Great For God, by David Shibley, is a collection of missionary stories. I am unsure of the target audience, but the reading level is fairly low and each story is only 3 or 4 pages. The introduction of the book states that the intention was to chose a handful of missionaries to include in this time capsule in order that their stories might live on- which I agree, they should. I love collections of missionary stories...
Because of the length the author went to in sharing how he picked which missionary to write about and which to leave out, I was expecting to read about the unknown servants. I had my heart set on learning a little about the lives of those that haven’t been recorded before, the never-before-heard “heroes of the faith”. Perhaps I am not the greatest person to make this judgement call, but I was disappointed to see the same people I’ve already read about before. Not to lessen their great works for God or to say that they aren’t worthy of being included, by any means. I was simply hoping for a different handful.
One missionary the author did include and I hadn’t heard of was a man named H.B. Garlock. I enjoyed reading about his story because he was from Connecticut and met Jesus as a young man. He served the people of Liberia, Ghana and Malawi and faced the kind of dramatic moments read about in the Bible. That’s what I’m talking about! I was also excited to learn about what H.B. did in his later years of life....but I will leave that to you to find out on your own!
Another missionary story that I knew about previously but hadn’t seen documented in print before was WIlliam Cameron Townsend and his ministry called JAARS(Jungle Aviation and Radio Service), which collaborated with Wyclife Bible Translators. JAARS will remain near and dear to my heart because their North American arm, which was in existence up until a few years ago, served my family. JAARS helped relocate ministry offices and missionaries personal items around the world. When JAARS had to refocus their efforts, one of their own men wanted to keep serving ministries and missionaries in North America, so he renamed the branch to Missionary Transport, Inc. One of their trucks and drivers served our family when we relocated from Virginia to Connecticut. When his truck arrived for us to load it, I could see the JAARS sticker underneath the Missionary Transport, Inc. label on the truck. This made my heart happy.
Overall, this was a good book. I will keep it around to use as a source of missionary stories for my kids. I have an electronic copy and am thankful for that, as I doubt I would give up any bookshelf real estate for it.
You can pick up a copy for yourself at http://www.newleafpublishinggroup.com/product_info.php?products_id=981
Thanks New Leaf for a chance to review your book. I was given a free copy in exchange for my honest opinion of the book! These comments are my own.
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