Millions of people know who Brother Andrew is, I think. I, however, had never heard of him before last year. I came across his name when I read Corrie Ten Boom’s story in The Hiding Place. In the opening of The Hiding Place, the Sherills explain that they had discovered Corrie Ten Boom while doing research for their book project on Brother Andrew – God’s Smuggler. Somewhere in my subconscious, I made a note of that.

Growing up Roman Catholic, I was much more familiar with John Paul II, Mother Teresa, Edith Stein, Maximilian Kolbe, and other modern missionaries, mystics, and martyrs who happened to be Catholic. My exposure to other incredible examples of modern non-Catholic Christian lives was woefully lacking. And, frankly, that is a shame.

As an adult, I have discovered that my non-Catholic Christian brothers and sisters are very familiar with Brother Andrew, Amy Carmichael, Eric Liddell, Elizabeth and Jim Elliot, and Corrie Ten Boom, but know very little to nothing at all of Miguel Pro or Jose Sanchez Rio. An equal shame.

At Plumfield and Paideia, we are sisters in Christ who stand together on the truth of the Nicene creed but who have completely different church affiliations. Between the three of us, we are a fair sample of the spectrum of orthodox or traditional Christianity in America today. It is our hope that at this website you will find three unique voices singing in harmony of the truth of the gospel and our devotion to Christ our King.

This summer, we have prayed about the kinds of stories that we thought God was calling us to share with each other and with families who are walking this journey with us. God laid heavily on my heart the need to do a series of Christian biography reviews.

So often we hear today that true Christianity is a thing of the past. That traditional Christianity is divisive, hurtful, and that it impinges on the freedoms of its followers. Most tragically, we hear again and again that Christian values are out of date and no longer relevant. At Plumfield and Paideia, we know that this is not true. We know that God is ever ancient; ever new. We know that the wisdom, the truth, the beauty, and the goodness of the Gospel is timeless, always necessary, and always the story of true freedom.

In this new series, we want to point families to incredible true stories about ordinary men and women who serve an extraordinary God. In the real meaning of ecumenical Christianity, this series will explore the lives of modern day mystics, martyrs, and missionaries. We will read of the lives of men and women of the 19th, 20th and 21st century. Men and women whose lives we can relate to, learn from, and use as examples to inspire our children.

Through the testimony of the real life adventures of men like Brother Andrew and Karol Wojtyla, we will watch how God lifted and destroyed the barriers of the iron curtain. Through the lives of Mother Teresa and Amy Carmichael, we will witness true Christian social justice work among the poorest of the poor in India. Through the lives of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Maximilian Kolbe, Jim Elliot, Edith Stein, Eric Liddell, and Jose Sanchez Rio we will weep over the beauty of their sacrificial witness and martyrdom.

As sisters in Christ, we will read biographies that are well-suited to family study, we will try to connect them with any videos or documentaries that exist, and we will do our best to let them testify to the timelessness of the message of the Gospel and the relevance of our faith in our modern times. It will take us several months to write all of these reviews, but by clicking on this link you will have one neat place to find them as we write them.