Patrick R. Anderson

This book, by a short-time volunteer missionary from the United States, is remarkable for the author's manifest fear, ignorance, and hostility toward foreigners, as well as his hero worship for his guide, an experienced missionary called T Thomas. The reader is supposed to have already heard of Thomas, so unfortunately Anderson doesn't bother to tell us anything very specific about him. Instead we read about how long the author has to go without a shower. Anderson doesn't even seem to realize what country he's in most of the time, nor does he learn much about the people he professes to want to preach to. There is very little Christian charity to be found in this text. Much of the time I just couldn't believe what I was reading, or that the author (a criminology professor) could really be so obtuse. Still, the book has value as an ingenuous self-portrait of an earnest American abroad among the heathen.… (mere)