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Besides being an enjoyable read, it is a timely reminder for all of us to do all we can to remove prejudicial barriers and build bridges between different faiths.
Dr. Simon Ross Valentine, Church Times, UK
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This is not a book for those interested in polemics against Islam. Jones takes us into the lived experience of Muslims in the Horn of Africa and what a real engagement with them can be like with risk, affection, difference, and real learning. We also should remember her learning journey began with the Somali refugees in Minnesota. Many of us have Muslim neighbors or work colleagues or health care providers. This is a valuable book both for its exploration of Islam, but also for its model of humble, open dialogue, willing to make mistakes and take risks, to welcome and be welcomed. And it points to what can happen as we engage those of another faith. We not only learn about their faith; we rediscover our own.
Bob Trube
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An inherently fascinating, informative and inspiring read from cover to cover, Pillars is an extraordinary life story, unreservedly recommended for all members of the Christian community regardless of denominational affiliations.
Midwest Book Review
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In four decades of covering religion in America, I cannot recall a book by a Christian author that so eloquently explains the close parallels between the Muslim faith and Christianity.
ReadTheSpirit magazine
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As committed Christians and American expatriates living in East Africa, Jones and her family have built a life on the borders of one of the most fractious relationships in human history: Islam and Christianity. . . She relates her story without universalizing her experience, but we can learn much from her example.
Christianity Today
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In this charming memoir, Rachel Pieh Jones (Stronger than Death), an expat American writer living in Djibouti, recounts her experiences moving from Minnesota to the horn of Africa when her husband took a professorship there, showing readers how her time in Muslim regions freed her from Islamophobic prejudice and deepened her own Christian faith.…The author’s considered, evocative prose and friendly persona make this a pleasure to read. Pieh Jones’s courage to embrace her adventures, rethink shallow faith, and find genuine friendships will inspire readers looking to expand their own horizons.
Publishers Weekly, starred review
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This is a book Christians and non-Christians alike can relate to: its core message is one of knowing how to admit you are wrong and learn from your mistakes, while strengthening friendships.
Booklist
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Through engrossing prose and personal stories, Rachel Pieh Jones takes readers along on her journey of Muslim-Christian friendship and interreligious exploration, offering a window into how Islam is lived in the Horn of Africa and how one’s faith in Jesus can be reshaped by encounters with those who believe differently. Readers from all denominations will find in Rachel—and in her Muslim friends—fellow pilgrims for their own journeys of faith.
Jordan Denari Duffner, author of Finding Jesus among Muslims
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In a time when many Christians view their faith as a political identity and view other faiths with fear and hostility, Rachel Pieh Jones provides a stirring counternarrative that shows what it’s like to follow Jesus earnestly, idealistically, and courageously to places few of us go and into the kind of friendships too few of us make. May hers be the form of Jesus-following that comes to the fore in our society.
Tom Krattenmaker, author of Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower
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There are many books written about engaging with Islam theologically. This book is not like that, although you can learn a lot about Islam from it. It's about something more important: Rachel tells stories about her encounters with Muslims as friends that can help us learn to be more faithful followers of Jesus and neighbors to people who need them.
Matthew Loftus, MD, AIC Litein Hospital, Kenya
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As an American raised in a Muslim country, I have waited for a book like Pillars all my adult life, a personal book that discovers similarities and honors differences between Christianity and Islam, a book that, pillar by pillar, builds bridges of greater understanding across what are often chasms of disconnect. Read and savor this book, which shows what can happen when we connect rather than collide.
Marilyn R. Gardner, author of Between Worlds: Essays on Culture & Belonging
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Filled with hard-won insights of a mature faith lived in long community with Muslim neighbors, Pillars refuses sentimental calls for the kind of peace that glosses over differences. Instead, Jones finds her faith unraveled and rewoven, stronger for what she’s learned in the Horn of Africa and from her Muslim friends. Anyone whose faith has been challenged by life experiences will find a helpful model for spiritual growth here.
Amy Peterson, author of Dangerous Territory: My Misguided Quest to Save the World
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This is a beautiful story, beautifully told. It’s much more than the memoirs of a Christian American living in Africa and exploring Islam with devoted Muslims; it’s about learning how to be a good neighbor to the people around you, wherever you might be in the world. This is the kind of book we need right now.
Eboo Patel, author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation
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Stronger Than Death is a searing portrait of Annalena Tonelli, a singular woman whose fearlessness and concern should stand as an example to us all. It’s also a hard look at the role of outsiders in Africa, and an inquiry into our responsibility to help those less fortunate than us. But most of all, it’s a great story from a place about which, too often, all we hear is silence.
Frank Bures, author of The Geography of Madness
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A searing account of a person, place, deadly disease, unspeakable violence, and, ultimately, faith, love, and sacrifice… Why would anyone leave everything they ever knew behind to travel to a remote Muslim village in northern Kenya, to live among desert nomads dying of tuberculosis? Annalena Tonelli, a self-described “nobody,” was a humanitarian from Italy, and a revolutionary in her own humble way.
Booklist
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Gripping...Tonelli’s example of humility, asceticism, and loving with abandon will be a revelation to modern Christian readers and will appeal to anyone interested in international aid.
Publishers Weekly
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A fascinating, powerful and extremely moving true story that needs to be shared with the rest of the world.
Jordan Wylie, author of Citadel and Running For My Life
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Rachel Pieh Jones has given us the unforgettable story of a servant of the sick and poor who demonstrated, to an almost incomprehensible degree, what it means to love the least of these. Few of us will ever come close to Annalena Tonelli’s devotion and bravery. But thanks to this remarkable book, we can be acquainted with one of history’s great and unheralded exemplars, and inspired to give more of ourselves to those without.
Tom Krattenmaker, USA Today columnist, author of Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower
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A stunning meditation on love and service, this book has given me a new hero: Annalena Tonelli, a woman of faith who crashed through boundaries and dodged bullets in her mission to heal the sick. Author Rachel Pieh Jones has done justice to an extraordinary person, crafting a story every bit as vivid, relentless, and surprising as her subject.
Jason Fagone, author of The Woman Who Smashed Codes
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My life has been shaped by the examples of faith heroes: Dorothy Day, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X. In this book, Rachel Pieh Jones introduces me to one more – Annalena Tonelli. Her example of immersive, selfless service combined with learning from different traditions should inspire us all.
Eboo Patel, author of Acts of Faith, founder and president, Interfaith Youth Core
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Annalena Tonelli’s story challenges readers to believe in themselves and reminds us that we can choose acts of kindness and love even during difficult circumstances. Her courage inspires us to challenge evil: everyone can make a difference.
Mariam Mohamed, former First Lady of Somalia
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As well as telling a compelling story with great skill, this absorbing and clear-eyed examination of the work of one of East Africa’s greatest humanitarians, based on her letters and interviews with her closest associates, also highlights the cultural challenges faced by even the most dedicated worker. Rachel Pieh Jones raises questions about motive and consequence, as well as perception and jealousy, that resonate well beyond the fascinating life she describes.
Richard Barrett, director of the Global Strategy Network and former director of global counter-terrorism at MI6
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A meticulously detailed and empathetic work on a woman whose life should not be forgotten.
Mary Harper, Africa Editor, BBC World Service, author of Getting Somalia Wrong?
