Shaped to Fit

When God shapes our lives to fit his purposes, anything is possible!

Raised in a strict Christian sect, with many religious rules and social requirements, Joan struggled to reconcile the lifestyle she was expected to lead with the example that Jesus set for his disciples. Her desire to follow Christ in all things, including ‘eating with sinners’, soon compelled her to leave behind all that was familiar.

A short term ‘Mission to Miners’ in France stirred a passion within her to become a missionary overseas. Formerly a teacher of severely deaf children, she soon found herself working for Wycliffe Bible Translators in the Amazon forest. Unexpected family joys and deep sorrow were to follow, but through all things God was shaping Joan to be an integral part of his divine masterpiece.

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"We live in a world where we have learned to fear extremism to such an extent that we cannot differentiate between evil and good. A superficial reading of this book may lead one to believe that even if the extremism is good it is still pointless. Who would wish to worship and follow someone who allowed such pain and loss? Yet Joan takes us carefully and gently by the hand to reveal a love that is incomprehensible to the selfish and self-centred heart but gloriously wonderful to the soul who can recognise their own inadequacies. Oh for a few more Joans in this needy lost world!"

Danny M. Batten   BSc FCPFA DMS  

"While Joan’s heroic victory over a tarantula left me shaking all over, Andy’s story brought tears to my eyes. This book’s worth it for those two passages alone, but her honest accounts of a slightly bizarre upbringing and then ten years living in the jungle exchanged later for rural England and a spell in the Himalayas leave me amazed at the depth of what God has done in Joan’s life."

Dr Val Inchley   OBE

"This book is an interesting yet simple read by an unassuming woman whose life has been full and varied – from learning and writing down the language of a remote Brazilian tribe and working in the mountain area of Nepal to fulfilling the duties of a minister’s wife in rural England. Joan has been honest and vulnerable about the pressures and battles that we so often go through in our lives. 
A book that can be picked up and put down without losing the thread of a story that demonstrates the many and varied ways that God seeks to fulfil His goal of transformation of our character."

Rev. Peter Milner   BA (Hons)

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Joan’s childhood in a strict Christian sect formed her into an ill-at-ease, shy, prim-and-proper young woman. Her book describes the adventures and surprises, the struggles and failures, the sadness and the joy that have been transforming her into a very different person. Now in retirement, she looks back over the eighty exciting years so far and shares something of what she has been discovering about life. And about God.