Windows to Our World

Title: Windows to Our World
Author: Sarah Janisse Brown
Major Themes: Family Life, Missionaries, Christian Living
Synopsis: The mother of 10 children tells the story of her life, from a young girl struggling to learn to read to a missionary in Europe now.

I always enjoy reading about the lives of other mothers with a number of children. In Windows to Our World, Sarah, who happens to be only two years younger than me, tells the story of her life from a young girl to becoming the mother of 10. She was raised in a Christian home, with a pastor father and an artist mother, and many of her weekends as a girl were spent at art fairs as her mother sold her paintings. In seventh grade, Sarah’s mother pulled her out of school and began to homeschool her, which turned out to be a wonderful choice for Sarah. After completing the lessons her mother required in math, Sarah followed her own interests for the remainder of her schooling, often becoming so engrossed in what she was learning about that she had to be pulled away from her books for meals!

At 15, Sarah met a young man who, she knew almost immediately, would make a good husband. Even after Sarah’s family moved from on side of the United States to the other, they stayed in touch. By the time Sarah turned 18, she and Josh knew they would be married, but agreed to wait until Sarah turned 21. In the interim, Sarah spent some time as a missionary in Europe. Serbia, Austria and Russia taught her a lot, and she experienced the civil war in Serbia firsthand. Then, immediately after the wedding, the babies started coming along, and Sarah and her husband had to search out God’s will. Should they allow God to plan their family, or not?

For a number of years, the Brown family moved back and forth between the house they owned in a small town in Indiana, and various houses outside the town. However, they felt called to do overseas missionary work, and in 2012 moved to Italy and then Ukraine. Several years previously, they discovered that one of their daughters was dyslexic. This led to Sarah’s creating art materials to help her learn to read, and this developed into an online company which supports the family now, as they minister to people in Europe.

If you would like to read real-life stories about large families, or about missionaries; if you enjoy reading about homeschooling experiences or godly courtship, Windows to Our World is for you! It is full of inspiration for mothers, but would be a good read-aloud for the whole family, too. There are 73 chapters, but they are short, so a good book to pick up when you have just a few minutes in which to read.

No warnings!