Biographies of christian women

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An In-Depth Biography on the Life and Work of Missionary Elisabeth Elliot

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) is one of the most widely known Christians of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. After the death of her husband, Jim, and four other missionaries at the hands of Waorani tribesmen in Ecuador, Elliot famously returned to live among the same people who had killed her husband. Her legacy, however, extends far beyond these events. In the years that followed, Elliot became a prolific writer and speaker, touching the lives of countless people around the world.

In this single-volume biography, Lucy S. R. Austen takes readers on an in-depth journey through the life of Elisabeth Elliot—her birth to missionary parents, her courtship and marriage to Jim Elliot, her missions work in Ecuador, and her private life and public work after she returned to the United States. Through Elliot’s example of love for God and obedience to his commands, readers will ponder what it means to follow Jesus.

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Faith Cook is an author, biographer, and hymn writer. She grew up as a missionary child in war-torn China and has chronicled her story in an autobiography. Her biographical work has been on both men (from the well-known Fearless Pilgrim: The Life and Times of John Bunyan to the little-known William Grimshaw of Haworth) and women (like The Nine Day Queen of England: Lady Jane Grey, Selina: Countess of Huntingdon: Her Pivotal Role in the 18th Century Evangelical Awakening, and Anne Bradstreet: Pilgrim and Poet).

I recently corresponded with her to see if she could provide us with some recommendations of biographies about Christian women in church history. You can read her top five, with recommendations, below. After her list is a bonus list, courtesy of Michael Haykin, who sent along six recommendations, including two from Faith Cook.

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(Men, these are for us, too! But it’s also not too early to think about some Christmas shopping here!)

Edith L. Blumhofer, Her Heart can See: The Life and Hymns of Fanny J. Crosby (Eerdmans, 2005).

In Her Hear

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Gladys Aylward

Missionary in China (1902–1970)

Gladys May Aylward (24 February 1902 – 3 January 1970) was a British-born evangelical Christianmissionary to China, whose story was told in the book The Small Woman: The Heroic Story of Gladys Aylward, by Alan Burgess, published in 1957. The book served as the basis for the film The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, starring Ingrid Bergman, in 1958. The film was produced by Twentieth Century Fox, and filmed entirely in North Wales and England.^[1]

Early life

Aylward was born in 1902, one of three children of Thomas John Aylward (a postman) and Rosina Florence, a working-class family from Edmonton, North London.^[2] From her early teens, Gladys worked as a housemaid. Following a calling to go overseas as a Christian missionary, she was accepted by the China Inland Mission to study in a preparatory three-month course for aspiring missionaries. Because of her lack of progress in learning the Chinese language, she was not offered further training.^[3]

On 15 October 1930, having worked for Sir Fran