The Poisonwood Bible

This is an okay book written by Barbara Kingsolver and based on true events. Nathan Price, a fierce evangelical Baptist, takes his wife and four daughters on a mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them all they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it – from garden seeds to Scripture – is calamitously transformed on African soil. When a tragedy strikes the family, it changes everything and puts each member on a different path.

The story reminded me of the book of Job. Near the end, the pastor is portrayed as a really awful man. Although he is authoritarian, traditional, and religious, I didn’t think of him as a bad person. Mobutu Sese Seko was the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (also known as Zaire) from 1965 to 1997. He had an authoritarian, but anti-communist, approach to governing.