• Dr. Jerry Umanos

    Dr. Jerry Umanos, servant of God, husband, father, friend, and pediatrician was murdered in Kabul, Afghanistan in April of 2014. His life touched many both inside and outside the USA and his death hit very close to home as I have friends and family who work for Lawndale Christian Health Center who knew and loved him. As the event unfolded, the words of his wife, Jan, dripped with grace as she immediately forgave…

  • Elisabeth Elliot

    Even though I never knew Elisabeth, she seemed to always be present in our family. Her books were threaded through my mother’s bookshelves … and then in mine. My grandparents were Plymouth Brethren missionaries at the same time as Jim and Elisabeth Elliot and reading her books gave me an idea of what their lives must have been like as missionaries in South America. Her books also helped me to…

  • Dirk Willem

    How many Anabaptists died during the sixteenth century persecution in Europe? No one knows for sure. What is certain is that at least 1,500 were cruelly tortured and killed. For the most part these were peaceful citizens who did not believe in war and who became the forerunners of today’s Mennonites and Amish. The main complaint of the authorities against them was that they did not believe infant baptism had…

  • Charles de Foucauld

    CHARLES DE FOUCAULD was born in Strasbourg, France on September 15th, 1858. Orphaned at the age of six, he and his sister Marie were raised by their grandfather in whose footsteps he followed by taking up a military career. He lost his faith as an adolescent. His taste for easy living was well known to all and yet he showed that he could be strong willed and constant in difficult…

  • The White Rose Society

    In the early summer of 1942, a group of young people — including Willi Graf, Christoph Probst, Alex Schmorell, and Hans and his sister Sophie Scholl (all in their early twenties), as well as their professor of philosophy, Kurt Huber, formed a non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. The group became known for an anonymous leaflet campaign, lasting from June 1942 until February 1943 that called for active opposition to…

  • Frans Van Der Lugt

    In 1964, Frans Van Der Lugt left Holland to study Arabic in Lebanon. He then moved on to Syria in 1966 and considered it to be his home. Van Der Lugt was a well-known figure in Homs, a rebel-held city that has been under a government siege for more than a year. The priest was respected by many for his efforts to get a blockade lifted so that aid could…

  • R.J. Thomas

    “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12 Outside the city of Seoul, Korea stands the memorial to the martyrs of the Korean church. Interestingly, the first picture in the gallery is of a Welshman, R. J. Thomas. He was a missionary…

  • Asia Bibi

    Arrested June 2009 in Pakistan Asia Bibi, a 37-year-old Pakistani woman from the village of Ittanwali, was arrested by police on Friday, June 19, 2009. Asia (also called Asia Noreen) is the wife of 50-year-old Ashiq Masih, and their family is one of only three Christian families in a village of 1,500 families. Many of the local women, including Asia, work on the farm of Muslim landowner Muhammad Idrees. During…

  • Betty Stam: A Woman Who Promised All

    I first read about Betty Stam while reading a book by Elisabeth Elliot. She included a prayer that Betty had prayed early in life. This is that prayer: Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes All my own desires and hopes And accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all Utterly to Thee to be Thine forever. Fill me and seal me…

  • The Cambridge Seven

    The Cambridge Seven were seven students from Cambridge University, who in 1885, gave up all wealth and privilege to become missionaries in China; the seven were: Charles Thomas Studd, Montagu Harry Proctor Beauchamp, Stanley P. Smith, Arthur T. Polhill-Turner, Dixon Edward Hoste, Cecil H. Polhill-Turner and William Wharton Cassels. Having been accepted as missionaries by Hudson Taylor of the China Inland Mission the seven were scheduled to leave for China…

  • Inaugural Post

    “Courage is not a virtue; but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” — C.S. Lewis Welcome to our website celebrating those who have lived a life of valor with the hopes that it will encourage us to do the same. We hope to investigate the things that make heroes, heroic and the men and women who have shown us that it is possible to trust in God…