Mabel Williamson

Born in Charles Mix County, South Dakota, Mabel Ruth Williamson (July 1, 1907 – April 18, 2002) was an American missionary to China who served with the China Inland Mission, later called the Overseas Missionary Fellowship. She is most widely remembered for her book Have We No Rights.

Williamson also studied mission work closely as a writer and thinker. At Wheaton College, she wrote a 1952 thesis titled The indigenous church in the New Testament and its relation to the missionary, showing her interest in how local churches could grow and lead within their own communities.

Her writing is still read for its direct, personal voice and for the way it describes the costs and convictions of missionary life. For audiobook listeners, her work offers a window into 20th-century Christian experience in China and the deeper questions that shaped her calling.