Hattie and John Bennett were missionaries in the United States during the 1880 ' s and 1890 ' s but they wished to become foreign missionaries so they started the long process to be approved and followed by plans for the long and extremely hard trip to Africa. In those years travel was crude with very little thought of passenger comfort unless one was very rich and had means to splurge. Hattie and John had no such budget.

The author wrote this great account of Hattie and John's experience from letters that Hattie's grandmother had written. The conditions family-wise were not good. They had two children and Hattie was pregnant with a third child. To tackle the trip to such an uncivilized part of the world would be taken with faith of God and the knowledge that Mozambique and that area in Africa would take much personal sacrifice to get there, to settle, to find their way to win natives to have faith and survive the malaria so prevalent in the area as well as other diseases. Many died from malaria and related diseases.

The eventful trip by several ships and boats of all sizes ended at the shores end in southeast Africa. The land trek took them into the native country where primitive customs and living was an every day existence. The book follows them through good and bad with the emphases ON bad as far as conditions.

They met other missionaries and worked with some most of their days there. Some would have to leave their camp to assist other camps when illness or conditions threatened those people and those same people had to help Hattie and John as well. They would encounter war between various tribes not knowing if those warriors would allow the missionaries to live or not.

Even today missionaries have a hard time in most areas they travel to as they spread Gods word and try to civilize them in many of their ways and some of which most of us could not imagine. You will learn much and feel the good done as well as the suffering as you live and travel with all of the missionaries and inhabitants of the area. Even though this story took place quite a few years ago and many of the obstacles still exist for present day missionaries as they attempt to spread Gods word in difficult areas of the world.