Galloway of Buraan

Book excerpt: The Reverend David Simcox Galloway, an American Presbyterian educator and clergyman, is seeking to establish a secondary school for boys in what is now southeastern Turkey, at the border with Syria. This is the story of two eventful weeks: one in March 1910 and the other in September 1925. In 1910, he is struggling just to prepare a proposal to create the school. In 1925, the new campus is ready and about to open. Diligent, quiet, well-intentioned, and idealistic, Galloway often feels overwhelmed by the challenges of life and work on the mission field. He encounters violence, cultural friction, illness, isolation, and loss, and sometimes unexpected satisfaction and joy. This narrative represents post-colonial critiques of mission while also embodying the way Christians of the time lived their faith, expressed themselves, and observed the norms of their social context. The novel tells a compelling personal story while digging into issues of intercultural encounter, indigenous agency, vernacularization, interfaith relations, gender roles in mission, the advent of modernity, mission philanthropy in that era, and the effects of imperialism in the Middle East. David Galloway reconsiders many of his assumptions over the time span of this story.