Elva Schroeder

Elva Schroeder had a love for stories from the time she was very young. Yet after completing a writing course with the Christian Writers' Institute of Wheaton, Illinois, she discovered that she had gained higher marks for journalism than for fiction.

This may have led to her writing six books with a historical or factual background. The first, Whatever Happened to the Twelve Apostles?, shows that the twelve apostles of Jesus did, indeed, take the gospel to the ends of the then-known earth.

Two missionary biographies, Doctor Sahib and Outback Evangelist, were followed by a romance novel, Cathy, based on the author's experiences as a teacher at a mission school in Papua New Guinea in the 1960s. Her two children's books, Secret Cavern and Convict Girl, are also based on historical information.

Initially all six books were self-published as it seemed impossible to get a publisher to even look at them. But several years ago Wombat Books took them up and have so far published four of the six, giving them a much wider reading audience.

Elva and her busband, Jim, enjoy being involved in the life of their Hackham Baptist Family Church in South Australia. They also enjoy relating to their son and four grandchildren, but sadly their daughter, Carolyn, died of cancer at the age of 42.

Yet Elva has been thrilled to receive feedback from many people telling her of the blessing her books have been to them, with some challenged to dedicate their lives more fully to the Lord to serve Him wherever He leads them.