| Description : | There was some correspondence on this topic some years ago (See Page 13) about the book and who the author, Elizabeth Pritchard may be. A friend of mine did some Googling and found out that Elizabeth Pritchard was not an MHS school girl as previously thought, but a Missionary who lived and preached in India for many years. She probably went up to Darjeeling and lived in one of the cottages below the school, and the nearby school inspired her to write her little children's adventure story. (Have a look at the Books Gallery page on my OMHSA website)
Elizabeth (Betty) Pritchard (1906-2002) wrote an autobiography called "Testimony of a 'Whatnot'". Betty was a missionary in India for 40 years and retired to Lisburn, Ireland, in the 1970s with her husband Herbert. She was a Quaker and attended, with her husband, Lisburn Friends Meeting. She was also a frequent speaker at Moyallon Camp and inspired many others to follow God's call to serve Him in other countries.
Over a number of years Betty suffered from loss of hearing. Much of her work in India up to that point had involved talking to groups of women in villages sharing the Gospel with them and listening to their stories. As she became more affected by deafness she couldn't hear what they were saying and found it difficult to speak with them properly. At first she could not understand why God had allowed her to be hindered in this way as she felt she was doing what God had called her to do. She prayed many times to be released from her suffering and hear again.
After a few years when her evangelism work with the women was becoming impossible she prayed that God would show her what else she could do to serve Him. Then she lay down and opened the magazine of Evangelical Fellowship of India. In it there was a competition to write a Christian novel with the winning entry to be published in many local languages as well as in English. It was felt that a lot of people in India were not interested in writings of theology or devotional literature but they may be affected by a story in the form of a novel. So Betty duly entered and won and had her book published.
She subsequently wrote other books as well as Sunday School materials and then her autobiography. Her three works of fiction are all, sadly, out of print.
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