What significance can one man - only five feet five inches tall and weighing 110 pounds, and given almost as much to poetry and art as to theology - possibly have had for a time of tumult much like ours? Why would a lad virtually a teenager leave Germany for life and citizenship in American and then close his eyes to the fabulous "American dream" and reverse his life course to cast his fortunes instead among native Africans in Cameroon?

Carl Jacob Bender knew that missionary success does not depend on size and stature; his own was diminutive. But he trusted God's providence, which he well knew called at times for one's supreme sacrifice. He was large in the love of God and man, and this love carried him to the so-called 'dark continent' where the Gospel shed light on the human predicament and offered hope unparalleled. Show Less