The Warm Heart of Africa A Volunteer’s Journal By: Gloria Caldwell Two years—two exhilarating, eye-opening, life-changing years spent by Gloria Caldwell in Africa volunteering in the Peace Corps. From living in a hut with no electricity, to walking or biking three miles to the tarmac road and catching a mini-bus to travel 70 miles to purchase food. Gloria truly experienced a lifestyle very different from the one to which she and most Americans have become accustomed.

The Warm Heart of Africa, fifty years in the making, is the story of Susan, one of the first Peace Corps Volunteers. It is also the story of Peter, a ninety-two year old African who became her salvation. She meets him soon after attempting to quit the Peace Corps...but failing. Peter is at first reticent to talk of his past, for fear of opening old wounds. With time, he learns to trust and slowly shares his stories with Susan, beginning with, "My father was the first man to see Livingstone and he almost killed him!" Later he tells her how Yao slave traders invaded his village when he was six, burning houses and killing the very old, the very young and the weak - those who would not endure the cruel march to the Indian Ocean. He recalls the bitter memory of a slaver dragging his mother from his grasp to be sold for a sultan's harem, never to be seen again. He then shares with Susan how he and his father were auctioned at the slave market of Zanzibar and crammed into an Arab dhow sailing to Yemen, to be sold once again, his only consolation being that his father was still with him. Two days in, a frigate fired a shot across the bow and Arabs began throwing their cargo into the sea in the grim hope of out sailing the frigate. Peter, too small to be of notice, watched in hiding as an ugly Arab hurled his father into the sea. Then a cannon shot from the frigate demasted the dhow, hurling him into the sea. Unable to swim, he survived by clutching the splintered mast until he was plucked from the sea by men in blue coat who brought him back to their frigate where he took his first step in his twenty-one years in the service of the Queen. As major domo to a young officer, Horace Smith-Dorrien, he would come to see battle against Zulus, Afridis, Pathans, Boers and Sepoys, before returning home to start a life in the service of God, a story he slowly and painfully shares with Susan, like him, a stranger in a strange land. The author met Peter and was Susan.

When Jack Allison joined the Peace Corps in 1967, he never intended to write the number one hit song in Malawi or be described by Newsweek as more popular than Malawi's own president. A poor Southern white boy with a deep love of music, Jack only wanted an answer to one burning question: Should he become a minister or a doctor? In the end, the answer Jack found was that he would choose medicine as a career. And, living in extreme circumstances in the world's then-poorest country, he would find even more-that he had the inner resources that allowed him to not only thrive but give the best of what he had to those who needed it the most.

Kenneth R. Ross is Professor of Theology and Dean of Postgraduate Studies at Zomba Theological University. He is also Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria, Honorary Fellow at the Edinburgh University School of Divinity, Senior Research Associate at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Boston, USA, Series Editor of the Edinburgh Companions to Global Christianity (Edinburgh University Press), and Associate Minister at Bernvu CCAP. He is the author of many books and articles on World Christianity, including the forthcoming co-authored volume Hope in Times of Crisis: Reimagining Ecumenical Mission. He has been researching and writing about Malawi church history and theology since he first arrived in Zomba in 1988. This book brings together a collection of essays written during the early 2020s in which Ross characteristically brings theological questions to the study of history while often adopting an historical approach to the study of theology. All ten essays are grounded in the Malawi context while their themes also have relevance far beyond it. "..a very valuable addition to Malawianist scholarship."- Dr Markku Hokkanen, University of Oulu

The sixteen short stories in this anthology reflect some of the most pressing global issues of concern today. These stories have been carefully chosen to represent as many geographical regions of the world as possible. They address such concerns as: political leadership and politics of integration; terrorism and youth radicalisation; domestic violence, racial relations, sexuality and gender, the environment and environmental sustainability, religion and culture and globalisation. Some of the stories also give a social commentary on such aspects of life as family and social relationships. The stories are drawn from a diverse cadre of writers. There are stories from experienced and celebrated writers, others from upcoming writers and some from a new crop of writers. There are young as well not-so-young contributors. This gives the anthology both wealth in terms of style of writing and diversity of viewpoints and perspectives. A read through this anthology is like a walk across geopolitical borders, a peek into the varied cultures of the world and a dialogue with members of di erent generations, all culminating into one major realisation: we are one and we need each other. It is an enthralling read.