Janet Benge > Quotes

“Someone can always take your money or belongings from you, but no one can ever steal your education.”
― Janet Benge, George Washington Carver: From Slave to Scientist

“God will provide,” Ida assured him. “Once you start, I am sure everything will fall into place. It always has.”
― Janet Benge, Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts

“Remember, you must never use your position to lord it over the heathen. Instead you must humble yourself and earn their respect though your own quiet faith and the power of the Holy Spirit. The missionary must seek nothing for himself, no seat of honor or hope of fame. Like the cabhorse in London, each of you must wear blinkers that blind you to every danger and to every snare and conceit. You must be content to suffer, to die, and to be forgotten. -Count Zinzendorf”
― Janet & Geoff Benge

“Only those who can see the invisible can achieve the impossible,”
― Janet Benge, Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts

“One day, for example, Eric explained the origins of the English word sincere. He told the boys that it was made up of two words, “sine,” meaning without, and “cere,” meaning wax. He explained that in the past when a sculptor made a statue, he would sign the bottom of it and add the phrase “Sine cere.” In doing so, he was guaranteeing that the work he did on the sculpture had no mistakes that had been covered over with wax to disguise them. Eric told the boys that living the Christian life meant that they did not cover up their character weaknesses and mistakes but instead lived sincere lives.”
― Janet Benge, Eric Liddell: Something Greater Than Gold

“Twenty-five years had whisked by with its challenges and triumphs. Ida now had a medical school, a nursing school, and a large hospital, but still there was much more to be done. Ida found herself wondering what her next challenge would be.”
― Janet Benge, Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts

“John [Adams] supposed there were two reasons why the British had gone after John Hancock. First, they wanted to make an example out of him, showing what would happen to anyone, no matter how rich, who dared to defy the new Townshend Act. Second, John Hancock was the biggest financial support of men like Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty. In fact, John Adams was reasonably sure that Sam Adams had no money whatsoever and that John Hancock was paying all his bills.”
― Janet Benge, John Adams: Independence Forever

“Ida knew that she was fighting ignorance and superstition every bit as much as she was fighting poor hygiene and disease.”
― Janet Benge, Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts

“First ponder then dare. Know your facts. Count the cost. Money is not the important thing. What you are building is not a medical school. It is the Kingdom of God. Don’t err on the side of being too small. If this is the will of God that we should find some way to keep the college open. It has to be done.”
― Janet Benge, Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts

“Ida finally made up her mind when she visited her father’s grave. She asked herself what he would have advised her to do, and she felt sure that he would have told her to reach for the stars, that Jesus promised that people could move mountains if they only believed.”
― Janet Benge, Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts

“He never considered himself anything special. He was just a man who tried to honor God and help people in need. In the end, achieving those two simple goals made him a very special person to countless people around the world.”
― Janet Benge, Eric Liddell: Something Greater Than Gold

“To help pass the time, William set to work writing. He called the first tract he wrote in Newgate Prison The Great Case for Liberty of Conscience. In the tract he argued that a person could be free only if he or she had choices to make, and when those choices were made for a person by someone over him or her, everyone loses out. People must be allowed to test the truth of their beliefs for themselves and see if that was what they really believed or merely what they had been made to believe.”
― Janet Benge, William Penn: Liberty and Justice for All

“you”
― Janet Benge, Elisabeth Elliot: Joyful Surrender

“The sweet potato and the peanut are twins,” he told everyone who would listen. “A human being could survive on just those two foods. Together they contain everything that’s needed for our health.”
― Janet Benge, George Washington Carver: From Slave to Scientist

“The small clinic Ida had opened after her father’s death had grown into a 544-bed hospital staffed by 108 nurses and 174 nursing students. Two hundred doctors had graduated from the medical college, and two hundred seventy-five nurses from the nurses’ training school. Now they were spread all over India and beyond. Ida thought of the times she had wanted to give up, but the recollection of those three dead women and their babies had spurred her on. Yes, God is good, Ida thought. He has done more than I could ever have hoped or dreamed.”
― Janet Benge, Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts

“The soldiers repeated this at the second and then the third Confederate”
― Janet Benge, Harriet Tubman: Freedombound

“In 1924, at thirty-two years old, she became the first woman in Holland to be certified as a watchmaker.”
― Janet Benge, Corrie ten Boom: Keeper of the Angels' Den

“True religion is not a matter of outward observances. Rather it takes place within the heart. It is not rooted in past events in a far-off land but in the true Inner Light that shone then and continues to shine today. Men must follow this Inner Light until it illuminates their heart and they experience a closeness of God there. No other man, no priest or clergyman, can mediate this. Each man, in the quiet of his heart, must come to his own reckoning with God. For the Scriptures tell us that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at a man’s heart.”
― Janet Benge, William Penn: Liberty and Justice for All

“But, this time I have departed from my usual reticence because I know that there are some who, in their pleasant homes in America without any real knowledge of the facts, declare that the days of missionary hardships are over.”
― Janet Benge, Lottie Moon: Giving Her All for China

“Annie, it is surrender.” Somehow Annie knew what he meant. Eric was about to die. Soon after, he fell into a coma. At half past nine that night, Eric Liddell “surrendered” and died.”
― Janet Benge, Eric Liddell: Something Greater Than Gold

“He pointed to a list of times tables in the back of his notebook. “Mrs. Williamson says we need to know them all, but that’s impossible.” As soon as he finished speaking, Ben knew he’d said the wrong thing. “Impossible!” his mother scolded, putting her hands on her hips. “Impossible is not in our vocabulary, Benjamin Solomon Carson. You know that. Nothing is impossible. Look at me. I didn’t go past third grade, and I know all of my times tables up to twelve. How’s that, Bennie?” Ben knew better than to say another word. His mother was out to prove a point. “Impossible! Impossible! We’ll see. You’re going to learn those times tables, Bennie. Starting tomorrow you’re not going to go outside to play after school until you’ve learned them—all of them.” “But Mama . . .” “No buts about it, Bennie. With God’s help you can wipe that im right off the word impossible and make it possible.”
― Janet Benge, Ben Carson: A Chance at Life

“As he rode along William thought about all that he had learned from Moses Amyraut. He saw how pointless it was accumulating so many possessions. A single spark could take them all away. No, he told himself, there were more important things in life than social position and an abundance of possessions for him to strive for.”
― Janet Benge, William Penn: Liberty and Justice for All

“Marj was one step ahead of him. Before he sank into depression over the situation, she reminded him he was an army veteran and, as such, he could get treatment at any army hospital free of charge. There was a large military hospital at the United States base in Panama, and Marj had already made arrangements for Nate to be flown there. The U.S. military had a cargo plane stationed in Quito that would ferry Nate to the hospital in Panama for treatment. Because Marj’s pregnancy was too far advanced for her to travel, she would stay in Quito and have the baby. With a cast covering half his body, Nate looked like a mummy as he was carried on a stretcher to the military transport plane. As he crossed the tarmac to the plane, he caught a glimpse of the yellow Stinson, which lay in a crumpled heap in front of a hangar where it had been dragged. The fuselage was broken in half, and the engine and landing gear had been ripped right off the plane. As he looked at the wreckage, Nate knew it was a blessing that he was alive. On the flight to Panama, Nate had to stay lying on his back on the stretcher, since his cast didn’t bend at the waist. He passed the time counting the number of rivets in the bulkhead.”
― Janet Benge, Nate Saint: On a Wing and a Prayer

“She wasn’t going to be kind just because that was the right thing to do. She was going to be kind because God had asked her to be kind to those He loved.”
― Janet Benge, Amy Carmichael: Rescuer of Precious Gems

“much”
― Janet Benge, Corrie ten Boom: Keeper of the Angels' Den

“As news of George’s donation became public, many people wondered how he had come to have so much money. The answer was simple: George spent very little money on himself.”
― Janet Benge, George Washington Carver: From Slave to Scientist

“The more William had read the Bible, the more convinced he had become that God expected Christians to share the gospel message with others, even people far across the ocean in newly discovered lands.”
― Janet Benge, William Carey: Obliged to Go

“While William Penn, in the end, spent only a short period of time in Pennsylvania, in the time he was there he left an indelible mark upon the place. And when a group of men gathered together in his city of Philadelphia in 1787 to draft a constitution for the fledgling United States of America, the ideals of William Penn from nearly a hundred years before about liberty, justice, fairness, and tolerance guided much of their thinking and discussion. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson, one of the men present at that gathering, called William Penn “the greatest lawgiver the world has produced.”
― Janet Benge, William Penn: Liberty and Justice for All

“Our first sight of Malaita!… At 6 A.M. we were passing the SW coast of San Christoval [Cristobal]. At 8 A.M. we sighted Guadalcanar [Guadalcanal], and 10:10 A.M. saw Malaita. Since then we have been steaming all day past San Christoval, Marau Sound, and the NE coast of Guadalcanar, with Malaita clearly visible in the distance.”
― Janet Benge, Florence Young: Mission Accomplished

“One by one the Essence Awards honorees were called onto the stage. First went civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, then movie director Spike Lee, followed by comedian Eddie Murphy, and then Dr. Benjamin S. Carson. Ben stood and walked forward to the stage. It was one of the most surreal moments of his life. He wondered how he belonged in the same category as those around him on the stage. It was hard for him to imagine that he, a pediatric neurosurgeon, was being publicly honored along with the most recognizable African American men and women in the country. As he stood onstage, staring out at the crowd, Ben thought about the path his life had taken. Who could have guessed that he, a poor black boy from a single-parent home in Detroit, would end up a brain surgeon? Certainly not those who had considered him the class dummy back in elementary school. Here he was, not just a brain surgeon, but a brain surgeon being honored for the work he had undertaken—experimental surgeries that gave children a chance at life.”
― Janet Benge, Ben Carson: A Chance at Life