Archives

  • Christian woman faith heroes: Phillis Wheatley fought the horror of slavery

    Phillis Wheatley, an enslaved black woman who became one of the first published writers in North America, was a Christian who fought the horror of slavery. Phillis was born in West Africa in 1753 but as a young girl was sold by a local chief to a slave trader and, in 1761, transported to North […]

  • Faith heroes: Katharina von Bora, an inspiring figure 500 years on

    Katharina von Bora, the nun who married the former monk Martin Luther, continues to be an inspiring figure after nearly five hundred years. Katharina was born into a family of nobility in Saxony, near Leipzig in Germany, in 1499. At the age of five she was sent away to a convent for education, with the […]

  • Faith heroes: Betty Greene, the pioneering ministry pilot

    Betty Greene was a pioneer missionary pilot and a co-founder of MAF, the Mission Aviation Fellowship. Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Greene was born in Seattle in 1920 to a Christian family who brought her and her brothers up in the Christian faith. Fascinated with flying from childhood, Betty took lessons and gained her pilot’s licence when she […]

  • Faith heroes: Catherine of Siena, who boldly called out corrupt clergy

    Catherine was born to a cloth dyer in Siena, Italy, in 1347, the twenty-third of twenty-six children, most of whom didn’t survive infancy. It was a tough time and place to be born: the Black Death, which was to kill a third of Europe, was spreading; much of what we now know as Italy was […]

  • Faith heroes: Phoebe Palmer, whose influence continues today

    Phoebe Palmer was one of the foremost Christian leaders of the 19th century and someone whose influence continues to the present day. Born in New York in 1807, Phoebe Worrall grew up in a family with a passionate Christian faith. Her father was a ‘first generation’ Methodist, having come to Christ under John Wesley himself […]

  • Faith heroes: Mahalia Jackson, a pioneer in Christian music

    Mahalia Jackson was born in 1911 to poor, unmarried parents in New Orleans. The bitter memory of slavery still lingered amongst African-Americans: all Mahalia’s grandparents had been born slaves. Although brought up in a church where traditional hymns were sung with formality, Mahalia was also introduced to the heart-warming spirituals and the joyful music of […]

  • Faith Heroes: Helen Roseveare, the British medical missionary

    Helen Roseveare was born in 1925 in Hertfordshire, England, and went to Cambridge University to study medicine at the end of the Second World War. There she began to attend the Cambridge Inter Collegiate Christian Union, the CICCU. Soon Helen received Christ and resolved that her medical skills would be used on the mission field […]

  • Mothers in Tough Times: Celebrating The Unique Qualities of our Moms

    Mother’s Day is when, amid flowers, cards and perhaps a meal out, we remember happy memories of our mothers. It’s a day rich in sentiment, yet there’s more to mothers than the cosiness of this celebration allows for. You see, thinking about something to say this year on Mother’s Day, I found myself struggling as […]

  • Faith heroes: Marie Durand, who spent most of life in jail for her faith

    The story of the eighteenth-century French Christian, Marie Durand, who spent almost all her life in jail for her faith, is challenging. To understand Marie’s imprisonment we need some background. The Reformation of the sixteenth century, with its emphasis on the Bible and faith in Christ as the only way of salvation, was not just […]

  • Faith heroes: Helen Cadbury of the famous Christian chocolate family

    Helen Cadbury was born in 1877 into the Quaker family who ran the famous Birmingham chocolate firm. Helen’s father Richard was committed not just to the social work that was a Quaker distinctive but also to enthusiastically sharing the gospel. When Helen was 12 she was converted at an evangelistic meeting her father had organised. […]