In his own words:

Early Life: Passionately fond of the wild. Lived with the mildly prophetic dream of the vast African Sahara and the endless Tibetan plains. Eventually founded an outdoor pursuits organisation. Seem to have inherited an artistic flare for engineering design, almost intuitively understanding the principles of flight, and movement on land and water.

Education: Being profoundly dyslexic ended my formal education at thirteen which also made the beginning of a lifelong process of turning this condition into an advantage. I have since been awarded a number of degrees including a Ph.D and an honorary D.Min.

Military and Beyond: While serving with the regular army in the Malayan campaign, my awareness of spiritual life grew and quite naturally a bonding with a God who was 'somewhere out there' began to form. After several formative years of spiritual awakening within the discipline and clear goals of army life - where my neighbours were Muslim, Hindus and Taoist - I applied for release to become a Christian missionary to Asia and to Chinese people in particular.

Few things work out as imagined. My passion to take younger men and women with me meant that eventually I established the missionary training and sending organisation, World Horizons. This movement grew rapidly over the next few years until many hundreds of career missionaries were at work in many of the world's most difficult situations.

The second missionary movement, Nations, was a variation of the first. It was to train non-Western people to begin their own indigenous missionary movements so that overall, increase could be by multiplication rather than addition. Nations has partnered the founding of other African and Asian mission movements.

Currently I have no leadership responsibility in either movement but act in a consultative role to Nations and its partner movements. I maintain my overseas interests by continuing my work in China, Tibet and Central Asia where I spend a part of each year. I maintain a lecturing and training role in several countries and support an American-based organisation that is aimed towards national leaders and governments.

The main passion of this period of my life is writing and besides ongoing training for literature and radio, I have written two books and am about to start a third. I also study and write poetry and short stories. I have recently concluded a contract to write monthly articles for a quality Korean 'digest-type' magazine with a circulation in ten countries. My long-term aim is to set a climate in which quality Christian literature can be written in inoffensive CS Lewis style and produced for restricted-access countries.

Kudos for "My Sea is Wide":

In this beautifully lyrical work with great depth of insight, Rowland Evans explores his experiences in both Wales and the Far East, especially China. Moving into the segment of his life beyond 70, with his eager youth and power-filled middle years behind him, and the more rugged missionary work now past his season, Rowland searches for - and discovers - a continued meaning for his later years, and an on-flowing usefulness to man and to God. He takes us on a journey with him to the scatterlings of China and Tibet, and while you are yet an armchair-traveller, your life will be changed forever.

'Dream is the miracle. All else is just making it happen.' Rowland Evans portrays, with bardic skill, the journey into meaning that we all face. He combines the earthiness of his soldier background with the vision of a poet. His unrelenting honesty is tempered by the beauty he sees in the forms and faces in his homeland Wales, and in the mystery yet humanity he explores in little known stretches of China and Tibet. The contemplative steps of the inner journey weave a rich tapestry around a fascinating travelogue. He points to landmarks in our humanity, and, though we may have seen them on many occasions, we gasp at what they now reveal. Rowland allows us to come with him into his new beginning. His gentle humour often probes the meaning behind the bizarre. He has the ability to see beyond the overwhelming, to the individual, interpreting to us the value of each life. He writes of layers of realities, often provoking more questions than answers. Through his search, his excitement, his pain, and ultimately his faith in the One who will allow him to be totally who he is, we are strengthened a little to face our own new beginnings.
- Gail Dixon - Nations Trust Charity Director

"Very powerful and the power accumulates as it progresses which is as it should be."
- Bill Davis, author of several novels and short stories

A fantastic Read! Friends have also read the manuscript of "My Sea is Wide." The husband says it has blown his mind and needs to be put into print. He says it is a book that ought to have far-reaching consequences among discerning Christian people. His wife has also read it and says it is one of the most challenging and enlightening books she has read (and they both have been involved in the Christian book scene and probably read two or three books each in a week).
- Trevor Mills, Church Pastor

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