In the early 1940s during World War II, Brethren in Christ missionaries were mostly unable to travel to or from the mission field due to the danger of attacks on the high seas. Despite the danger, David and Mable Hall and their two children, Barbara and John, set sail aboard an Egyptian ocean liner called the Zamzam in March 1941, bound for Cape Town, South Africa. They never arrived in Cape Town because the Zamzam was attacked by a German ship and the passengers were shipped to Europe where they were detained for weeks. The Halls finally arrived back in the United States in June 1941.
During the entire ordeal, Mable Hall recorded each day’s events using a five-year diary with only a small space for each entry. The lead article in this edition, an edited and adapted version of the diary, is available to us only because someone preserved the diaries of a family member. For that we should all be grateful and reminded of the value of preserving documents like diaries for future generations. In other words, don’t throw away that old diary you find in the attic or basement!
Continuing the missionary theme is an article by Daryl Climenhaga, the grandson and son of missionaries to Africa and a former missionary himself, that starts with an acknowledgement that the “essential objection to the missionary task of the church is that it is inherently colonial.” He then proceeds to “evaluate the work of the first Brethren in Christ missionaries in light of generally accepted missiological principles.” The result is a careful analysis of those missiological principles and how despite their lack of “sophistication,” the early missionaries were faithful to the God they served and deeply loved the people to whom God sent them.
During this time of renewed attention to the issue of race and racism in the United States, David Weaver-Zercher has been researching Brethren in Christ attitudes and actions regarding race during the Civil Rights Movement. The result is a two-part series, the first of which covers the period of the 1950s and early 1960s. The second part, covering the late 1960s and the 1970s, will appear in the April 2022 edition. As you read, you may not only want to praise the church for being bold enough to speak out against racism but also be distressed over decisions that in retrospect were not helpful in reducing racist attitudes. Knowing this part of our history can perhaps help Brethren in Christ U.S. as the church launches Project 250 where one of the goals is “Growing to Reflect the Demographic Realities of our Communities.”1
Some time ago, Doris Heisey Crider took editor emeritus E. Morris Sider’s advice seriously when, during a short course on “Telling Your Story,” he advised class members that everyone has a story to tell. Inspired by Sider, Doris set out to tell her own story, especially the part of it that involved her parents’ service at Life Line Mission in San Francisco. The last article in this edition is an illustrated glimpse into her parents’ life of service and their part in the history of Life Line Mission, which has since closed its presence in San Francisco and transitioned into what is now Pacific Lifeline in Upland, California.
Four book reviews close out this edition. Two of them connect with David Weaver-Zercher’s article about race—a novel about a white man in relationship with a white woman in the Midwest in the 1950s, and a book about racial reparations. A third contributes to the history of missions, and the fourth reviews another volume in the Believers Church Bible Commentary Series.
Harriet Sider Bicksler, editor
- “Project 250,” Brethren in Christ U.S., https://bicus.org/project-250/ [↩]