From My Bookshelf or The Library's

I love missionary stories and lately I just can't seem to stop pulling them off the library shelves and bringing them home with me. I miss the old days when I could read a book in an afternoon. So I have to limit my choices at the Library. Sad huh? It's not like I have to have a budget to stick to at the library. Its free for goodness sakes! (well unless you have late fees....somehow I always get those :/) but I guess I am just budgeting my reading time...ugh..I shouldn't have to do that.

So I was really excited that I actually finished a book last night!!!

I read "We Signed Away Our Lives: How One Family Gave Everything for the Gospel" by Kari Torjesen Malcolm.

When I pulled it off the shelf at the church library the title intrigued me. How did this family give everything? How did God draw them to himself? What can I learn from this?

My expectations were met. As soon as I opened it I was pleasantly surprised that it was set in China. I don't know how I didn't see that little detail on the back cover but I apparently didn't!

The book followed the journey of the Torjesen family on their commitment to follow Christ no matter what the cost. It all started when Peter Torjesen the future father of three boys and a girl heard a mission sermon at his church and when the offering plate went around he not only put what money he had, he also put a piece of paper in the plate which read "And my life". It was the pivotal moment in his life. He never looked back. This commitment to took him and his wife Valborg to China where they served the people of China sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. They were commited even through war, and harships. This commitment ultimately cost Peter his life, but was that really so much to lose?

"Afraid? Of what?
Afraid to see the Savior's face,
To hear His welcome, and to trace
The glory gleam from wounds of grace?
Afraid---of that?

Afraid? Of what?
A flash, a crash, a pierced heart;
Darkness light, O Heaven's art!
A wound of his counterpart!
Afraid---of that?

Afraid? Of what?
To do by death what life could not--
Baptize with blood a stony plot,
Till souls shall blossom from the spot?
Afraid--of that?"
~E.H. Hamilton

"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains only a single seed. But if it dies it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life in this world will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." John 12: 24-25

"These all died in faith, not having recieved the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is they desire a better country, that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city." Hebrews 11: 13-16