Stronger Than Death, by Rachel Pieh Jones

Maybe you've never heard of Annalena Tonelli.  I know I hadn't before I picked up Rachel Pieh Jones's Stronger Than Death: How Annalena Tonelli Defied Terror and Tuberculosis in the Horn of Africa.  But that's exactly how Annalena would want it.  She served humbly yet heroically among poor Africans for decades, and never sought or desired any recognition she received.

Annalena was not a doctor or a nurse, but she functioned the way these roles would function.  She was drawn to poor, nomadic people who are prone to get tuberculosis but whose nomadic lifestyles precluded treatment.  She developed and promoted DOTS (directly observed therapy short-course) and set up a means by which people could erect their own huts on the clinic grounds so that they could stay close and get the medication and treatment they needed while maintaining a semblance of the lifestyle to which they are accustomed.  She wasn't a medical professional, but her love for these poor, nomadic people led her to find means to serve and treat them and had an outsized impact on the treatment of TB among the poor.

Annalena was not a nun or a missionary, but her Italian Catholic upbringing informed and inspired her work among the poor.  Although her roots were Christian, and she remained an observant Catholic throughout her life, her theological statements and lifestyle had plenty of ambiguity.  For her, "God and the poor became one thing.  For her to help people meant to help God, in the flesh of the poor."  But working among Muslims in a Muslim nation, she kept her faith to herself.  "She didn't want to convert anyone. . . . She said, "What's the difference?"  She established Muslim schools for kids undergoing treatment so they could be trained in their faith.  She explicitly avoided trying to teach Christianity or displace Muslim faith and traditions, even going so far as to enable and promote female genital mutilation.  (She later advocated for its elimination.)

So her motives were and activities were not exactly evangelistic in the traditional sense of the word, but there is little question that she lived her faith and exemplified service in and to Christ.  "Her motivation flowed out of the conviction that in the actual act of service she . . . revealed God and his love to a broken world.  Through living in poverty, she would enter authentic and mutual relationship with the poor and through those relationships, she would experience Jesus."  Would that more Christians lived with this perspective and commitment.

Rachel Pieh Jones is an American writer and expatriate who lived near Annalena in Somaliland.  She didn't get to know Annalena well; she was assassinated not long after they met.  But with access to Annalena's personal records and effects, she puts together a complete, moving account of Annalena's admirable, sacrificial life.  Hagiography?  To be sure; she's obviously a huge admirer.  Will the Catholic church agree and make her a saint?  As admirable as her life and works were, I don't know that she would meet the Church's level of orthodoxy.  Nevertheless, her life, her commitment to serve and identify with the poor, and her willingness to sacrifice everything for those she's serving, make her an example all Christians--for that matter, all people--can seek to emulate.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!