Italy is somewhat of a forgotten mission field. Roman Catholicism has held sway and nowadays it is a country scarcely replenishing itself as regards population having the lowest birth rate of any European country. Materialism and the worship of beauty dominate and ‘la dolce vita’ is the mindset of many. This book is an old fashioned missionary story. A Canadian young woman and a young man from Minnesota meet the Lord and then one another and have a burden for God’s service and after Bible College training in the early nineteen fifties move to Italy where they labor for fifty or so years. Art Weins is a gifted personal worker, his wife Erma an out going person. This book shows old-fashioned commitment in the service of the Lord. Nothing ‘short term’ here, rather, the immersion into Italian life and culture, the plod of daily work with those whom God brought their way. Accounts of joy’s and sorrows, church splits, the success of seeing ones and twos come to the Lord, the establishing of small independent churches, the translation of literature into Italian and radio work beamed in to the country is the stuff of this book. Art Weins has been described as ‘one of the most persevering missionaries I know’ by a President of the Columbia International University. This note of holy continuing labor comes out throughout the book. Seeds sown, fields watered, the rows hoed and so fruit coming. This couple arrived in a war torn Italy and worked in the North Western area of the country for fifty years. Communism was a real force, there was persecution and false religious cults actively proselytizing, but in the midst of it all God was working calling people unto Himself one by one. Some would affirm that the day of such missionary labors are over, the total immersion of a couple along with the children born to them, into a land not their own. Perhaps those days are somewhat past, but not completely. There is still need for people following in the train of these kinds of pioneers. If you read this book, do not look for something full of the ‘pizzazz’ of the popular, this is not a story of the extraordinary as regarded in Christian circles so much today, but reveals the bedrock of true missionary service, godly devotion to the Lord Himself and obedient service for Him and with Him as He goes forth in rather dry and barren places to bring people to Himself.
