Not what I’d classify as a religious person, but spiritual, Rosamond Halsey Carr tells her story in her book, Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda. Published in 2001 and read by me last month, I recommend this book as a picture of woman’s self-realized independence, inner splendor, and outer triumph in this world of good and bad.

In 1949, Carr moved to what was then the Belgian Congo with her huntsman husband. Though they later got a divorce, Carr continued to live in Africa, moving to and managing, a pyrethrum farm.

Her exploits maintained decency, as described in her book. She learned to love the foreign country and the natives. As she witnessed the collapse of colonialism, I was inspired to keep my eyes open to witness the collapse of other injustices in the world, rather than get angry.

Carr met other adventurous people and learned from them. There was no apparent competition between these adventurous souls reminding me that as we develop our own strengths, we can help one another.

 ^“Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices ¹⁰ and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. ¹¹ Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.”—Colossians 3:9, ESV