Methuselah (a parrot the Prices adopted from the previous missionary) dies, and Adah finds his feathers. Nathan and Leah go to Leopoldville (present day Kinshasa) to witness what is going on with the independence in the Congo. She finds out about Axelroot's business with the diamonds after breaking her arm.Īfter Mama Tataba departs, an orphan boy named Nelson becomes the family servant. Meanwhile, five-year-old Ruth May befriends the village children. Leah and her twin Adah begin to spy on Eeben Axelroot, the pilot who conveyed the family to Kilanga, and Nathan tries to convince Congolese men, one by one, to convert to Christianity. Nathan tries to hold an impromptu Easter celebration in hopes of baptizing numerous people, but he is not successful in baptizing even one, as the river along the village, where he plans to hold the baptism, is infested with crocodiles. For example, 14-year-old Leah helps her father plant a 'demonstration garden' it immediately receives criticism from Mama Tataba, whom the family has engaged as a live-in helper, and the garden does poorly due to the inappropriate climate. The Price girls – Rachel, Leah, Adah and Ruth May – and their father, Nathan, attend their first church service in the village of Kilanga, and they realize how different their culture is from that of the Congo. This is the first problem of many the Price family will face.

The Southern Baptist Mission League suggests they solve this problem by leaving for the airport wearing many layers of clothing, hiding household items among the layers of clothes to lighten their luggage. However, shortly before leaving, they are informed that they are limited to 44 pounds of luggage per person. The Price family packs up their belongings for their flight to the Congo, where they are going to spend a year as the family of a missionary. The four girls increasingly mature and develop differently as each adapts to African village life and the political turmoil that overtakes the Belgian Congo in the 1960s. The narrative then alternates among the four daughters, with a slight preference for the voice of the most outspoken one, Leah. Orleanna Price, the mother of the family, narrates the introductory chapter in five of the novel's seven sections. In his hurried mispronunciation, he actually says 'Jesus is poisonwood'. He concludes his sermons with the Kikongo expression 'Tata Jesus is bängala' with the intent of saying 'Jesus is most precious'. The father of the family creates his own 'misprint' of the Bible. The novel's title refers to Bible errata. state of Georgia to the village of Kilanga in the Belgian Congo, close to the Kwilu River. The Poisonwood Bible (1998), by Barbara Kingsolver, is a best-selling novel about a missionary family, the Prices, who in 1959 move from the U.S.

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