Sentenced for Life

Well educated, Jewish, and an ambitious competitive figure skater, Jo Ann Schneider Farris did not fit the profile of a convert to fundamentalist Christianity. Yet within sixteen months of being approached by evangelical Christians as a senior at Colorado College, she had changed religions, married a Christian, taught full-time at a Pentecostal Christian school and lived in a Christian commune. A lifetime of prayer meetings and bible studies seemed inevitable. Years later she joined the ranks of the Christians she admired the most, Jews for Jesus missionaries. Not long afterward, her life suddenly seemed to shatter as she was dismissed as a missionary. Through this painful experience she learned she could lose her religion and get a life at the same time.