Two Book Reviews

I recently read two amazing books from my church library. Both were written by Don Richardson, a missionary and writer. Though the books are old, he has updated them and they are still available on his website and on Amazon —or from your church library, perhaps.

Peace Child is the story of Don and Carol Richardson’s experience living among the headhunting tribes of the western half of New Guinea. In sharing the gospel with them Richardson discovered they admired Judas and his betrayal rather then Jesus and his sacrificial love. They viewed deceitfulness and betrayal as qualities to be emulated. They befriended their victims before taking their heads!

Peace Child is a spellbinding account of how Don and Carol Richardson and their young children lived through a number of intense and dangerous events and succeeded in their mission. Their story is a testimony to their strong faith and to God’s provision of a way to reach the tribe with the good news. I won’t give it away. This is a must read book for Christians.

Eternity in Their Hearts, the second book by Don Richardson, is a fascinating account of the widespread belief in one God among primitive peoples. Anthropologists, attempting to prove primitive people were not monotheistic, were shocked to find they were wrong. Richardson tells one story after another of tribes in which belief in a supreme God existed for centuries.

One example (abbreviated here) describes the Gedeo people in Ethiopia who believed in a benevolent god called Magano but didn’t pray to him, focusing instead on appeasing an evil god. One man, Warrasa Wange, prayed to Magano asking him to reveal himself. Wange had visions of two white-skinned strangers erecting shelters under a sycamore tree near his town. He continued to pray and eight years later two white missionaries arrived in an old truck and did just as he had envisioned. Three decades later there were 200 churches among the Gedeo people with more than 200 members each.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11.

Blessings, Dottie