Showing results by author "Janet Benge" in All Categories

With the heart of an explorer and the passion of an evangelist, David Livingstone mapped vast unexplored areas of Africa, sharing the gospel with whomever he encountered. His stamina, perseverance, and dogged determination created the legacy of a trailblazing explorer with an undying hunger to make Christ known wherever his steps led him. David Livingstone's captivating adventures and tireless zeal continue to inspire countless men and women to bring the gospel message of God's love to those souls who have never heard.

Suddenly, Corrie's ordered life was lost in the insanity of war. With bravery and compassion, her family and countless other Dutch citizens risked everything to extend God's hand to those innocents marked for certain execution in a world gone mad. Corrie ten Boom's life of determination, faith, and forgiveness in the face of unimaginable brutality and hardship is a stunning testimony to the sustaining power of God.

Adventurous Wilfred Grenfell was no stranger to danger. As a new Christian, this English doctor ministered to fishermen on the deadly North Sea. And when her heard about the appalling poverty and injustice across the ocean in Newfoundland, he went to work among the deperately poor fishing communities of the wild, remote Labrador coast. There Dr. Grenfell pioneered life-saving hospitals, schools, orphanages, and fishermen's co-ops as he shared the hope of the gospel with people whose lives has offered only despair.

C.T. and his companion were lost in the African jungle. All the warning others had given the two missionaries rushed into C.T.'s mind. He had the uneasy sensation of being watched. C.T. shivered as he stared into the dense foliage surrounding him. He was exposed on all sides, clearly visible to anything or anyone concealed in the jungle.

Since she was young, Elisabeth Elliot had been intrigued by missionaries who gave up so much to tell others about God s love. With a passion to translate the Bible into new languages, she followed God's call to work among tribes in Ecuador, including the Waorani (Auca), who had killed her husband and four others. Elisabeth kept a detailed journal of her life and missionary service. She returned to the United States after many years in South America, becoming one of the most influential Christian women of our time.

Ever since he was a young boy dreaming of writing "God is Love" on the moon so that all the world's people could see it, Loren Cunningham has committed his life to reaching the whole world with the Good News of Jesus Christ, ministering in every nation on earth. Through his unswerving belief that nothing is impossible for God, Loren's vision of waves of young people became the reality of Youth With A Mission, unleashing young Christians in missionary service when that was unheard of.

Born in Denison, Texas, Dwight David Eisenhower grew up poor in Abilene, Kansas. After graduating from the US Military Academy at West Point, Ike entered army service, commanding tank training in WWI and afterward, serving in Central America, Europe, and the Philippines. During WWII Ike directed US forces in Europe, eventually becoming supreme commander of Allied forces and leading the invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. A lifetime of service, sacrifice, and humility shone brightly on the world stage for the brilliant general who would become the thirty-fourth president of the United States.

When Orville Wright (1871-1948) and his brother Wilbur set out to solve the problem of flight, they recognized that success would come with careful observation, perseverance, and ingenuity. From experiments in their Dayton, Ohio, bicycle shop to test flights over the beaches of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the amateur aviation enthusiasts risked their lives and worked tirelessly to solve the problems that had stumped the world's best scientists.

As a boy at boarding school in Great Britain, Norman would never have guessed where his life's work would take him. After serving in World War I, he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he played a key role in the beginnings of InterVarsity Fellowship. Following in the footsteps of C.T. Studd, Norman then answered God's call to join the Heart of Africa Mission in the Belgian Congo. A passionate yet humble evangelist, missionary, and teacher, Norman went on to lead the Worldwide Evangelistic Crusade (WEC) and helped found the Christian Literature Crusade.

David Bussau grew up in New Zealand boys' homes where expectations of the young men were grim. David shattered those expectations, emerging as an enterprising teenager running a rented hot dog stand. Numerous business ownerships and financial success followed, and with that success, a vision to provide natural disaster relief and aid to the poor in Australia, Indonesia, India, and beyond. Today David's work continues through Opportunity International, a worldwide aid organization that offers small business loans to help the poor start and grow their own businesses.

At age twenty Rowland Bingham committed himself to serving not only in Africa, known as the white man's grave, but in Africa's Sudan interior, where few missionaries had ventured and those who did soon died of disease or retreated in defeat. Experienced missionaries told Rowland that his dream was impossible. But when he found himself the sole surviving member of the fledgling Sudan Interior Mission, he didn't give up—neither did God.

Exposed to the horrendous living conditions of women prisoners and their children, Elizabeth Fry pledged to improve the lives of society's most desperate people—something no one else dared to do. Telling doubters, "If I don't, who will?" Betsy became one of England's greatest reformers and one of the nineteenth century's most beloved people. Guided by her Quaker values, she led efforts in education and literacy, prison reform, and—together with figures such as William Wilberforce and Thomas Fowell Buxton—the abolition of slavery.

Once timid and unsure of her own salvation, New Zealander Florence Young rose to her calling and became a fearless and faithful witness for Jesus Christ. Eventually serving in the remote Solomon Islands and, for a season, in China during the deadly Boxer Rebellion, Florence began her service close to home. This one woman's mission to the Solomon Islanders, or Kanakas, working on her family's Australian plantation soon expanded to their home islands.

Alan Shepard's boyhood fascination with flight led him from constructing model airplanes in his grandfather's basement to attaining national hero status in the race to space. Rooted in hard work and education, this pioneer's dreams of flight came true as he became not only the first American launched into space but, later, one of the privileged few to walk on the moon. When he wasn't soaring above the clouds, astronaut Alan Shepard used his expertise to benefit others, raising money to fuel the dreams of science students and guiding NASA missions.

Ben thought about the strange course of events that had led him to this point in his life. He had considered being a lawyer but had ended up becoming a doctor, and now he was also a politician and member of the Continental Congress. Ben had never thought of working with the army. But for now, that was what he was doing. He wondered if he too might be called to die for the new country they were trying to forge. Filled with intelligence and devotion, Benjamin Rush eagerly took up numerous roles as a physician, surgeon general in the army, politician, educator, and writer.

Klaus-Dieter John (1960-) dreamed of becoming a medical missionary in the developing world. He would do whatever it took—study in top universities and practice surgery in remote and dangerous places—to reach his goal of providing health care for people who needed it most. Dr. John's seemingly impossible vision of Diospi-Suyana, a world-class hospital for impoverished Peruvians deep in the Andes Mountains, was blessed by God to the end. Despite challenges in fund-raising, construction, moving his family from Germany, and countless roadblocks, Klaus's dream was finally realized.

As adventurers from around the world raced to reach the South Pole and achieve other polar firsts in the early 1900s, outsider Ernest Shackleton and his motley expeditions would outshine even the British navy, becoming icons of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Known for prizing loyalty, leadership, and skill without regard for rank or social class—and for bringing men back alive—Shackleton completed three death-defying Antarctic journeys.

Missionary trio Mildred Cable (1878-1952) and Evangeline and Franscesca French were the first Englishwomen to cross the infamous Gobi Desert, living for years among the diverse peoples of northwestern China in places few Europeans ever reached. Educated and rich, Mildred Cable once planned to be a concert pianist. Instead she served the people of China through wars and revolutions.

Although born into a devout Christian family, Clarence Jones wasn't interested in religion. It was this Midwesterner's ear for music that led him to play trombone at Chicago's Moody Church, where he gave his life to Christ and volunteered for mission work. Clarence's work began in Chicago, where he helped pioneer something unheard of-Christian radio broadcasts. Soon God called Clarence to "go south with radio." Led to Ecuador, Clarence worked unswervingly to cofound Radio HCJB and the World Radio Missionary Fellowship.

Born into slavery in Maryland, Frederick Douglass was separated from his mother during infancy, then taken from his grandparents at the age of six to serve at the “Great House” on the Wye Plantation in Maryland. He never imagined the cruelties he would witness or the indignities of his family being treated like cattle to be sold, divided, and scattered far and wide. Escaping from slavery, Frederick Douglass became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in America.