On the Precipice of Prejudice and Persecution: An Autobiographical Account by Konrad Kingshill

Having personally known Dr. Konrad Kingshill I eagerly purchased this book for reading. I thoroughly enjoyed the earlier parts about Dr. Kingshill's family, upbringing and the trials of being a Christian Jewish family in nineteen-thirties Germany. His dramatic move to the United States and his near death by drowning from a topedoed ship is gripping. In fact the book through Chapter 13, "The End of Bachelorhood and a New Family," was well worth the read. From Chapter 14 through to the end was less so. It seemed like so much "then this happened,... and this,.... and then this,... etc. It should have been much more dramatically written. Dr. Kingshill founded Payap University, for all practical purposes, which was the first private college and then university in Thailand. He doesn't like people to say that about him out of some sort of false modesty; but it's true. Of course there was a committee and the school was established through an already exhisting institution, the Church of Christ in Thailand. Be that as it may, without Dr. Konrad Kingshill, there would have been no Payap University. Dr. Kingshill is a perfect example of a certain sort of "missionary" that few people even know exhists. His faith has never been "warn on his sleeve," but his loyalty to a just and benevolent God is very deep. The book shows what a task oriented person Dr. Kingshill is. Sweet congenialities are not his style, but he's always sensitive to the people around him, if for no other reason than that it works in helping to get the job done. In our current world of either rampant secularism or blatant evangelicalism, it's refreshing to know that there are still a few of God's workers in the world who have their feet firmly on the ground while their hearts are on a higher plain.