The Arabic Scholar's Son: Growing Up in Turbulent North China (1927-1943) - Tapa blanda

FRED HARRIS gives a touching story of family and community. Through his parents, he shows us gifted Christian workers, who willingly faced enormous sacrifices for the Christian cause in early 20th century China. Harris, the Arabic Scholar's Son, offers us a warm look at a family dedicated to living out the call to make disciples for Jesus Christ, even when it meant years of separation from children and those at home. The letters are a treasure. His mother shares charming and tender accounts of daily struggles, separation and homesickness. His father's writing helps us see the dedication and difficulty of work with other cultures. What we are given in this book, also, is the story of a young boy becoming a young man. Harris allows us to follow his young life in China - birth in a troubled year, early life with his parents, captured by pirates on the way to school, community life at Chefoo, Japanese internment camp, repatriation to America through troubled wartime seas and reunion after years of separation. All we read here offers testimony to the faith of the Reverend Frederic G. Harris and the value he places on family - his own and all of God's children.

Born on the rugged edge of Tibet in northwest China, Fred Harris lived during turbulent times. Early years in the "City of Western Tranquility," Harris saw his young brother die. Then parted for the first time from his parents, the ship bound for boarding school was hijacked by pirates. At age 14 the Japanese interned the Chefoo School and at age 16, by rail and ship through war zones he traveled to America. A remarkable soldier's reunion in 1945 brought his beloved mother and dad - the Arabic Scholar - together. A graduate of Central College, Pella, Iowa and Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary, Rev. Harris retired from United Methodist pastorates and resides with Winifred at Burlington, Iowa.