Missionary Families Find a Sense of Place and Identity
Two Generations on Two Continents
By (author) John S. Benson
Not available to order
Publication date:
17 June 2015Length of book:
271 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9781498504867
Missionary Families Find a Sense of Place and Identity is a community history of members of nineteen Lutheran missionary families who served in Tanzania. Based on over ninety interviews and John Benson’s extensive knowledge of cultural geography, he compares the lives of the missionary generation who grew up in the United States and went to Tanzania as missionaries to those of their children who grew up in Africa but settled in the United States as adults. Benson blends his personal experiences as a child of missionaries in Tanzania to tell the story of both generations. Missionary Families is centered on the themes of connection to place and religious development and will appeal to scholars of geography, cultural studies and religion.
In this simultaneously intimate and sweeping narrative, John Benson provides a unique window into the lives of a particular band of “missionary kids” who grew up in East Africa. For those of us who shared some of his experiences as missionary kids, Benson’s account is a mirror, stirring reflection on how our roots have shaped who are and who we have become. For others, his account is a window into the complex processes of forming a sense of identity and place across two cultures on two continents.