Reviews

"In the story of Hephzibah Jenkins Townsend, we see the true meaning of sacrificial giving and the power of one voice to change our culture and world." -- Wanda Lee, Executive Director, Woman's Missionary Union, Southern Baptist ConventionAs Rosalie Hunt so eloquently states, "It all began with a small group of women meeting at Bleak Hall in 1811." Before there was a Lottie or Annie, there was a Hephzibah, and her missions legacy is undeniable. If you thought, as did I, that Southern Baptists missions began in 1888, you will want to read this book. -- David George, President, Woman's Missionary Union Foundation"The wonderful research and the intriguing way Rosalie Hall Hunt shares Hephzibah Jenkins Townsend's story will encourage you in your service. May we all be found as faithful as Hephzibah." -- Linda Cooper, President, Woman's Missionary Union, Southern Baptist Convention"There is no way to overestimate the importance of Hephzibah to the history of Baptist women in missions, and there is no way to really understand Hephzibah's story without the master storyteller Rosalie Hall Hunt." -- Ruby Fulbright, President, North American Baptist Women's UnionHistory celebrates the famous 1806 Haystack Revival in Williams, Massachusetts, as the beginning of the foreign mission movement in the United States. Few are aware that about the same time, in South Carolina, a young woman's missionary zeal had been kindled by the preaching of Richard Furman, a leading Baptist voice of that time. A year before the New England group sent out its first missionaries in 1812, Hephzibah Jenkins Townsend crystallized her missionary passion by forming the South's first missionary society for women at Bleak Hall, her home on Edisto Island in Charleston County. In 1813, the work of the two mission movements crossed when Hephzibah met Luther Rice, one of the first missionaries appointed from the Haystack Revival group. From that time on, Hephzibah's missionary society model became the blueprint for supporting missions for countless groups across the United States. In 1888, more than 40 years after her death, the Woman's Missionary Union was officially organized at the national level. Today, WMU is synonymous with missions, and both owe much to the work of a mostly unknown lady from South Carolina. It is time Baptists knew her story. -- Bob Terry, Editor, The Alabama BaptistRosalie Hunt takes us back in time to the low country of South Carolina -- with its pluff-mud scents and tabby-oven aromas -- through the dramatic life story of Hephzibah Jenkins Townsend, foremother of women's mission organiza-tions. As the story unfolds of a woman living within the societal constraints of the nineteenth century but with an unprecedented zeal for world missions, you will be encouraged -- no, you will be compelled -- to become like Hephzibah, a woman who lives boldly for Christ through a missions lifestyle and who leaves a missions legacy for succeeding generations. -- Debby Akerman, Past President, Woman's Missionary Union, Southern Baptist Convention