Geoff Benge

With only three months of formal education, Thomas Edison grew up to be one of the most successful inventors of all time. Applying scientific principles to practical use, he made scores of inventions and held over thirteen hundred patents, from improvements on the telegraph and phonograph to the...

Ida stamped her foot. Her friends were wrong. "I will not be a missionary to India like my parents!" she retorted. "Don't any of you say I will be, because I won't -- never, ever, ever." Ida had never forgotten the faces of starving Indian children. She hated India -- it was full of horrible...

For two hundred years, British slave ships plied in the Middle Passage, taking African men, women, and children to their doom. Ending slavery in the mighty British Empire seemed like an impossible dream, but once William Wilberforce resolved to represent the abolitionists in Parliament, he would...

From his earliest childhood, C.S. Lewis loved to hear and tell stories. Persuaded that stories could reveal the truth about the real world in a unique way, the literature professor would write more than thirty books, including science fiction, theology, literary criticism, and fantasy. (1898...

When Charles Mulli was a child, his family repeatedly abandoned him, and he lived in fear of his abusive, alcoholic father. With an extraordinary will, the young Kenyan struggled to feed and educate himself and, encountering hope in the gospel, found a reason to live and to forgive. Later, as a...

C.T. and his companion were lost in the African jungle. All the warning others had given the two missionaries rushed into C.T.'s mind. He had the uneasy sensation of being watched. C.T. shivered as he stared into the dense foliage surrounding him. He was exposed on all sides, clearly visible to...

The mainsail cracked above them in the ferocious wind as a group of red-faced men descended on John. "You have brought a curse on us. Overboard with you," one of the men yelled. A chorus of cheers went up. It was the last sound John heard before he was dumped over the side of the ship and...

The icy Arctic cold stabbed at Wilfred's fingers and toes. A howling wind was pushing the ice pan he was stranded on out to sea -- and with it hope of rescue. His clothes, soaked when his dogsled fell through the ice, were now frozen. Lying near his sled dog for warmth, Wilfred fought off sleep...

"You fool of a boy!" William's father screamed. "You had the world ahead of you, and you threw it away for some religious meeting. Why, Parliament has ordered the heads of a dozen Puritans to be stuck on poles around the city as a warning against disobeying the law. Have you thought of that?...

Growing up in a small town in England, William Bradford lived during a time of upheaval and opportunity. Together with a group of Separatists, William escaped England to establish a new life in Holland and finally set out on the Mayflower on a perilous voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. The New...

"As he tried to think calmly about faith, Richard realized that he didn't want anything to do with Christianity, even if it did turn out to be true. He could only imagine life as a Christian Jew, and what he imagined was awful. No one in his or her right mind would choose such a path. At least...

"Seven-year-old Nate Saint peered wide-eyed over the cockpit of his older brother Sam's Challenger biplane. The eastern Pennsylvania countryside was spread out neatly below him like a fine tablecloth. Nate was determined to remember every moment of this first high-flying adventure." Flying soon...

Standing atop a mound of rocks, Mildred wrapped her blue padded jacket tightly around her and squinted against the sand-laden wind. To her right the Great Wall wound east for fourteen hundred miles until it reached the Yellow Sea. Before her lay the rocks and sand of the vast Gobi Desert. She...

Meriwether Lewis had been commissioned by President Jefferson to lead a daring expedition so remarkable it would become one of the most famous explorations in history. He chose as his co-captain William Clark. Their mission - to find a land route to the Pacific Ocean while learning as much as...

While many missionaries died within months, this fiery mill worker from Scotland labored in love among the unreached tribes of Africa's Calabar region for thirty-nine years (1848-1915). This best-selling, missionary biography series - Christian Heroes: Then & Now - chronicles the exciting...

Aboard the Aquitania, Rachel became aware of something strange happening to her. It was as if she were not on the deck of the ship anymore but was instead in a jungle clearing, looking at a group of brown-skinned, half-naked people. The people beckoned for her to come. Suddenly the scene...

Hudson survived his perilous maiden voyage to his beloved China. With his heart set in determined obedience to God, and trusting the provision of the One who had called, Hudson overcame persecution and almost overwhelming personal losses to bring to bring God's truth to the "ripe harvest fields"...

At last Orville was free, soaring above the sand dunes, wind in his face. Lying in the glider's wing, he moved his hips in the control cradle and the craft began to turn as planned. But then something went wrong. The glider wanted to go into a spin, and as Orville struggled with the controls, it...

Written for ages 10 and up -- enjoyed by adults! Behind George were enemies; in front, a raging ice-packed river. Poling across had seemed his best chance, but now large blocks of ice slammed into his makeshift raft, twisting it off course. Just as George dug his pole in and pushed with all his...

"Do you mean to say you have no food for tomorrow?" the Egyptian man sputtered. "Well, yes," Lillian replied. The man exclaimed, "How awful! Will you be able to sleep tonight?" One of the orphan girls laughed out loud and said, "Why, Mama never has any food for tomorrow, and she never loses...