Starting in the book of Acts, the history of missions is characterized by controversy. It may have begun when Paul and company set out with freshly-minted instructions from the Jerusalem Council, defining the parameters of the message they were sharing. It was certainly evident when the citizens of Lystra decided to fold Paul and Barnabas into their eclectic assortment of deitiesand then to take up stones against them. And remember the story of New Testament heroes of the faith clashing over personnel issues and going their separate ways for a season? Throughout history, according to His own counsel and sovereign wisdom, God has chosen to put the transmission of the Gospel into the hands of His fallen and often short-sighted children, and the effects of that have made for some fascinating reading.

A Train-Wreck of Two Cultures Colliding

Over fifty years ago, Eleanor Vandevort came home from South Sudan in the wake of political unrest. Her thirteen years of language acquisition, Bible translation, literacy work, and relationship building were cut short with no certainty as to their effect or ultimate impact. When she set down the account of her struggle and her achievements in A Leopard Tamed, she was a woman ahead of her time, asking questions few in the golden age of U.S. missions were asking and even fewer wanted to entertain.

Vandevorts narrative centers around her work among the Nuer, a remote and primitive culture eking out a living on dry, flat, hard-packed land bordering on the Sobat River in South Sudan. She was fortunate, early on, to connect with Kuac (pronounced /kwich/, rhyming with quite), a young man who had been educated at the mission-sponsored village school and was, therefore, a valuable informant for learning the language and reducing it to print.

What followed from Kuacs conversion, subsequent education, and eventual call to pastor the church in Nasir is a glorious triumph of light over darknessand it is also the story of a train wreck of two cultures colliding in one frail human soul. With vivid descriptions of the Nuer way of life, this 50th anniversary edition transported me to a land of unique beauty alongside unimaginable hardship and hopelessness.

As Eleanor learned to respect and collaborate with national believers who did not share her affinity for logic, efficiency, or planning, she also gained a sharper image of God in the context of heathenism, for He has made it clear that He loves the entire world, even the parts a North American Christian cannot comprehend:

Try, if you can, to fathom Him, to draw His picture with clear, solid lines, to pin Him down. Just when you think you have God in focus, He moves, and the picture blurs. (11)

A Bridge that Spanned Two Cultures

In 1949, at the tender age of 24, Eleanor Vandevort embarked upon her career as a Bible translator, joining the ranks of Wheaton College classmate Elisabeth Elliot and her peers who put their hands to the plow with no thought of turning back. It was an era in which the boundary between Christian culture and Western culture was decidedly blurred, so Vandevort was nonplussed to find that she had arrived in Africa bearing a message that would meet a need the Nuer did not even know existed.

With Kuacs help, Eleanor slowly acquired a working command of the language with its fourteen vowels, three levels of tone, and absolutely no Christian jargon. Learning her way into those speech patterns helped in building the bridge that spanned the two cultures. However, observations throughout the book reveal a growing awareness that along with the Gospel, she and her fellow missionaries were sharing a full menu of lesser messages, some merely lamentable and others disastrous:

I was incredulous that after fifty years of missionary work among these people, there was no striking hunger on the villagers part to hear the Gospel. I wondered where the people were who reportedly were crying out for the Word of God. (34)

As far as I could ever tell, Christian behavior patterns were outlined by the missionaries and were not born out of the Africans own experience with God. (22)

It was painful and disappointing to be making friends with people for whom my ideas were nonsense. The more I came to know them, the more I realized the barrier of taboos between us. But my disappointment went deeper. It stemmed from the fact that God was not shining in the darkness as I had prayed and hoped for and expected. (39)

Is my scientific orientation to life, which has removed me from the constant threat of death, the factor which stabilizes my faith? Or, in that I need not fear God physically as the heathen do, has this freedom set me adrift from God, missing Him altogether? (46)

How does a person decide that hes not going to be afraid of death? (83)

The many problems of translation exploded my theories of Bible translating, and precluded the possibility of producing an exact and therefore inerrantas Evangelicals used the termtranslation of the Scriptures. (95)

We did not foresee that our things would become more important to the people than our Gospel, that they would want them. No one was to be blamed for this, but as it was turning out, were we not becoming more of a stumbling block than a help to the people? (187)

Leaving the Results in Gods Hands

As a young missionary, Eleanor Vandevort began to realize that the methods she had inherited from her forebears were an imposition upon the culture. From the tone of voice used when speaking aloud in prayer to the denominational distinctives around church government, Christianity and its trappings became an ill-fitting garment in a world that required Christians to address issues such as polygamy, marriage to the dead, animal sacrifice, and grisly coming-of-age ceremonies.

The prevailing idea among Presbyterian missionaries was that what was good for Calvin was certainly good for the south Sudan. Within a context of very isolated and individualized people groups, the concept of a congregation was strange enough, but then they must call a pastor and provide for him. It would hardly have occurred to the people to pay a man just for talking about God. . . In that as Christians they were now to believe that God works by the faith of His people, it would seem likely that they would wonder at having to pay a pastor at all. (82) Then, they must submit to the leadership of the Presbytery with decisions handed down from the UPC of the USA.

Nearing the end of her time in South Sudan, it was evident to Eleanor that Kuac was floundering in his role as Pastor Moses. (Upon ordination, national pastors took on a biblical name which, in Kuacs situation, was never adopted by his people because it was unpronounceable and meaningless to them.) With the introduction of a money-based economy and the acquired need for clothing, furniture, blankets, soap, and utensils, Kuac was under pressure to become something for which there was no precedent in his experience or in his history. When the mission withdrew their support and yet continued to expect Pastor Moses to pay the expense of travel to official church meetings, it became clear that the white man was dictating what was to be done from behind the Bible without having to submit to the discipline involved himself.

Therefore, when Eleanor received word from the Commandant of Police in December of 1962 that she was no longer welcome in South Sudan, she wondered, with a sinking heart, what would become of her translation work and of the ministry. The Arab military government had already imprisoned Kuac numerous times in an effort to stamp out Christianity through fear. Like Elisabeth Elliot in These Strange Ashes: Is God Still in Charge?, she was called upon to leave in Gods hands the results (or lack of same!) of any work to which He had called her.

To Know, to Believe, and to Understand

From her home and new career in the United States, Eleanor heard of war coming to the Sudan, and then coming again. Her story challenges many of our western assumptions about missions, while underscoring the sovereignty of God. He is free to work in a nation or in a young, white, and slightly perplexed former missionaryin any way He deems fitting. As believers who are committed to the fulfillment of the Great Commission, let us also read and love Gods words to Isaiah, setting forth the purpose of our witness on this planet:

You are My witnesses, says the Lord,

And My servant whom I have chosen,

That you may know and believe Me,

And understand that I am He. (Isaiah 43:10)

In our witnessing and serving, the path of God may cut through mystery and paradox. Sometimes the greatest test of faith is to know, believe, and understand the power and presence of God, even when the evidence we receive is not what we had expected.

Many thanks to Hendrickson Publishers for providing a copy of this book to facilitate my review, which, of course, is offered freely and with honesty.

Ive never read a mission story quite like this one. Missions stories make some of the most challenging reading to bolster faith, so Ive read several such titles over the years. While its clear the Lord was at work in this mission story just like I expect in such tales, the frank honesty of the difficulties makes this volume by Eleanor Vandevort unique. The author didnt even hide the hard questions she had for God in this book. When the back cover says that this book was too honest for many in 1968, you can see that this statement is not mere marketing hype once you read the book for yourself. Whoever suggested rereleasing this volume in the 50th-anniversary edition did a favor for us all.

You will do well to read all the preliminaries. Both the Forward by Trudy Summers and the introduction to the 50th-anniversary edition by Valerie Elliott Sheppard as well as the introduction to the original edition by Elizabeth Elliott give the kind of background and perspective that makes the reading of the book more meaningful. Plus, if youre like me you had not heard of the author, but at least had heard of Elizabeth Elliott. Since I respect Mrs. Elliott, and since she has deep confidence in the author of this book, I began reading this book with complete confidence about the character of an author Id never heard of.

The author comes out of the gate in riveting fashion when she describes going to watch the rite of passage that young men in Sudan face that entails six horizontal lines being cut in parallel rows on their forehead. I loved how she confessed her original feelings of repulsion for what appeared to be a dark, hedonistic act. It was in this first chapter that she makes us aware of her ability to probe deeply into the meaning other cultures find in certain acts. She was able to separate our faith that we receive from God and should take to the world for our culture that we sometimes confuse with it. That accomplishment alone makes this a book worth reading. Even better, she doesnt preach at us for confusing our culture with the gospel but just explains the wrestlings in her own soul. Her journey was instructive.

There are all kinds of other thrills. Yes, theres a scary snake story but as is the case with this author, she looks deeper at their overall view of death and how the young boy would miss out on his markings that proclaimed to the world he was a man. It was a loss the whole family would feel, yet a different sort of loss that we would feel in our culture.

You dont get very far into the book before you meet Kuac Nyoat, a young man who came to Christ and was trained for the pastorate in the ministry where the author worked. Without a doubt, Miss Vandevort loved, admired, and respected this young pastor. It was through his life that she told her story and tried to separate culture from the gospel. In no way did she sugarcoat his struggles or even his failures. What she was able to do, however, is get to the end of the book with me respecting him just as she did.

This book has the requisite excitement but forces you to do a lot of important thinking too. You will likely enjoy the story so much that you wont even mind. Its a beautiful paperback edition and is written so that anyone from a teenager to a seasoned Christian would consider reading it time well spent. Its a winner that I highly recommend!

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissions 16 CFR, Part 255.

As a believer who wrestles regularly with deep questions that American Christians tend to shut down because it is uncomfortable to not have your theology neatly packaged within black and white lines, I greatly appreciated this book. This book will at times make you uncomfortable. It will expand your understanding of God and his unfathomable ways. Like Ecclesiastes so full of questions about life that ends with the simple fear of God as the path for life, so does this book end. Like Ecclesiastes, this book does not answer every question, perhaps leaving you with more than when you began but reminding you that God is beyond our ways and that he will keep those he has called who walk in faith, despite the questions and struggles. A must read for American believers.

If you are looking for a biography of a missionary who goes into an area and converts hundreds with wonderful sermons and perfect plans, this book probably wasn't written for you. If you are considering giving your life to missionary work in a remote region of the world, this is a MUST READ. This is a new edition of the book on the 50th anniversary of its original printing. Our heroine is a woman who leaves for Southern Sudan never having seen an African.

Eleanor Vandevort opened her heart to the people of Sudan during the 1950s and early '60s. She tells us about her life as well as the life of one of her students, Kuac, the first pastor from his tribe. (He is the "leopard" of her story.) She shows by her life experiences how culture and the gospel can clash. She tells how "appalled" missionaries can be by the country's living conditions and how they "immediately began to conquer it." Unfortunately, the effort can be futile because, in the clash of culture vs. religion, culture often wins.

Religious services in Sudan consisted of prayer, songs, Bible study stories, and the Lord's Prayer. She tells how the Sudanese saw each of these differently than we would. What do you do when you are a missionary in an area where clothes were "impractical...(and) for the most part unobtainable?" What do you do when the language which you are using to translate the Bible has 14 vowels and 3 levels of tone for the same word and each tone means different things. Christian phrases such as "born again" or the word "blessed" cannot be translated into Sudanese as there is no corresponding phrase or word. Marriage for love was unheard of, and "to marry" meant "to count." You're counting the number of animals changing hands in the agreement.

Her mission was work in a country which accepted polygamy, and monogamy was "a white man's word." A country where the people saw talking of Jesus as "white man's talk." Again, a totally alien culture to us was the life lived by those who were to be part of her harvest. What was Kuac, a relatively new Christian, to do when he became the pastor of a church and "the glory dimmed, and there was instead the lonely plodding on an untested, unfamiliar road?"

This is a book that requires thought on the part of the reader. I can't say it was an enjoyable book to read, but it was a challenging one. The thoughts I have expressed are my own although I did receive a copy of the book from the publisher.

*I received a free copy of this book from Hendrickson Publishers in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are 100% my own.*

Eleanor Vandevort was born in Bellevue, Pennsylvania in 1925. After graduating from Wheaton College in 1949, Eleanor studied at the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Norman, Oklahoma. From there, she traveled to South Sudan and worked as a missionary for thirteen years until she was expelled due to political changes. After returning from Africa, she served as academic advisor and mentor at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts for over twenty years.

This is the story about the Nuer tribe, and a man named Kuac (which means leopard) who becomes Eleanore's connection to the tribe, and helps her translate the Bible. One of the really awesome things about this book is that there are photographs, so you get to see the faces behind the names. There are also some illustrations that add a lovely touch.

The edition I read was the 50th anniversary edition. There are three introductions by Trudy Summers, Elisabeth Elliot, Valerie Elliot Shepard. All three women had known Eleanore at some point in their lives.

After Kuac's father passed away, he attended the mission sponsored village school where he stayed for four years. Kuac later attended the divinity college and was one of two Nuer men to enroll, but the only one to finish.

Kuac began struggling with the expectations of the white men while remaining true to his people, and having faith in God. After Kuac married his wife Nyatiac, he took her his house at the mission instead of staying at the hut until their first child was born. Together they faced struggles and suffered the loss of children.

The story also talks about other people... Man Gaac is one of the members of the first girls boarding school at Nasir. She was originally Dinka by birth, but her and her sister became members of the Nuer tribe after war. There's also a chapter about Nyabieel, a woman who almost died after childbirth until she was saved by a blood transfusion. Then there is Yuol, an older man who had tuberculosis.

After the Arab military government took control of the civilian government, they placed restriction on Christians. Secret police were hired to spy on everyone to see if anyone was plotting against the government. In 1958, the first missionaries of the American Mission were evicted. In 1962, Eleanore was included in the group of eleven missionaries who were given notices to leave the country.

The translation of the Bible Kuac and Eleanore had worked on together was short-lived. All their work had been printed in Roman script, which was no longer being taught in schools. The government had banned vernacular languages and insisted that everyone should speak Arabic to unify the country. This was one of many times Eleanore's faith was tested.

In 1964, Kuac was arrested, beaten, and put into solitary confinement. Many Christians were killed, but Kuac was released. Kuac and his family, along with thousands of refugees, escaped to Ethiopia on foot.

Throughout the years, the government killed hundreds of teachers, doctors, preachers, and clerks, and threw their bodies in the rivers. In 1972, Ethiopia's government played a major part in reconciling the north and south. It's estimated somewhere between 750,000 to 1 million people died.

I don't know much about African history outside Egypt, so I really enjoyed learning about the Nuer tribe. The main reasons I wanted to read this book is due to the importance of reading and learning history. I'm also highly interested in women missionaries.

Rating memoirs is difficult. Overall, the story was interesting. A big issue I faced were the lengthy descriptions, and not being able to emotionally connect to the people.