Forty Years Of Service Beyond Our Borders

This memoir of forty years of international humanitarian service and lessons learned along the way is a great book for young men and women who are attracted to a career in the ecumenical world church or those desiring careers in relief and service ministries. Working for Church World Service (CWS), Mr. Swartzendruber served in Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. (307pp. color illus. Masthof Press, 2012.)

One of the primary characteristics of life is change. To be alive is expressed in a constant adaptation to an environment in change. The underlying thesis of this story is the ever-changing reality in the life of a missionary family for whom doors of opportunity open to new work experiences. They become a part of an organization needing to undergo change in order to respond to the environmental change taking place in the world. The story is built around the personal growth of a missionary as he is challenged to assume new responsibilities. The element of personal growth is reflected in the transformation an organization must make to respond to changing global conditions in order to fulfill its mission. The background to the story is the radical change in the political scene which took place following World War II. Two aspects are highlighted. The first one is the emergence of newly formed nations that gained their independence from having been colonies of European nations. The second was the emergence of the Cold War reshaping the global political scene into a bipolar context between two superpowers. The organization in the story is Church World Service (CWS), the relief and refugee arm of the National Council of Churches. Its mandate was to respond to natural and man-made disasters anywhere in the world. The story is told of the formation of two world bodies that contributed to world peace, the United Nations and the World Council of Churches. The Cold War led to the formation of a series of walls and militarized borders around the world. The story details the intense endeavor to find ways to fulfill the mission of CWS in a fractured world. This book is not a specific history of Church World Service. The key to the story is the creative ways in which CWS reinvented itself to build bridges to overcome the political walls that had been built. The book is an important reading for anyone interested in the history of the Christian Church during the Cold War. It also has value for those who study organizational change.

Baseball Beyond Our Borders celebrates the globalization of the game while highlighting the different histories and cultures of the nations in which the sport is played. This collection of essays tells the story of America’s national pastime as it has spread across the world and undergone instructive, entertaining, and sometimes quirky changes in the process. Covering nineteen countries and a U.S. territory, the contributors show how each country imported baseball, how baseball took hold and developed, how it is organized, played, and followed, and what local and regional traits tell us about the sport’s place in each culture. But what lies in store as baseball’s passport fills up with far-flung stamps? Will the international migration of players homogenize baseball? What role will the World Baseball Classic play? These are just a few of the questions the authors pose.

In November of 2000, after the presidential election but before the final results had been handed down by the Supreme Court, John Daniel climbed into his pickup, drove to a remote location in Oregon's Rogue River Canyon, and quit civilization. The strictures were severe with no two–way human communication — not even with his wife — and no radio, no music, not even his cat. He would isolate himself in a cabin sure to be snowed in soon after his arrival, intent on hearing no human voice but his own until spring thawed the road. This experiment in solitude was an attempt to clarify his identity while pursuing daily life without the distractions of the world at large. Daniel had spent a week or two alone before, but this would be an entirely new challenge, and as he drove off into the mountains he felt a fear–tinged freedom. Rogue River Journal chronicles his journey in solitude, a season of memory, and his search for a coherent place to stand on the earth.