Book Review: Same Kind of Different As Me

Authored by Ron Hall & Denver Moore

I don’t remember the last time I read a book, that grabbed my attention from the very beginning and didn’t let me go until I finished it several hours later at 2:30 in the morning.  Thomas Nelson Publishers sent the book for review as an email attachment so I sat for those hours at my computer spellbound by the events leading to the blending of the lives of two men— a wealthy white man who was an international art dealer and a poor, illiterate slave of 20th century America as God used one woman to bring it about.

 I hadn’t read any reviews or previews of Same Kind of Different As Me so I didn’t know that I was reading a true story until I was half way through; it was too unbelievable to accept that slavery was ongoing in 20^th century America on cotton field plantations in the south.  It’s an amazing story how God brought together two men from two totally different spectrums, saved them and has continued to use them to impact souls all over the nation today.

 A few of Denver’s experiences near the end, although very real to him,  I do not find them biblically based and thus cannot endorse those couple of situations as theologically correct.  However, it did not detract from the tremendous biographical account and overall message the authors wanted to convey to the reader as the message of faith, repentance and salvation for all walks of life were very clearly given.

 Who is this woman that God used to bring them together in a homeless shelter in  Texas?  She is the key to this unfolding drama.  I never dreamed that I would be so impacted reading about the life of one woman  who committed to serving the homeless by “keeping the faith and fighting the fight” even when her own marriage threatened to crumble.  No reader of Same Kind of Different As Me can ever look at the homeless again with disdain or a judgmental attitude, but will, rather be compelled to serve and give more selflessly.

Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together
By Ron Hall & Denver Moore with Lynn Vincent / Thomas Nelson