Böcker av Kathryn McLane

Inspired by stories of evangelists who were part of the Protestant missionary movement of the nineteenth century, eight classmates from Union Theological Seminary applied to the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions (ABCFM) to accomplish missionary work abroad. Joseph Cochran, John Dulles, Edward Dodd, George Coan, Dwight Marsh, Justin Parsons, George Dunmore, and Samuel Rhea became the inner circle known as the brothers of the red velvet chapeaux and traveled to India, Asia Minor, and Persia to help spread the Word of God. Author Kathryn McLane, the great-great granddaughter of Samuel Rhea, serves as the ghostwriter of a "fictionalized collective memoir" that shares the missionary lives of these young men and their self-denying labors in foreign lands. Their stories describe the perils they faced, such as marauding Kurds and Arabs, severe weather, disease, and persecution by the leaders of other religious sects as well as the strength they derived from their religious devotion and camaraderie. As the author was drawn to and fascinated by the stories of these missionaries told through letters and reports published and archived in journals of the ABCFM (during a period spanning half a century from 1840 to 1890), so, too, will readers be drawn to the determined faith and endurance these men showed as they faced various struggles to ensure their missionary work reached those who needed it. To carry on the legacy of these brave men of God, prepare to be transported back in time as "fictionalized" dialogue brings to life the true documented events and stories in Brothers of the Red Velvet Chapeaux.

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Presbyterian missionaries devoted their lives to providing education, medical aid, and refuge to the people of Persia. Through epidemics, famine, the Persian Constitutional Revolution, and the Great War (WWI) missionaries often endangered their own lives while providing relief aid. They struggled with prejudice and obstruction by Muslim and Gregorian Christian clerics and by government authorities. After years of patient, self-sacrificing pursuit of missionary service, did they win the admiration and respect of the Persians?Western Persia Mission: A Biography of Annie Rhea Wilson (1861-1952) by Kathryn McLane describes real events in the lives of Presbyterian missionaries in Persia from 1880s to 1940s. In 1886, Annie Rhea Wilson travels to Tabriz with her husband, Reverend Samuel Graham Wilson, where they spend thirty years of their lives as missionaries, educating young Persians at the mission Boys'' School. Told through fictional dialogue, Annie and Sam initially struggle with Persian languages and customs, but soon, they emerge as leaders of the mission and build a new compound, including a church, missionary residences, a medical dispensary, and a school. As the great-granddaughter of Annie Rhea Wilson, Kathryn McLane was intrigued by family history and desired to understand and preserve her ancestor''s story. She began researching archives of the Presbyterian Church, as well as autobiographies, reports, journal articles, and books written by the Presbyterian missionaries of Persia. The author strove to provide an accurate, factual depiction of missionary life in Persia, the struggles and successes of the missionaries, and the civil strife of Iran during this era so that readers may fully understand the depth of their service.

A century-old journal; a young woman caught in global upheaval; a life striving to serve God as a missionary. All feature in this illuminating book, which expands on the writings of the author’s maternal grandmother as she navigates the histories many of us have only read about.Born in Tabriz, Persia, Mary Agnes Wilson was the daughter of missionaries.After being sent to college in America, young Agnes graduates and begins a career as a teacher with one mission in mind: to return to her home in Persia. With the horrors of the First World War, the impact of the Spanish flu, civil rights movements for women’s suffrage, and more going on all around her in the turbulent decade between 1909 and 1920, as well as the introduction of men into Agnes’s life, this mission proves to be anything but simple.Written by Agnes’s granddaughter, this beautiful “fictionalized memoir” stands upon Agnes’s original journals to deliver a story in which the dialogue is dramatized, but the events, people, and history are all very real. My First Word invites you to share in this family saga, and join in the transgenerational telling of this tale of holding onto your dreams when you and the world around you are changing. Kathryn combines her love of family, history, and the scriptures in her Christian historical novel series based on the journals written by three generations of missionaries in Persia. When she is not writing she enjoys hiking with her husband in the high chapparal of Southern California, sitting quietly with her cats with a view of Big Bear and being buzzed by hummingbirds.