Stranger Than Fiction—the Missionary Version

I’ve been in a season where I have little time for reading fiction, which is unusual for me. As a result, I don’t have any new books to review for our readers. 

While I pondered this problem, I thought about all the stories I love about missionaries and ministers of the gospel who did incredible things to further the Kingdom. In a way these stories fulfill the “Stranger Than Fiction” requirement—where the story is true but so unbelievable that even if you wrote it as fiction, people would dismiss is as unrealistic! These are among my favorite books, so I’m going to share a few of them with you.

1. God’s Smuggler by Brother Andrew. 

God’s Smuggler dates back to the Cold War. The Iron Curtain kept Bibles from getting the hands of hungry believers locked in the Soviet Union. One brave man realized he could hear the voice of God, and God was telling him to fulfill his childhood dreams of espionage—by smuggling Bibles! 

Filled with tense drama, heroic faith, and plenty of miracles, God’s Smuggler will excite and encourage believers who again find themselves staring down the events of a dark world. This story reminds us of Psalm 2:4—God laughs at those who try to stand against him and his plans for humanity.

2. Bruchko by Bruce Olson

This is one of my top ten, all-time favorite books. it’s crazy, but the God kind of crazy. 

A nineteen-year-old man, Bruce Olson, is called by God to a blood-thirsty tribe in the South American jungles. However, he isn’t qualified to join a mission, so he just goes. I guess God doesn’t care about our credentials because this fantastic story details how he was able to succeed in altering the eternal destiny of an entire people group. Not only is it astonishing, but Olson is truly a gifted writer, capturing the reader’s imagination from the first sentence.

3. Sadhu Sundar Singh by Cyril J. Davey

I’m not even sure this one is in print anymore. I stumbled upon this book in a cabin reserved for employees of a mission agency. That copy was yellowed and looked like it was printed in the 1950’s, while my copy is from 1985. But if you can read it, there’s something magical in this biography. 

Sadhu Sundar Singh was, in appearances, a sadhu—a holy man of India. However, he was a holy man who had met Jesus. His spiritual encounters convinced him that Jesus didn’t need to be Western or look like an Englishman, so he held staunchly to his own religious traditions and converted people from inside. By doing so, he told the Gospel to a nation who needed to hear it as their own. 

There are so many things about Sundar’s story that fascinate me, not the least of which was his stubborn tenacity for the lost. He suffered great physical deprivation for the sake of taking the Gospel into Tibet, and that in a time when his fame could have given him a life of ease. He was beaten, imprisoned, left for dead. He shared one story with a friend about how he had been fasting for forty days to increase his spiritual awareness of God. During that time he’d lost his physical strength. A leopard passed by him, sniffed him, and just moved on! Eventually Sundar succumbed to the harsh conditions of the Tibetan wilderness, but his legacy lives on. 

I know there are more awesome modern supernatural stories out there. What are your favorites?