Gary Clover reviews a book written by Christine Platt.

“At its best, travel should challenge our preconceptions and most cherished views, cause us to re-think our assumptions, shake us a bit and make us broader minded and more understanding.” (Arthur Frommer, American travel writer)

These insights guided Christine Platt, UK-born author, in producing an inspirational book sharing a life of Christianity in action in French West Africa and Timor Leste. Seeking adventure through travel, Platt first worked as a UN secretarial assistant in Geneva, becoming fluent in French. In 1970, aged 25, wanting more from life, she began training as a neo-natal nurse at London’s Westminster Hospital. There a colleague invited her to a local church where Christine experienced a “light bulb moment” to follow Christ. Discipled by The Navigators, she volunteered as a missionary nurse in Benin.

After 25 years, back in Britain, Christine sensed another emphatic call to follow her sister to New Zealand. In January 2001 two Gateway Church Hibiscus Coast members (formerly the Red Beach Fellowship, of Methodist origin), founded the Hibiscus Coast East Timor Appeal Trust (HETA Trust) to fund teams on short-term missions providing villagers with water and sanitation, re-building homes and schools, and establishing basic health clinics and educational support. Christine soon volunteered. With local Whangaparaoa Baptist Church members she built her own mission team, and aged 60, first visited Timor Leste in September 2004. Between 2004 and 2018 she returned 18 times. She fell in love with the Timorese people, learning Tetun, their most widespread native language.

The majority of the 19 short chapters record Christine’s role as an ESOL teacher, supporting local pastors, encouraging women’s leadership, and leading worship and educational clinics in East Timor’s far-flung, road-less villages and bush-clad islands. Devastated by revolution, invasion, guerrilla warfare, and near complete destruction of infrastructure, the young nation sorely needed the material and spiritual assistance Christine’s missions brought.

Chapter headings include: “When the Going Gets Tough”, “Toughen Up”, “Poverty Can be Beaten”, “Church on The Killing Field”, and “Price Paid”. This latter records the tragic but inspiring story of four nuns who, during Indonesia’s 25-year occupation, bravely faced off armed militia and were each shot in turn rather than betray the independence leaders meeting in their premises. Another tells of Emilia, a young disabled woman, who used the crochet and entrepreneurial skills Christine’s team taught her to teach local women to sell their crocheted work for an independent source of income.

The book concludes with “Some Learnings”. Perhaps the most important: “No matter how bad a situation, there is always hope.” Altogether, this is an honest, inspiring, personal account of voluntary Christian mission in Timor Leste. It’s well worth a read. My only disappointment is it comes with no illustrations or maps.