When Niel Black, one of the most influential settlers of the Western District of Victoria, stepped onto the sand at Port Phillip Bay in 1839 and declared Melbourne to be 'almost altogether a Scotch settlement', he was paying the newly created outpost of the British Empire his highest compliment. His journal, reproduced here in its entirety, provides rare insight into the realities of early settlement in Victoria, detailing experiences of personal hardship and physical danger as well as the potential for accumulating great wealth and success. Drawing on the extensive collections of the State Library of Victoria, Strangers in a Foreign Land also includes glimpses into the lives of other settlers and the indigenous people of the area. It evokes the sense of place and dislocation that the early settlers encountered, and the hopes and anxieties they carried with them as they created new homes in Australia.

This book is the true stories of two wonderful ladies who served God in a wonderfully committed manner and brought great blessing to many people. They stand as powerful examples to all Christian people today.

What did it feel like to be an openly Jewish soldier fighting alongside German troops in WWII? Could a Jewish nurse work safely in a field hospital operating theater under the supervision of German army doctors? Several hundred members of Finland’s tiny Jewish community found themselves in absurd situations like this, yet not a single one was harmed by the Germans or deported to concentration or extermination camps. In fact, Finland was the only European country fighting on either side in WWII that lost not a single Jewish citizen to the Nazi’s “Final Solution.” Strangers in a Stranger Land explores the unique dilemma of Finland’s Jews in the form of a meticulously researched novel. Where did these immigrant Jews—the last in Europe to achieve citizenship status—come from? What was life like from their arrival in Finland in the early nineteenth century to the time when their grandchildren perversely found themselves on “the wrong side” of WWII? And how could young lovers plan for the future when not only their enemies but also their country’s allies threatened their very existence? Seven years researching Finland’s National Archives plus numerous in-depth interviews with surviving Finnish Jewish war veterans provide the background for a narrative exploration of love, friendship, and commitment but also uncertainty and terror under circumstances that were unique in the annals of “The Good War.” The novel’s protagonists—Benjamin, David and Rachel—adopt varying survival strategies as they struggle with involvement in a brutal conflict and questions posed by their dual loyalty as Finnish citizens and Zionists committed to the creation of a Jewish homeland. Tensions mount as the three young adults painfully work through a relationship love triangle and try to fulfill their commitments as both Jews and Finns while their country desperately seeks to extricate itself from an unwinnable war.

The title Strangers and Pilgrims on Earth (Hebrews 11:13) captures well the eschatological nature of the christology which has become so central in the theological enterprise of Prof. dr. Abraham van de Beek. At the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday in October 2011, many of his former colleagues and students honour him in this Festschrift with a contribution to one of the themes that have been central to his theology: christology, theology of Israel, eschatology, theology of the church, creation theology, and freedom of religion. The volume opens with an article providing an overview of his theological development, one probing his deepest theological intentions, and with an up to date bibliography. Contributors include: Martien Brinkman, Johan Buitendag, Jaesung Cha, Pieter Coertzen, Ernst Conradie, Gerrit de Kruijf, Bert de Leede, Adelbert Denaux, Gerard den Hertog, Rene de Reuver, Henk de Roest, Andre Drost, Szilveszter Füsti-Molnár, Harm Goris, Botond Gudor, John Hesselink, Jan Hoek, Gerrit Immink, Allan Janssen, Tamás Juhász, Nico Koopman, Daniel Migliore, ChristIan Mostert, István Pásztori-Kupán, Christoff Pauw, Arjan Plaisier, Ad Prosman, Bernhard Reitsma, Riemer Roukema, Frank Sawyer, Alan Sell, Matthias Smalbrugge, Gerrit Singgih, Dirkie Smit, Adrianus Cardinal Simonis, Ferenc Szűcs, Eep Talstra, Wessel ten Boom, Johann Theron, Jacob van Beelen, Henk van den Belt, Gijsbert van den Brink, Leon van den Broeke, Eduardus Van der Borght, Kees van der Kooi, Paul van Geest, Sjaak van 't Kruis, Willem van Vlastuin, Amie van Wyk, Danie Veldsman, Rian Venter, Wim Verboom, Koos Vorster, Nico Vorster, Robert Vosloo, Henk Vroom, Paul Wells.

This volume explores the ways in which representatives of different monotheistic traditions experienced themselves as “the other” or were perceived and described as such by their contemporaries. This central category – which includes not only those of different religions, but also converts, foreigners, sectarians, and women – is studied from various perspectives in a range of texts composed by Jewish, Christian, and Muslim authors during late antique and mediaeval times. Conceptualizations of such “others” are often intrinsically related to the idea of exile, another important category that is analysed in this work.

Churches are traditionally among the first to respond to the call to aid strangers in distress. In this age of globalization, one group of strangers in particular—asylum seekers and refugees—is in urgent need of welcome as they flee their homelands in search of safety. This same group, however, faces hostility and rejection in many places. What should be the church’s response? This book argues that Christian hospitality offers a powerful theological and pastoral response to such vulnerable strangers in our midst. For that to happen, the church must answer two questions: “What is Christian hospitality?” and “How do we put it into practice with refugees and asylum seekers?” Part One answers the first question with a cross-disciplinary study of sacred hospitality in both ancient and modern times. Part Two tackles the second with a fascinating case study of the church’s outreach to refugees and asylum seekers in an international Chinese city. As communities worldwide receive refugees and asylum seekers, this book offers Christian hospitality and the Hong Kong experience as one hopeful response to needy strangers at our doorstep. It is a welcome theological and practical resource for refugee ministry in the twenty-first century.

Travel was closely connected to Margaret Laurence’s creativity. Laurence realized that her travels, especially to Africa, provided her with new perspectives on Canada. Heart of a Stranger, originally published in 1976, is a fascinating travelogue chronicling Laurence's geographical journeys to many lands and historic places. She notes "I saw, somewhat to my surprise, that they are all, in one way or another, travel articles. And by travel, I mean both those voyages which are outer and those voyages which are inner." Laurence writes about her travels to Egypt in "Good Morning to the Grandson of Ramesses the Second," to Scotland in "Road from the Isles," and to Greece in "Sayonara, Agamemnon." In "The Very Best Intentions" Laurence sees herself as a "stranger in a strange land" in Ghana. She reflects on the many places she lived in "Put Out One or Two More Flags," "Down East," "The Shack" and "Where the World Began." Professor Nora Foster Stovel’s new introduction "Heart of a Traveller" explores how Laurence’s experiences in other lands influenced and shaped her writing. She contends that "Heart of a Stranger constitutes a concealed autobiography, for, in chronicling her literal life journey, Laurence also reveals her spiritual odyssey."

There is an inevitable running battle between natives and strangers that several cases in the Holy Scriptures lend credence to. The perennial politics and hiccups of managing migration by nations have spurred this discourse that all and sundry should be knowledgeable about. Herein is useful information for border agencies, migrants, their relatives, and even parents who are based back home. It would assist counselors to help potential migrants across the globe. The role of God in the unending conflict between nations migrant managers and migrants is highlighted here. Parents should read to help them guide their children about issues that are bound to arise as a result of living in a foreign land.

Contrary to what we might imagine from its title, the Epistle to the Hebrews is immersed in Hellenistic thought. Its author demonstrates an acquaintance with Greco-Roman rhetoric, and often supports his arguments with the assumptions of Hellenistic philosophy. While he shares the apocalyptic worldview of other Jews in this period, he recasts it with the language of Middle Platonism.

‘I lived the same life as everyone else, the life of ordinary people, the masses.’ Sitting in a prison cell in the autumn of 1944, Hans Fallada sums up his life under the National Socialist dictatorship, the time of ‘inward emigration’. Under conditions of close confinement, in constant fear of discovery, he writes himself free from the nightmare of the Nazi years. His frank and sometimes provocative memoirs were thought for many years to have been lost. They are published here in English for the first time. The confessional mode did not come naturally to Fallada the writer of fiction, but in the mental and emotional distress of 1944, self-reflection became a survival strategy. In the ‘house of the dead’ he exacts his political revenge on paper. ‘I know that I am crazy. I’m risking not only my own life, I’m also risking … the lives of many of the people I am writing about’, he notes, driven by the compulsion to write. And write he does – about spying and denunciation, about the threat to his livelihood and his literary work, about the fate of many friends and contemporaries such as Ernst Rowohlt and Emil Jannings. To conceal his intentions and to save paper, he uses abbreviations. His notes, constantly exposed to the gaze of the prison warders, become a kind of secret code. He finally succeeds in smuggling the manuscript out of the prison, although it remained unpublished for half a century. These revealing memoirs by one of the best-known German writers of the 20th century will be of great interest to all readers of modern literature.