Living the Great Commission in Madagascar

About the Book

Clara Agnes Braaten kept a diary from the year she married the author’s father, Torstein Folkvard Braaten, in 1922 until she was ninety-four-years old. Three weeks after they were married, they departed Minneapolis by train for New York City to board the Stavangerfjord, a fine Norwegian ocean libber, to cross the Atlantic Ocean on their way to Bergen, Norway. The author’s father had accepted a call from the Foreign Mission Board of the Norwegian Lutheran Church in America to become a missionary to Madagascar. The couple decided to visit Norway on their way to Paris, France, where they were to spend one year learning the French language. In this book, the author draws on his mother’s diaries to highlight why his parents obeyed the Great Commission and how they lived it every day in Madagascar. The book includes excerpts selected from his mother’s diary as well as a brief narrative of what the author remembers about growing up in Madagascar. Whether you’re interested in missionary life, the Lutheran Church, the history of Madagascar, or genealogy, you’ll enjoy Living the Great Commission in Madagascar.

About the Author

Carl E. Braaten is professor emeritus of systematic theology at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, where he taught for thirty years, 1961-1991. He is an ordained minister of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and served as pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Messiah in Minneapolis, 1958-1961. He was the founding editor of Dialog: A Journal of Theology. In 1992 he together with Robert W. Jenson established the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology and because its executive director. He founded the ecumenical journal, Pro Ecclesia, and is its senior editor. He has authored and edited over fifty books of theology and published hundreds of articles in various journals. He now enjoys retirement in Sun City West, Arizona, where he lives with his wife, Beryl.