Previous | Next 

CURRENTLY IN BOOKS
Celebrating a century of MB mission

Titus Guenther

True Life: First-Hand Stories of Mission
A Celebration of a Century of Mennonite Brethren Mission: MBMS International Centennial 1900-2000
Brad Thiessen, ed. Fresno, Calif.: MBMS International, 2000. 104 pp.

MBMS International has put together a delightful coffee-table book commemorating outstanding experiences of many of the “more than 1,000 long-term career missionaries” in MBMSI’s world mission program over the past century.

Editor Brad Thiessen notes, “Over 100 former and current missionaries contributed stories, poems and photographs” for this book.

The foreword by Harold Ens, general director, and the preface by Thiessen, director of media and communications, provide a helpful orientation to readers and set the celebratory tone for the book. The five chapters that follow loosely organize the book’s materials into as many areas of experience in missionary life. These include inter-ethnic friendships in everyday life, travel adventures, experiences in ministry, transformation stories and on “the call and the need” respectively.

Skillfully arranged black & white and colour photographs capture many great scenes from around the world and offer precious glimpses into other cultures. The stories are full of adventure, offering both entertainment and edification.

In terms of missiology, the missionaries’ stories are permeated by a sustained evangelistic fervour. The book clearly bears the imprint of the “conversionist theology” which, according to Jacob A. Loewen, is “the cornerstone of Mennonite Brethren belief and preaching at home and abroad” (Educating Tiger, 2000, p.31). However, it is equally clear that a more holistic impulse of mission was never entirely absent. Besides discovering a world “which is so badly in need of the Good News of Jesus Christ” (86), the missionaries regularly tended to the educational and medical needs of those around them. What is more, this century of cross-cultural mission experience also has “converted” many of the missionaries themselves, who came away feeling grateful to the primal peoples “for helping me expand my concept of God” because “my God was too small” (92).

MBMS International is to be congratulated for having the vision to publish True Life: First-hand Stories of Mission. It is sure to appeal to a wide readership, allowing it to share in the great things that God is doing through mission.

Titus Guenther teaches theology and missions at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg.

Previous | Next 

Last modified January 9, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
Masthead and usage information.