Janet Benge

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....

The spiritual needs of the Muslim world, long neglected by Christian missionaries, came to the world's attention again when Samuel Zwemer dedicated himself to the advancement of the gospel in Arabia....

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....

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....

Richard Wurmbrand, founder of Voice of the Martyrs, was once a young atheist determined to experience everything the world had to offer. Yet he regretted that God did not exist, wishing that a heart of love beat somewhere in the universe....

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....

Achieving success as an athlete, sports announcer, and actor, Ronald Reagan discovered his greatest role late in life, as the fortieth president of the United States and The Great Communicator....

As a boy at boarding school in Great Britain, Norman would never have guessed where his life's work would take him. Following in the footsteps of C.T. Studd, Norman soon answered God's call to join the Heart of Africa Mission in the Belgian Congo....

Growing up on the French-German border, son of a Lutheran pastor, Albert Schweitzer adopted a peace-loving approach to life. He studied theology, music, and philosophy and wrote numerous books. At age thirty he felt called to study medicine and eventually became a doctor....

Growing up in a small town in England, William Bradford lived during a time of upheaval and opportunity. Together with a group of Separatists, William escaped England to establish a new life in Holland and finally set out on the Mayflower on a perilous voyage across the Atlantic Ocean....

In search of open spaces and land to call his own, Daniel Boone fearlessly led a band of brave settlers into the bountiful Kentucky wilderness....

As Ben experimented, people peppered him with questions about electricity. Distracted, Ben was still holding the ends of two bare wires when the other ends touched the Leyden jars. A massive charge knocked him to the ground....

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....

With the favor William's father enjoyed in Britain's royal court, all William had to do was show himself to be a faithful royalist, and wealth and privilege would be his. Instead he chose to follow his conscience....

As a fourteen-year-old intent on living a “modern” life, the last thing Isobel Kuhn wanted to grow up to be was a missionary. But as it turned out, this young agnostic’s life was redirected―from crisis and doubt to hope and strength....

Ida Scudder was sure she would never follow in the footsteps of her medical missionary father. But when she witnessed Indian women dying because their religious beliefs didn't allow male doctors to treat them, Dr. Ida Scudder lived out the truth and compassion found in Christ....

One of the first Methodist bishops in America, English-born Francis Asbury devoted his life to ministry, traveling on horseback to preach and teach to those living on the vastly isolated American frontier.....

When Lillian Trasher founded Egypt's first orphanage, others thought that a lone American woman with no means of support would surely be killed or starve to death....

The son of missionary parents, Paul Brand did not plan on becoming a doctor. After training as a builder, he was called by God into medicine and spent a lifetime treating leprosy and restoring hope to thousands of sufferers....

Determined to make a difference and with an insatiable curiosity, love of adventure, and hunger for justice, Theodore Roosevelt exemplified a life directed by principles and not by circumstance.