I was delighted to see Lee Snyder’s review (October) of Myrrl Byler’s Crossing the River by Feeling for the Stones: Mennonite Engagement in China, 1901-2020. Immensely informative are not only his history of the first Mennonite missionaries in China but also his accounts of what happened when he and a colleague visited churches founded by them. He became friends with many pastors and brought some, who later became leaders in China, to study at Eastern Mennonite Seminary. Later areas of cooperation included developing relationships between North American retirement communities with Chinese Christians who saw the need to serve retired adults who had no family nearby. Vitally important in his life are his wife, Ruthie, and their children, Sebastian and Simona. Ruthie taught college students in their first years in China. Later, during their extended time in China, she used her creative skills in teaching small children.  

In the same article, I was happy also to see Snyder’s review of Doors Cracked Open: Teaching in a Chinese Closed City by Fran Martens Friesen and Mary Ann Zehr. Another book that could have been included is Esther Yoder Stenson’s memoir, Doors Through the Great Wall. She first went to China under a nondenominational Christian organization and later became one of Myrrl’s teachers in China Educational Exchange/Mennonite Partners in China. 

Nancy V. Lee, Madison, Wis.