Stand By and See What the Lord Will Accomplish

Second Edition

As a missionary to West Africa, Grace Farrar recounts the joys and frustrations of family life in the field and tells about the struggles involved in establishing the Nigerian Christian Hospital. She chronicles their work from 1964, when she and her husband, Dr. Henry Farrar, Jr., arrived in southeastern Nigeria with their five children, through the 1967 beginning of the Biafran War. Brimming with stories of faith, hope, and the daily puzzles and pleasures of living in another culture, Grace shares her letters and narratives. 

Her purpose in this book is to preserve history and to encourage potential missionaries who are thinking of taking a family into a developing country.

Grace Johnson Farrar grew up on a farm in southern Indiana. Following eight years in a one-room elementary school, she graduated as class valedictorian from Orleans High School in Orleans, Indiana, and enlisted in the US Cadet Nurse Corps at Bethesda Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. As a registered nurse, she financed her BS degree in home economics at Harding College (now University) in Searcy, Arkansas. 

In 1950, she married Henry Farrar, a former Harding classmate, before he entered medical school. With her nursing income, they could meet his graduation debt-free—a rare accomplishment. Grace worked side-by-side with Henry on the medical mission field from 1964 to 2009 during the founding years of the Nigerian Christian Hospital and through its postwar restoration. Grace also served a brief tour in Cameroon, a year at the Chimala Mission Hospital in Tanzania, and a year as a visiting professor at China Medical University at Shenyang in the People’s Republic of China. She wrote for Christian magazines and gave many presentations at seminars, schools, and churches. She and Henry have six children (Paul, Martha, David, Hank, Lee, Samantha) and six grandchildren.

In 2010 Harding University opened the Henry and Grace Farrar Center for Health Sciences, and the College of Nursing honored Grace as an Outstanding Alumnus.

Martha Farrar Highfield PhD RN is Professor Emeritus of Nursing at California State University/Northridge, serves on the Board of International Healthcare Foundation, volunteers in Nigeria and Haiti, and is a nursing research consultant. She is author of numerous peer-reviewed publications and a forthcoming book on early Church of Christ missionary nurses in Nigeria. She is the daughter of Grace and Henry Farrar.