care of a single lady missionary in China. As Hudson and Maria grew attracted to each other, Hudson sent a letter to Maria’s guardian requesting Maria’s hand in marriage.

The guardian, Miss Aldersey, not only said no: she stood over Maria while requiring her to refuse Hudson and request him to never broach the subject again.

Part of Miss Aldersey’s objection was that Hudson was not a “gentleman” by the standards of rank at that time. But more than that, Hudson was unwittingly and not on purpose a polarizing figure at the time.

Anti-foreign sentiment was high in China then. Just the presence of Europeans could start a riot in some areas. On top of that, their foreign ways were a distraction. Once while Hudson was speaking, a man watched him in rapt attention. Hudson thought the gospel was finally breaking through to someone. But the listener questioned him, not about his message, but his jacket: why in the world did it have decorative buttons that didn’t fasten to anything, and what a silly waste was that.

Hudson decided to dress as a Chinese. He shaved his head except for a patch at the back to have extension woven in for the long queue fashionable at the time. He dressed in the style of a Chinese teacher.

And it worked. He could move about freely, and the Chinese were not immediately put off by him. It didn’t take them long to realize he was a foreigner, but his integration into their way of life went a long way toward furthering his mission. In later years, his dress and demeanor also helped establish the fact that he was not trying to establish an English church or convert people to English ways, but to Christ.

But much of the European community found his actions eccentric or even harmful.

By the Victorian standards at the time, Hudson couldn’t just rush over to Maria’s house to talk things out or ask her to meet him at a coffee shop. But as God arranged things, they found a few moments alone together while at a mutual friend’s house. When he found that Maria did love him, he felt he could pursue their engagement.

John Pollock tells their story in Hudson Taylor and Maria: A Match Made in Heaven. He begins with Hudson’s salvation story and leading to China, then he details their work together.

I love the passages describing Maria’s influence on Hudson. “Her religion had been more orderly; she served to steady Hudson’s faith while he deepened hers” (p. 113). Furthermore:

Maria tempered without quenching his zeal, was largely responsible for the common sense and balance characteristic of Taylor at the height of his powers. She made him take holidays. Under the influence of her less mercurial yet gay temperament he shed those moods of melancholy; he could discuss every matter with her and forget to be introspective. He became more assured, grew up.

Though his was the finer intellect, Maria had a more thorough education. She improved his cumbrous style, teaching him to write good English though she never cured him of split infinitives.

Together they had such a reservoir of love that it splashed over to refresh all, Chinese or European, who came near them (p. 114).

Hudson Taylor had not intended to start a new mission agency. But while home in England recovering from some physical problems, he wanted to recruit more people to go into the interior of China. Most missionary effort was on the coast, leaving the biggest part of the country unreached.

The agency under whose auspices Hudson had come had failed him miserably, leading him to resign them while still in China.

Between the new recruits and Hudson’s experiences, the necessity for a new mission agency became apparent. The pressure on Hudson was excruciating until finally, after a friend’s sermon, he realized:

If we are obeying the Lord, the responsibility rests with Him, not with us. Thou, Lord! Thou shalt have the burden. All the responsibility lies on Thee, Lord Jesus! I surrender. The consequences rest with Thee. Thou shalt direct, care for, guide me, and those who labour with me (p. 141).

Thus the China Inland Mission was born. Taylor needed those assurances for the rocky path ahead.

One of Hudson’s mottoes was “Move man, through God, by prayer alone.”

In later years Hudson said, “As a rule prayer is answered and funds com in, but if we are kept waiting the spiritual blessing that is the outcome is far more precious than exemption from the trial (p. 125).

Another of his principles was this:

‘Pray ye to the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth labourers unto the harvest.’ Taylor decided that the divine method of riding missionaries did not lie in ‘elaborate appeals for help, but, first, earnest prayer to God to thrust forth labourers, and, second, the deepening of the spiritual Life of the Church, so that men should be unable to stay at home‘ (p. 128).

Although I don’t think this was meant to be a theme in Pollock’s book, one factor that stood out to me was that many of Hudson’s main problems were not with anti-foreign sentiment or the government: his most trying problems came through other Christians. The criticism of his Chinese dress, the division over his proposal to Maria (one of the leaders refused to give him communion over the issue!), the new recruits grumbling and fussing like the Israelites in the wilderness, dissension in the ranks, people spreading disinformation, and armchair commentators from afar touting uninformed opinions about everything he did, all weighed on him. He tried to be gracious, and he was not above rebuke or correction. But a lot of the opposition to his work and methods was fleshly and burdensome.

I also noticed with him as with Jim Elliot, whose story I reread a few weeks ago, that in their twenties, they were not at their most mature state (who is at that time?). For instance, in Hudson’s youthful zeal, he “suffered scruples about putting on a life jacket” during a storm at sea because he felt it showed “lack of faith in God’s power to intervene.” In later years, “he laughed at such extravagance. ‘I believe I can trust the Lord in some respects as much as I ever could, but I am a good deal modified in some of my views and do not think it right to neglect proper precautions'” (p. 84). But they still had a willingness to do God’s will no matter the cost to themselves and to think outside the box. They both grew in wisdom with more experience of walking with God.

After a particularly lengthy and trying period in his early days, he wrote to someone:

At home, you can never know what it is to be alone—absolutely alone, amidst thousands, as you can in a Chinese city, without one friend, one companion, everyone looking on you with curiosity, with contempt, with suspicion or with dislike. Thus to learn what it is to be despised and rejected of men—of those you wish to benefit, your motives not understood or respected—thus to learn what it is to have nowhere to lay your head, and then to have the love of Jesus applied to your heart by the Holy Spirit—His holy, self-denying love, which led Him to suffer this and more than this—for me; this is precious, this is worth coming for (pp. 81-82).

Sadly, Hudson and Maria only had twelve married years together. Pollack ends the book a little abruptly right after Maria’s death. He has a recommendation elsewhere in the book for the rest of Hudson’s life story. I had not read the one he mentioned, but I’ve read others. the classic is a large two-volume set written by Taylor’s son and daughter-in-law (though Pollock asserts that the daughter-in-law revised and left out some things, it’s still a great set). Even though I was familiar with much of Taylor’s life, I was blessed by going over parts of it again in this book.

Though this book was originally written in the 1960s, the style of writing seems much older to me. But the book is easily readable and well worth one’s time.

(Sharing with Grace and Truth, Senior Salon, Hearth and Soul,
InstaEncouragements, Booknificent, Carole’s Books You Loved)

Book Review: Becoming Elisabeth Elliot

Posted on January 26, 2021 by Barbara Harper

Elisabeth Elliot has been one of my heroes for decades. I first discovered her in college when I read Through Gates of Splendor, her book about the ministries and deaths of her husband and four friends. Then I read nearly everything she had written, received her newsletter and a Back to the Bible devotional mailing of her writings for years, and got to hear her speak in person twice.

The Elliots and their friends had wanted to reach out to a seemingly unreachable tribe in Ecuador. Though the beginning seemed promising, all five men were speared to death by the tribe, known then as Aucas (later by their own name for themselves, Waodani). A few years later, Elisabeth and her young daughter, Valerie, and Rachel Saint, sister to one of the other men, went to live among the Waodani. Some became believers, with a testimony that still stands to this day.

Elisabeth eventually came back to America. She authored 30 books and spoke to women, eventually hosting a radio program, Gateway to Joy, and sending out a monthly newsletter.

She surprised herself by remarrying a college theology professor, Addison Leitch. He succumbed to cancer four years later. She was an adjunct professor for a while. A few years later, she married Lars Gren. She had dementia the last several years of her life, lost the ability to speak, and died at age 88 on June 15, 2015.

Those are the spare details of her life. But they don’t capture her personality, her character. Why did so many women love to read her words and hear her speak and write her letters asking her advice about their problems?

Ellen Vaughn has attempted to answer those questions in her authorized biography, Becoming Elisabeth Elliot. I admit I had mixed emotions when I first heard of this project. Vaughn was well aware that she was going to be up against a number of expectations. She had access to Elisabeth’s multiple journals as well as many friends and relatives.

Of course, Elisabeth didn’t start out as the Elisabeth Elliot of such wisdom and depth. She began life as Betty Howard. Her early journals reflect a normal girlhood and a fair amount of teenage angst over boys and disagreements with her mother. Yet even as young as eleven, she showed a depth of thought and desire to follow and obey God. Betty Stam, who was killed by the Chinese along with her husband, John, had been a guest in the Howard home and made a great impression on young Betty. As a child, Betty Howard wrote and took Betty Stam’s prayer for her own.

Vaughn goes on to follow Betty’s education, meeting of Jim Elliot, and the long wrestling over whether they should marry. Jim had thought God wanted him to be a single missionary. When he became attracted to Betty, he wasn’t sure whether that was a result of God’s leading or his own desires. It took a few years to figure out. Finally he and Elisabeth married and worked among the Quichua Indians in Ecudaor. Then there are the details leading up to the Waodani outreach, the men’s deaths, Elisabeth’s wrenching grief, working with Rachel Saint, and return to the US.

The biography stops there, with a second volume in the works. I hadn’t realized that this was only part one until I started reading it. I wish that had been made more plain, but it wouldn’t have affected my desire to own and read the book.

Elisabeth was a critical thinker and wrestled with the ways of God, pat, churchy answers, what worldliness and being a missionary even meant, and so much more. She was strongly introverted and could come across as distant and aloof (when she first met Jim’s parents, he told her she had “made a universally horrible impression.”) She could seem unemotional, but she poured out her emotions in her journals.

One thing that Elisabeth discovered in her walk of faith was that God’s ways are inscrutable. She was a gifted linguist, and her first mission was an effort to reduce the Colorado language to writing. But the one man who knew both Spanish and Colorado well and who was willing to help her was senselessly murdered. Her careful work and notes were stolen. Her husband died. Her time of living with the Waodani bore some fruit but was fraught with frustrations. She felt all her work to that point was in ashes.

But she knew God was good and trustworthy, and the best thing, the only thing she could do was obey him, even when she didn’t understand. Her experiences and wrestling over issues of faith and practice made her who she was and gave her a depth and realism that struck chords with other women.

I felt overall that the biography did a good job. Ellen didn’t put Elisabeth on a pedestal, nor did she present her as unworthy of esteem. My one criticism is that, perhaps in an effort to show that Elisabeth was an ordinary woman and not a super-saint, some excerpts from her journals were shared that I can’t imagine Elisabeth would have wanted public. I understand why some people destroy their journals and letters before they die. I’m thankful Elisabeth didn’t, and I appreciate the insight they gave into her thinking. Still, some of it was probably not meant for public consumption.

Also, an index would have been helpful.

I’m looking forward to the next volume. I knew much about Elisabeth’s early life from her writings, but I’m not as familiar with the second half. I did learn several new things, however. For instance, I didn’t know (or forgot, if I had known) that Elisabeth was told about and wanted to go to the Waodani long before she and Jim married, and that part of the groups urgency to reach them was “rumors that the Ecuadorian government and the oil companies might well solve the ‘Waodani problem’ by using the military” (p. 139). Also, Through Gates of Splendor was written in a six-week period while she was in a hotel and her folks took care of her daughter. The publishers urgently wanted the story to be available. In her previous writings, I had sensed some tension between her and Rachel. The problems there are detailed here, and understandable. They were two very different personalities with completely different methods and training. I appreciate Elisabeth’s discretion in not dragging all of it out into the public eye.

I appreciate this summation of the Elliots near the end of the book:

Whether you agree or disagree with their choices, whether you resonate or not with their particular personalities, the takeaway from their lives is a reckless abandon for God. A willingness to cast off any illusions of self-protection, in order to burn for Christ. An absolutely liberating, astonishing radical freedom that comes only when you have, in fact, spiritually died to your own wants, ambitions, will, desires, reputation, and everything else (p. 274).

A couple of my friends reviewed this book as well:

Michele: A Life of Reckless Abandon for God
Ann: Becoming Elisabeth Elliot

(Sharing with Tell His Story, InstaEncouragements, Carole’s Books You Loved, Booknificent)

(I’m counting this book for the Biography category of the Nonfiction Reading Challenge.)

Coping and Ministering in Isolation

Posted on April 6, 2020 by Barbara Harper

As soon as Arthur and Wilda Mathews arrived, they knew something was wrong. The Chinese church in Hwangyuan, China, had asked them to come and minister in 1950. But now the church leaders seemed strained. The Mathews soon learned that the area had fallen to Communism, and association with white missionaries was a detriment to the Chinese Christians.

The Mathews thought it best, then, to leave. But a capricious Chinese official would not grant their exit visas. The money from the Mathews’ mission came through this official, who then made Arthur wait, grovel, and ask repeatedly for the needed funds. The official only gave them a fraction of what they were due. He also slowly tightened the restraints on the Mathews. First, they could not have the building belonging to the mission. Then they could not evangelize or participate in ministry. Then, a short while later, they could not leave their premises except to draw water, buy food, and gather materials for a fire. And finally, they were not allowed to speak to other Chinese.

The Matthews’ story is told in the book Green Leaf in Drought by Isobel Kuhn, which I reviewed a few years ago here. Their story came back to mind in our current situation. They were isolated for different reasons than we are. We’re not suffering persecution, being spied on by people who would benefit from betraying us, or starved out by petty power-mongers. But they did wonder: how in the world could they be a testimony when they couldn’t even speak to people?

What was there inside these walls to do? It just seemed as if every time they tried to engage in any Christian service, they were knocked flat! Life’s accustomed joys were slowly drying up; but the trees of the Lord have a secret supply.

The title and theme of the book come from Jeremiah 17:8:

But most amazing of all was their spiritual vigor. Whence came it? Not from themselves: no human being could go through such sufferings and come out so sweet and cheerful.

As I was in a small prayer meeting one morning one prayed thus: “O Lord, keep their leaf green in times of drought!”

I knew in a moment that this was the answer. Jeremiah 17: 8: He shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

That was it! There was an unseen Source of secret nourishment, which the communists could not find and from which they could not cut them off.

This is the story of that secret Source. To add another book to the many telling of trials under communist pressure is not necessary and is not our purpose.

But to tell of the secret Source by which a tree can put forth green leaves when all others around are dried up and dying from the drought—that is timeless. That is needed by all of us. Your drought may not be caused by communism, but the cause of the drying up of life’s joys is incidental. When they dry up—is there, can we find, a secret Source of nourishment that the deadly drought cannot reach?

Here are a few ways that Source helped them cope:

Resting in God’s sovereignty. They wrestled with “Ifs”—if the Chinese church had not asked them to come, if they could have gotten word to them before they came, if this or that had or hadn’t happened. They kept coming back to the fact that God orchestrates our steps.

They fed their souls truth. They regularly read God’s Word and Christian authors. They found help in something Andrew Murray had written (though Isobel doesn’t quote the source):

1. Say, He brought me here. It is by His will I am in this strait place and in that fact I will rest.

2. He will keep me here in His love and give me grace to behave as His child.

3. Then He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends for me to learn.

4. In His good time He can bring me out again—how and when He knows.
So let me say, I am (1) here by God’s appointment; (2) in His keeping; (3) under His training; (4) for His time.

Before Easter, 1952, Wilda

set herself to study the resurrection story and the resurrection life. As she came to the part that Peter played in the courtyard of the high priest’s palace she suddenly felt heart-condemned. She had not said, I know Him not, but she had no joy. She was not bitter, but she was frustrated and restless. Her opportunity to witness to the Chinese eyes around them that she did know the Lord and that He was satisfying her drought—had she shown that? If not, wasn’t that denying the Lord before man? On her knees before Him she confessed it as such, and the result was a glorious Easter.

They learned to delight in God’s will. While studying Ephesians 5:10, Arthur was arrested by the phrase “learn in your own experience what is fully pleasing to the Lord.”

A few nights later it came to Arthur like a flash: the Son had left heaven, not [just] submitting to the will of God, but delighting in it. Up to now they had been submitting; rather feverishly submitting because they felt they should press His promises. “Lord, why dost thou delay? We could be out spear-heading advance into new mission fields! Open the door now, Lord!” They had been acting like servants who don’t want to do it but have to, because they can’t get out of it. What a different attitude was the Son’s! There came a day in June when together Arthur and Wilda knelt before the Lord and abandoned themselves to live on in that stinted little kitchen as long as He wished them to. And the peace of God poured in like a flood bringing such joy as they had not known before.

Arthur later wrote of this experience to supporters and concluded:

So we came to see that God wanted us to will with Him to stay put; not to desire to run away as quickly as we could persuade Him to let us … It was natural that we should go from there to cry with David, I Delight to do thy will, O my God (Psalm 40: 8)…So we are no longer stupid bullocks being driven or dragged unwillingly along a distasteful road; but sons, cooperating wholeheartedly with our Father…

They endured, trusting God was working through their trials. Arthur wrote, “These trials of faith are to give us patience, for patience can only be worked as faith goes into the Pressure Chamber. To pull out because the pressure is laid on, and to start fretting would be to lose all the good He has in this for us.”

And these are ways God worked through their ministry and testimony even when they were silenced:

The words, actions, and touch expressed earlier were remembered. Their first few weeks in Hwangyuan, Arthur had been able to preach and Wilda had been able to go with the pastor’s wife to minister to the women.

Little did she guess that her loving words and smiles those days were to be the only direct ministry she was to have among them. But it was enough to show the women and girls of Hwangyuan that the white woman in their midst was there to love them.

Those were the days of the touch of the hand, the loving concern in the eyes, the simple testimony of the voice. They would not be forgotten later on when the government forbade it.

People saw God’s provision in their need. Isobel refers often to what she called the Feather Curtain of God, based on Psalm 91:4a: “He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust.” Story after story relates God’s perfect timing and loving care in supplying their needs.

All the courtyard had heard when the father ordered the milk for the little one to be discontinued for lack of funds; yet that very evening, they not only sang, but the song of praise had an exultant ring in it! (No one knew of Ben’s secret gift.) And the next day the old Tibetan lady was recalled and the milk money was there! Had it fallen from heaven? It most certainly had not come in by the door—that they knew. Did the God of Elijah really live? What more potent message could God have given these people?

People saw them endure the same trials they were experiencing. “The message above all others which the Chinese church needed was to see that truth lived out under circumstances equally harrowing as their own.”

[Arthur wrote} “Then Christmas night, another kind of gift, from the One whose birthday it was. This is what happened. Timothy [the spy] away, the local shepherd voluntarily came to the door to wish us Merry Christmas, and to tell us that the church was packed with outsiders and the few believers, who were met together for singing and the Christmas message.”

What had packed that church with heathen, living under communism? What we lack and lose and suffer are our most prized facilities for bringing home to the hearts of this people the glorious gospel of the grace of God. They had seen green leaves in a time of drought; they themselves were dried up to the point of cracking. What made these Christians able to stay uncomplaining, smiling above their patched clothes, and despite their growing thinness? How did they stay alive when Felix had done his best to starve them? They knew the power of Felix. This was the service which God had planned for His children when He deliberately brought their feet into the net.

In another section:

Was the Chinese Christian falsely accused? So were Arthur and Wilda Mathews. Was he persecuted? So were they. Was he attacked by sickness and bereavement without much medical aid? So were they. Was he laughed at? jeered at? constantly humiliated? So were they. Was he tantalized by specious promises of release? So were they. Was he forced to do menial work, thought very degrading? Much more Arthur Mathews…

And yet as trial piled upon trial; as the ground (their human comforts) grew so parched with drought that it threatened to crack open, their leaf was still green. Every evening the sound of singing and praise to their Lord ascended…Their clothes grew ragged, and their food became so poor that the Chinese themselves were moved with pity. Yet still these missionaries sang on and taught their patched-clothes baby: “In heavenly love abiding, No change my heart shall fear,” until she could sing it too.

Eventually Arthur and a coworker were the very last China Inland Mission members to be evacuated out of China after the Bamboo Curtain fell. Wilda and their little daughter, Lilah, had been sent out a short time earlier. But they all left behind with the Chinese church, the CIM family, and everyone who has read their story a testimony of God’s grace and provision.

Isobel concludes: “But who knows when the drought is going to strike us also? Is it possible for any Christian to put forth green leaves when all he enjoys in this life is drying up around him?” Yes. God’s promises are still true. May He keep our leaves green and flourishing for His glory.

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A God We Don’t Understand

Posted on October 10, 2016 by Barbara Harper

When Adoniram Judson first went to Burma, six long years passed before anyone fully received his message and was converted. A few years later he was arrested and accused of being a spy when his country was at war with Burma. His feet were tied to poles that were then raised so that only his shoulders rested on the ground. Prisoners were executed daily, and no one knew when their time would be next. They were taken on a death march to another prison. Finally he was released after two years. But his brave and faithful wife died from a fever, with their child soon following after – their third child to have died. For a while Adoniram built what he called a hermitage in the woods where he would go off to be alone. He dug an empty grave and spent time looking at it and contemplating death. On the third anniversary of his wife’s death, he wrote, “God is to me the Great Unknown. I believe in Him, but I find Him not.”

After C. S Lewis’s wife died, in his grief he wrote, “Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like.'”

The book of Job is filled with his laments and questionings of God. Jeremiah accused God of deceiving him.

Our 52 year old pastor died of pancreatic cancer right in the middle of a fruitful ministry. A young mom in our church died suddenly and totally unexpectedly due to a reaction to a drug, leaving behind a grieving husband and two children. The 3 year old grandson of friends has been diagnosed with leukemia; the 25 year old daughter of friends is fighting breast cancer, the 6 year old relative of a brother-in-law was shot in cold blood at his school. When I started writing this, a hurricane was barreling toward the east coast after having already passing over several islands.

In some ways man’s inhumanity to others is understandable in that God gives people free will, and many choose to exercise it away from Him rather than toward Him. It doesn’t explain why a teenager would shoot a child except that it’s an extreme example of exercising self-will to sin against another.

We can even come to terms with death in the big picture view of the result of living in a fallen world.

But a child getting leukemia, adults dying in their prime, death and destruction from storms — that’s a little harder to come to grips with.

He doesn’t always explain why He allows what He does. Sometimes He just wants us to trust Him. But sometimes I think He doesn’t explain because we just wouldn’t understand.

I always told myself that I would never be one of those parents who said something must be done “Because I said so!” But I learned early on that you can’t always explain something to a child. They don’t have the understanding, the context, or the experience to comprehend why certain things are required of them and why others things are denied them. At times they think that the parents who are trying to do what’s best for for the children they dearly love are horribly unfair. Sometimes they just want what they want when they want it and they don’t care about any reasons why they can’t have it.

It helps to remind ourselves there are Scriptural reasons for suffering. It helps even more to go back to what we know of the character of God. He is kind. He is good. He is love. He loves us. Nothing that happens to us negates any of those truths.

Amy Carmichael, when pondering some of the same questions, wrote:

Yet listen now,
Oh, listen with the wondering olive trees,
And the white moon that looked between the leaves,
And gentle earth that shuddered as she felt
Great drops of blood. All torturing questions find
Answer beneath those old grey olive trees.
There, only there, we can take heart to hope
For all lost lambs – Aye, even for ravening wolves.
Oh, there are things done in the world today
Would root up faith, but for Gethsemane,

For Calvary interprets human life;
No path of pain but there we meet our Lord;
And all the strain, the terror and the strife
Die down like waves before his peaceful word,
And nowhere but beside the awful Cross,
And where the olives grow along the hill,
Can we accept the unexplained, the loss,
The crushing agony – and hold us still.

Children who love their Father know that when He says, “All things work together for good to them that love God,” He must mean the best good, though how that can be they do not know….

What does a child do whose mother or father allows something to be done which it cannot understand? There is only one way of peace. It is the child’s way. The loving child trusts.

I believe that we who know our God, and have proved Him good past telling, will find rest there. The faith of the child rests on the character it knows. So may ours, so shall ours. Our Father does not explain, nor does He assure us as we long to be assured… But we know our Father. We know His character. Somehow, somewhere, the wrong must be put right; how we do not know, only we know that, because He is what He is, anything else is inconceivable. For the word sent to the man whose soul was among lions and who was soon to be done to death, unsuccored, though the Lord of Daniel was so near, is fathomless: “And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.”

There is only one place we can receive, not an answer to our questions, but peace — that place is Calvary. An hour at the foot of the Cross steadies the soul as nothing else can. “O Christ beloved, Thy Calvary stills all our questions.” Love that loves like that can be trusted about this.

And when Job, Adoniram Judson, and so many others mentioned come out on the other side of the trial, though they may not have answers to their “whys,” they often testify that they know God better, felt His goodness and grace like never before, found Him good and faithful and trustworthy, found themselves upheld in ways they could not have imagined. Adoniram Judson wrote in a letter, “The love of Christ! The breadth and length and depth and height of the love of Christ! If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings.”

As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you…Isaiah 66:13a

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!
Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! Psalm 27:13-14

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Romans 8:18

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Isaiah 53:4a

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Book Review: Ten Fingers For God

Posted on August 28, 2016 by Barbara Harper

I first read Ten Fingers For God about Dr. Paul Brand by Dorothy Clarke Wilson some 25-30 years ago when we attended a church with a solid lending library of mostly biographies. After reading this book I read the same author’s book about Paul’s mother, Granny Brand, and I believe I also read her Take My Hands: The Remarkable Story of Dr. Mary Verghese, after seeing her story mentioned in this book. I reread Granny Brand a few years ago, and that caused me to want to reread Ten Fingers, so I found an inexpensive used copy online.

Originally my primary interest in Ten Fingers For God was stirred when I was told it mentioned Dr. John Dreisbach, who attended our church whenever he was in the country. But I was soon caught up in Paul’s story on it’s own merits.

He was the son of unconventional pioneer missionaries to India, Jesse and Evelyn Brand. He and his sister were allowed to roam pretty freely, his mother even letting him do his school work up in a tree and drop finished assignments down to her. “If [his work] was wrong, he had to climb down and get [it], reascend, and start over again” (p. 14). So it was a pretty strong shock to his system when, at the age of 9, I believe, he was taken to live with two maiden aunts in England for his schooling. Some of my favorite parts of the book are his and his sister’s antics there, like hanging upside down on the crosspiece of a streetlight in front of the aunt’s house, smiling at passers-by, or pretending the floor was lava and trying to make it around the room on the furniture without touching the floor. The aunties handled it as well as they could.

Paul’s father died when he was 15, and his mother returned to England for a time, devastated, but eventually she went back to India. It was understood that Paul would follow. Initially his main interest was in carpentry, so he apprenticed to a man his mother knew. When he applied to be a missionary, however, he was turned down. His father had had to build structures, which is one reason why Paul was interested in building, but it wasn’t accepted as a main missionary occupation. Medicine had originally been repulsive to him, with memories of his father treating gross and disgusting conditions. But once Paul decided to go that way and got into it, he marveled at the way God created the body and its systems and saw it as a wonderful way to help people.

He married and went to India and was thrust into more than full time medical ministry. Leprosy was still a mystery with a huge stigma attached. Sadly, most lepers were not actively contagious, but once the disease began they were ostracized. It was thought that their flesh wasted away, so much so that they couldn’t even be operated on, but Paul discovered that the cause for their ulcers and even lost digits was lack of pain sensation. He pioneered a surgery to transform their hands from their clawed version to workable, usable hands.

But that actually created more problems. People would not hire them because of the stigma of leprosy, but they couldn’t successfully beg any more because they no longer could garner the sympathy their clawed hands had elicited. Paul found employment for some at the hospital, but of course he could not do that for all of them. Eventually a training center was built where patients could not only learn a trade, but learn how to handle their tools in safe ways that wouldn’t damage hands that couldn’t feel, and in turn, as Paul and his crew became aware of problem areas, they could adapt tools or processes to the patients’ needs. Paul’s carpentry experience was valuable many times over in these endeavors.

Not many doctors were treating leprosy patients, so when possible, Paul traveled to other parts of the world to gain more insight (which led him to Dr. Dreisbach in Africa).

Eventually treatment expanded to include operations on feet, noses, and restoration of eyebrows. Paul’s wife, Margaret, became an expert in her own right on how leprosy affects the eyes.

I had forgotten that Paul worked in the ministry founded by Dr. Isa Scudder, someone else whose biography I enjoyed.

The last third or so of the book was not quite as interesting to me, as it got further away from Paul himself and more into how his procedures and methods gained worldwide attention, what organizations he became affiliated with, which organizations sent people or set up additional centers in Vellore, etc. There’s a nice epilogue in this edition which I don’t believe was in the one I first read, telling what happened in the lives of Paul, his wife, and each of his children.

He was so incredibly busy, I don’t know how he found time to even have a family. Yet he was known for being unflappable in just about any circumstance.

A lot of his insights into pain are in this book, but perhaps his best known book was originally titled Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants, which I’ve not read. It’s been republished and retitled The Gift of Pain with Philip Yancey, but I don’t know if the text has been altered or what Yancey’s contribution to the book was. They did collaborate on other books, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made and In His Image (I’ve not read these, either.)

Overall this was a fascinating look into a unique and remarkable man, perfectly fitted to what God called him to. I’m glad I read it again.

Genre: Biography
My rating: 10 out of 10
Objectionable elements: None
Recommendation: Yes, I highly recommend it.

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)

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Book Review: Don’t Let the Goats Eat the Loquat Trees

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Barbara Harper

I saw Don’t Let the Goats Eat the Loquat Trees: The Adventures of an American Surgeon in Nepal by Thomas Hale mentioned at Lou Ann‘s, put it on my TBR list, and just finished it recently.

Thomas open his story with the realization of his need for Christ, even though he would have said he was a Christian before that. After truly believing on Jesus for salvation, he spent much time in the Bible as it opened up to him. He “asked God what He would have me do. I was disturbed by Jesus’ statement to His disciples: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’ I didn’t seem to be able to tone down that passage. It meant to me that if I was going to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, I had to go all the way, to hold nothing back, to give my entire life to God. That was a tall order, as I’ve found every day since.”

God eventually led him to prepare to go to Nepal as a surgeon, and along the way, led him to his wife, Cynthia, who was training to become a a medical missionary as a pediatrician.

Just two months before heading to Asia, their mission informed them that they were being sent not to the large hospital in Kathmandu that they had been expecting, but rather to a “small fifteen-bed hospital located out in the hills, a day’s journey from Kathmandu…still under construction…” without “even a road to it.” The change in situation would mean a completely different atmosphere: rather than a large, well-equipped hospital with culture and entertaining nearby, they’d be going to a “tiny, ill-equipped rural outpost” and a “crude, mud-walled house, where our neighbors would be illiterate and unkempt hill people.” “Cynthia made her biggest adjustment to life in Nepal right then and there.”

We might have been tempted to think how lucky Nepal was that we had come. After all, there couldn’t have been many fully trained surgeons and pediatricians in that little kingdom of twelve million people. That attitude, however, would have been the worst we could have harbored. Indeed, we had been warned of the harmfulness of such an attitude, warned that even a trace of superiority would create a barrier that would repel the friendliness and goodwill of any Nepali we met. At the same time we found that rooting out our deep and often hidden feelings of superiority–feelings of importance, of being advantaged on background and education, of having so much to offer–was no easy task.

One problem this entailed before they even left was the supply of surgical equipment that would normally be supplied by a hospital, but of course would be impossible for the small hospital they were going to. Hale details the miraculous way God provided for a multitude of equipment.

It’s fascinating reading of their trials in just getting to their hospital and home, landing on an “airstrip” that was not much more than a field, the difficulty of getting carriers for all of their things (including a piano, which the natives were not impressed by), accidentally killing a cow, which was considered the same as killing a man “and drew the same penalty–eighteen years in prison–if the crowd didn’t get you first,” adjusting to insects (“if you think you can kill ants faster than they can be hatched…don’t count on it”), learning to love the people, dealing with mistrust of the “foreign doctors” at first to eventually have the opposite problem of being overrun with people and needs. He shares many case studies and lively stories along the way. He shares, as well, many things he learned about himself and about living for God:

It took a mild-mannered and uncritical animal to make me see in myself those negative attributes that I had always attributed to other American surgeons. Facing two hundred angry men proved to be effective therapy for removing most traces of condescension with which I previously might have regarded them. It also improved my relations with missionary colleagues and with Nepali brothers and sisters in the church. I guess God had no gentler way of removing some of my imperfections; I only wish I could say, for His trouble, that He finished the job. But it was a start.

Much time and energy can be wasted on matters that are, at best, trivial.

The key to successful ministry will lie in their ability to assimilate that culture and to free themselves from the attitudes and prejudices of their own. They have been warned about the inevitable feeling of superiority, paternalism, disdain, impatience, and frustration that they are sure to experience and to which they previously may have considered themselves immune. Finally they have been told that the course of their entire missionary career will ultimately depend on one thing: their day-by-day, step-by-step walk with God.

Many times a worker arrives in a foreign land only to discover he doesn’t love the people quite as much as he thought. They are different; their ways are different. And the new missionary quickly learns that survival depends on his ability to adjust to the new people among whom he plans to live; he adjusts to them, not vice versa.

To give unwisely demeans and creates dependence; to give wisely takes time, which is scarce, and wisdom, which is scarcer.

When medicine is given free, patients often sell it instead of taking it themselves; they’d rather have the cash.

We find it comfortable to sit back, fold our arms, and mutter to one another, “All they have to do is repent.” But is that what Christ did when He rose from where He was and, with unfolded arms, came into the world to minister to us? Taking Christ’s example, we need to minister to the world in every way we can. Each Christian, before God, must find out where his or her duty lies.

Love is the one quality the world can discern that sets Christians apart and makes Christianity distinct from every other religion. If we fail to act on this truth, we will lose our right to be heard and will enter the post-Christian era for good.

The only way we know to help our Nepali friends in a lasting way is to put them in touch with the God who is the source of love and who sent His son Jesus into the world to demonstrate it.

Those early disciples had only two fish and a few loaves, but they gave Him all they had. Is this not His word to us today—to give Him all our loaves and fishes, to give Him everything we have? Then, who can say what He would be able to accomplish in our time through us?

Some of the hardest parts to read are those where the hospital had to cut corners because of the overwhelming demand on their time and resources. I don’t know if I could have made some of the decisions they did, but then, I’ve never been in that situation. They did rescind some of them after a time.

Though I wouldn’t agree with just every little point in the book, overall I found it quite an interesting and eye-opening account and really enjoyed it.

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)

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31 Days With Elisabeth Elliot: Book List and Memorial Video

Posted on October 31, 2015 by Barbara Harper

Someone commented early on in this series that I should list some of Elisabeth’s books, particularly those that are autobiographical. I think all of her books are autobiographical to a degree, though there is not any one that tells her whole life story. I hope that someone will put all the pieces together in a biography of her someday soon. I’ve also had a few comments from people who had never heard of her or didn’t know much about her, so I thought a book list would be a good idea. I am using the original publication dates where I can find them: many of them have been reprinted multiple times, some with an update from Elisabeth in them, so on Amazon or other places the more recent date they show is that of the reprint.

Books by Elisabeth Elliot

Through Gates of Splendor (1957) was her first, in which she told the story of her husband and the four other missionaries who were killed by the Auca (now known as Waorani) Indians in the 1950s. I reviewed it here. This book started me on the path of reading missionary biographies and reading Elisabeth Elliot.

The Journals of Jim Elliot (1978) are, as the title says, the journals of her first husband, Jim, with some notes by Elisabeth here and there. I wrote about them here.

The Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot (1958) is her biography of Jim. This and his journals were prime reading material among many students when I was in college.

The Savage My Kinsman (1961) tells of Elisabeth’s years working with the Aucas/Waorani after Jim’s death.

These Strange Ashes: Is God Still in Charge? is an account of her first year as a missionary, before her marriage to Jim, and if I remember correctly, contains the account of the murder of the man who was helping her translate the Colorado language and her wrestlings with why God allowed it to happen.

Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ’s Control (1984) shares her love story with Jim, which was not a smooth one, as they both originally thought God wanted them to be single missionaries. They were willing for that, if that was what God wanted, though they did love each other. This book mainly talks about the need to put God first in one’s love life and to trust Him for the outcome.

Quest For Love: True Stories of Passion and Purity contains Elisabeth’s answers to questions people sent her after reading Passion and Purity.

Furnace of the Lord: Reflections on the Redemption of the Holy City (1969) contains some of her thoughts as she visited Israel (out of print).

Let Me Be a Woman (1977) was written not long before her daughter was married and discusses what the Bible has to say about Biblical womanhood.

Discipline: The Glad Surrender.

The Mark of a Man:Following Christ’s Example of Masculinity, originally written for a nephew.

Path Through Suffering: Discovering the Relationship Between God’s Mercy and Our Pain. Excellent – one of my top three favorite books on suffering.

The Path of Loneliness: Finding Your Way Through the Wilderness to God.

The Music of His Promises: Listening to God with Love, Trust, and Obedience.

The Shaping of a Christian Family. “Drawing from 40 years of observation and her own family experience, Elliot illustrates how we can create a fulfilling Christian home based on Scriptural principles and values.” (Out of print).

God’s Guidance: A Slow and Certain Light (Out of print)

Taking Flight: Wisdom for Your Journey, for graduates (out of print).

A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael (1987), her only full biography other than Jim’s (out of print).

No Graven Image, 1966, is her only foray into fiction, but it is based somewhat on her first years as a missionary, also out of print.

All of the following are collections of her thoughts on a wide variety of topics, arising from her study of God’s Word: marriage, motherhood, singleness, abortion, as well as a gamut of aspects on the Christian life:

Twelve Baskets of Crumbs (1977) (out of print).

All That Was Ever Ours (1988)(out of print).

A Lamp Unto My Feet: The Bible’s Light For Your Daily Walk (1985).

Love Has a Price Tag

On Asking God Why: Reflections On Trusting God (1997)

Keep a Quiet Heart

Be Still My Soul

Secure in the Everlasting Arms

I’ve read the majority of these, though it was some years ago for most of them. Most her books can be ordered on Amazon and other sites as well as her website, along with some CDs and DVDs. There are also a few videos of her speaking on YouTube. Many of her out of print books can still be found used on Amazon and other places.

In addition to her books, her newsletters, which were published every other month from 1982 to 2003, can be found here. Some of the material made its way into her books and vice versa. She also had a radio program called Gateway to Joy for almost 13 years, ending in 2001. Back to the Bible used to have transcripts of it on their site, but, sadly, they don’t any more. However, the Bible Broadcasting Network has started replaying them at 11:15 a.m. on BBN stations, or they can be listened to at that time through live streaming here or on their mobile app, or they can be listened to on demand here.

After Elisabeth Elliot passed away, I was glad to learn that her memorial service would be available online. It was rather long (2+ hours), so it took me a while to have the time to watch it, but I am glad I did. You can find the whole service here.

It looked like they cut out all but one of the grandchildren’s testimonies. I was sorry to see that. I am not sure whether it was because of the time factor or whether theirs would have been a bit too personal. But there were testimonies from a number of personal friends and family members.

It was wonderful both to be reminded of aspects of her life I was familiar with and to learn a few new things. Her daughter, Valerie Shephard, reads some excerpts from her mother’s journal. Elisabeth never tried to portray herself as perfect and was always honest about her shortcomings, but readings from her journal were raw, recounting grief over her impatience with the Indians (which touched me, having battled my own impatience lately – again), times she felt like a failure, her missing her husband in the days after his death, her frustration in dealing with some issues that he usually dealt with. Part of me hopes that some day they might publish her journals, but I would understand if they didn’t: she shared much of her life publicly already, and I would not be surprised if they might want to keep some things private. But that short glimpse helped me see her anew as a woman “of like passions as we are,” who had to deal with grief and frustrations and wrong attitudes and then adjust them in light of Scriptural teaching and what she knew about her Father’s character and workings.

Valerie’s segment as well as that of Joni Eareckson Tada were my favorite parts, though I enjoyed all the testimonies.

A few other observations: I enjoyed the majestic old hymns, something I knew Elisabeth appreciated and used in her devotional times. Evidently she taught them to her children and grandchildren as well. I love many new hymns, but some of these old ones I had not heard in a long time. At first I was going to try to skip through some of the singing to get to the speeches, but I am glad I didn’t.

I loved hearing about her humor. She doesn’t strike you as a funny person at first, but she enjoyed a good laugh.

I also enjoyed seeing photos I had not seen before, including some of places and people and even pets.

But the thing that struck me most was Elisabeth’s interest in and ministry to people. She wasn’t just off at a desk writing all the time. Honestly, that would be my own preference. I often don’t know what to say “in the moment.” That’s one reason I like writing and blogging – I can turn things over in my mind, write a bit, let it sit for a while and come back to it, and finally after days or months give you a fairly thorough answer or opinion on something. But that can’t substitute for an interest in and ministry to people in everyday moments, and one thing those testimonies did was to awaken and encourage that in me.

Though Elisabeth would never want to be out on a pedestal, as she once said of others in the faith whom we admire, so I think we can say this of her:

Pedestals are for statues. Usually statues commemorate people who have done something admirable. Is the deed worth imitating? Does it draw me out of myself, set my sights higher? Let me remember the Source of all strength (“The Lord is the strength of my life,” says Ps 27:1 AV) and, cheered by the image of a human being in whom that strength was shown, follow his example.

I have enjoyed this time over the past month reminding myself of things Elisabeth said. I hope you have as well. Thank you for your kind comments!

To see all the posts in this series, see the bottom of this post.

(Update: Since the time I wrote this, The Elisabeth Elliot Foundation was formed, and many of her articles and broadcasts are available here. In addition, transcripts from her talks from a conference were transcribed and published in Suffering Is Never for Nothing (linked to my review). Her daughter, Valerie Shephard, wrote of her parents’ love story and shared excerpts from some of their letters and journals in Devotedly. Ellen Vaughn published a biography of Elisabeth in Becoming Elisabeth Elliot, drawing largely on EE’s journals and letters. And recently Christianity Today reported that a lost manuscript of Elisabeth’s was found and will be published under the title Heart of God: 31 Days to Discover God’s Love for You.