Audrey Featherstone, I presume?

Couldn’t put it down!

AUDREY FEATHERSTONE, I PRESUME?
Amazing story of a Congo missionary
By Tim Shenton
Evangelical Press. 228 pages. £8.95
ISBN 978-0-85234-678-5

Wow! I read this amazing story, almost in one sitting, and could not put it down. The biography of Audrey will fascinate and challenge everyone — from her childhood, and how she came to know the Lord as her Saviour; her call to the mission field; how she adapted to life in the African rain-forest; her passionate love for the Africans among whom she lived for 25 years; her amazing stickability, when everything seemed loaded against her and her husband; right through to the heart-tearing decision to leave Africa and the time of caring for her dying partner; and to her grief in widowhood.

The story is told simply, realistically, yet with an extraordinary sympathy in each differing situation. The addition of surrounding historical facts make the whole book more intelligible for many readers; but these parts can easily be skipped for others who only want the actual story of the Featherstones.

For myself, as I read the story, I could only marvel, as I re-lived my own life in Congo. Audrey is only three years older than myself: we lived through the same stages of colonial rule, independence, uprising and wars, destruction of so much of the country we loved, and slowly the recovery and handing over to national leadership.

The deep-seated desire in the hearts of the Featherstones to see nationals trained and able to carry the responsibilities of leadership was so exactly my own, that I was amazed over and over again. This is a wonderfully true record of what missionary service was all about in the 20th century, and must truly challenge its reader to understand better and so to pray more effectively for missionary friends in the 21st century.

I cannot recommend the book too highly, and I believe that as you read, you too will say: ‘Wow!’

Helen Roseveare,
20 years a missionary in the north-eastern province of the D.R. of Congo; now living in Belfast, a member of a Bible-teaching Church of Ireland

© Evangelicals Now - November 2008
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• Audrey Featherstone, I presume? - Amazing story of a Congo missionary