5.0 out of 5 stars
A great story of faith and endurance, December 26, 2003
This review is from: Caught in the Crossfire: The Trials and Triumphs of African Believers Through an Era of Tribulation (Hardcover)
It is early 1964, and in the newly independent nation of Zaire, Pierre Mulele is leading a Communist revolution against the central government. When the revolutionaries overrun Kwilu Province, they forcibly remove the missionaries, leaving the local Christians on their own resources. Facing a hostile revolutionary army (many of whom are only nominally under Mulele's control), these believers face persecution and many attendant moral dilemmas, as they try to survive with civilians caught between the warring revolutionaries and government soldiers.
This is a great story of faith and endurance under almost impossible circumstances. It is no Pollyanna story, but it realistically presents the people as facing their persecution with fear and uncertainty, as often failing as making the right decisions. I found this to be a great story, realistic and yet uplifting.
Levi Keidel and his wife Eudene served as missionaries in Zaire for 30 years, under Africa InterMennonite Mission, and his knowledge of the people there makes the story come alive. And, what is nice is that the story is presented in a non-denominational way, being the story of Christians, rather than simply members of a specific sect. This book won the 1980 Evangelical Christian Publishers Association Gold Medallion Book Award for fiction, which it richly deserves. This is a great book, one that I highly recommend to all believers.
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