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Faith, Hope, and Love

鈥淒ickason fleshes out this鈥� biography with background material on the complex interactions among Arab society, Omani tribal and religious politics, missionary initiatives, and British imperial machinations.鈥� The stories are told with panache鈥� and set amid vivid, evocative travelogue.鈥� The result is a captivating story of strangers in a strange land. An engrossing,鈥� iconic encounter between Western Christians and traditional Arab culture.鈥�
鈥�Kirkus Reviews

From 1931 to 1969, Dr. Wells Thoms profoundly affected the lives of an untold number of people in the Persian/Arabian Gulf region. Fifty years after his return to the States, this extraordinary man is still revered in the southeastern Arabian kingdom of Oman. For Muslim Arabs to remember and talk about a non-Arab, particularly a Christian missionary, in such salutary ways is most unusual. Some of the stories they tell of him are even true 鈥� others have evolved into legend. The story of Wells Thoms 鈥� larger than life, in so many ways 鈥� must be shaved down to book size, and this biography strives to be complete and authentic.

This biography is also a social history of the Arabian Gulf on the eve of its petroleum-based renaissance. It contributes to historical understanding in ways a conventional history might not. In parts, it is narrative nonfiction, that is, based on actual events that occurred, preserved in letters and other documents created either at the time they occurred or on later recollection. Key personalities in Arabia and the Gulf played outsized roles in their communities and countries in those days, whether they were Arabs or foreigners, and Wells Thoms was a friend and confidant of many of these key personalities.

Poverty 鈥� so widespread in the days before 鈥� no longer beclouds most Gulf Arab countries. These early twentieth-century decades, ones during which Wells served so faithfully, were a time of enormous economic hardship throughout the region and had an impact on the daily lives of all with whom Wells and Beth and other missionaries came in contact.

Readers may find it incomprehensible that Wells and Beth Thoms would practice medicine (essentially pro bono) for a lifetime among people so unlike themselves. Dr. Thoms could have pursued a successful medical career in the United States. There is no doubt that he would have become much wealthier monetarily if he had done so. Wells and Beth would have been highly respected in any community in America. It seems counterintuitive that they would sacrifice creature comforts, friends, income and other advantages in return for hardship postings in Basrah, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman. Yet, they did just that, and they deemed their life in Arabia to be rich beyond compare.

This volume portrays the times, places and people with whom Dr. and Mrs. Thoms interacted during their forty-year careers in the Middle East. Sincerely trying to understand the times and people of this era means that this book does not preach one position or persuasion over another. It does not unfairly favor the Arabian Mission of the Reformed Church in America (RCA) nor Protestant Christianity more generally鈥攅ven though the Thomses were devoted Christian medical missionaries, supported by the RCA. Their record does not deserve burnishing or tarnishing.