THE BAMBOO CROSS

 Homer E. Dowdy, Hodder and Stoughton 2^nd 1966.

The witness of Christian martyrs in the communist-ridden jungles of Vietnam. The Bamboo Cross is the story of a people who have been projected into the world’s headlines by events in Vietnam.

When the Viet Cong terrorists swept down from the mountains, the villagers lacked a leader. Many of the tribes were still completely pagan, enslaved by sorcerers and offering blood sacrifices to their gods and engaged in blood feuds against their neighbours.

Miraculously, out of the chaos arose two tribesmen, Sau and his brother Ka, who had been converted to Christianity in their youth. Untiringly they travelled from village to village, rallying the people and proclaiming the good news of the one true spirit of the skies.

When guerrilla activity at last forced the people to abandon their mountain villages, it was Sau who led them out to find a new Christian settlement in the fertile river valley. The Viet Cong followed them, trying first by persuasion, then by threats, and then by outright persecution, to recruit them to the communist cause, but nothing could shake their new-found devotion to the cross of Christ.

 The people abandoned their worldly goods, fled homeless into the night, and at times heroically accepted martyrdom rather than renounce Christianity. For three months, the author, a Michigan newspaperman, lived among these people, collecting material for this book. He slept in their huts, shared their dangers, and often escaped into the night with them, crossing bridges minutes before they exploded.

The story he has to tell is a moving one of courage, endurance and privation among ordinary people caught up in a war which was not of their making.

Apart from some very minor rubs and splits to the dust jacket, and the fact that it has been price clipped, both the book and the jacket are in very good condition, with nice clean pages and tight binding. It is illustrated in black and white.