This book is a bit of a page-turner and I almost read it in one sitting! It charts the story of a young woman’s journey into mission work with OMF in Cambodia, a mission founded by James Hudson Taylor as the China Inland Mission. The author is honest about her call to serve God in places she wasn’t keen on and her struggle towards obedience.
She embarked upon a unique house-sharing arrangement, sharing firstly with a radio station and then setting up a dormitory for teenage girls. In her area, Christian-run dormitories enabled young boys from village communities to move into the town to access secondary education but Joelle had not known of any for girls. She set up a dorm in her home for eight girls and embarked upon an adventure of sharing Scripture with these girls as well as teaching them what a fridge was for and introducing them to cheese which they thought was soap! Two years after the dorm was opened Covid-19 struck and the girls were ordered home to their villages.
The first three chapters of the book explore the author’s journey to faith and mean that this very readable book could be used for evangelistic purposes.