author
Mabel Williamson
Best known for a small but enduring classic on missionary life, her writing is direct, searching, and still widely read. She drew on years of service in China to explore sacrifice, humility, and the cost of serving others.
1 Audiobook
Have We No Rights? A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries
by Mabel Williamson
About the author
Born in 1907, Mabel Ruth Williamson was an American missionary who served in China with the China Inland Mission, later known as Overseas Missionary Fellowship. She is most closely associated with Have We No Rights?, a 1957 book that has remained influential in Christian missions writing for its frank reflections on personal rights, service, and spiritual discipline.
Williamson also studied at Wheaton College, where she wrote on the relationship between the indigenous church and missionary work. That background helps explain the thoughtful, practical tone of her writing: she was not only describing missionary ideals, but wrestling with the real tensions of cross-cultural service.
She died in 2002, but her work has continued to circulate through later editions and recommendations from mission organizations. Readers who come to her today usually find a voice that is plainspoken, earnest, and deeply shaped by experience.