Author of "My Sea is Wide": One man's journey, in his 70th year, to rediscover his purpose.

ROWLAND EVANS - 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.

Rowland is also the author of "45 Minutes in China", available from Nations Trust, International Centre, Glanmor Road, Llanelli, Carmarthenshire SA15 2LU, UK, at £4.00 per copy including post and packing (to UK addresses).

Rowland's own web site is at www.rowlandevans.me.uk

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