10 of those

Down to earth missionary in Africa.

Updated since 2013, this book takes us to a country not many of us will know much about – Guinea-Bissau, formerly Portuguese Guinea. God called Lily Gaynor from Liverpool to serve with WEC in the Biombo area of Guinea-Bissau. Her job was to learn the Papel language, turn it into a written language and to translate the New Testament into it. She arrived in 1957 and the Papel New Testament was published in 1994. Meanwhile as a trained nurse, Lily was involved in much medical work (God’s needle was what the people called an injection of penicillin) and the book is full of stories of how many people were healed through this. She was especially used in the safe delivery of many babies in the context of extremely high infant mortality. As the previous source of help in this area was the witchdoctor, there are several stories of the spiritual battle involved, often ending with conversion. Lily is honest about the tension between her medical and translation work, as well as the struggles she faced during her training and adjusting to life in Africa. She was also honest about her failings. She shares that the biggest problem in being a missionary was not finance, which is God’s problem, but keeping the fire burning in their own heart. In short it is a very encouraging read, especially as there is now a thriving church among the Papel people.

Stephen