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One Step at a Time is the story of small beginnings and great faithfulness. In 1819, a young American doctor and his wife left home and country to serve in a distant land. Their journey became the foundation for medical missions and a church. A century later, their indomitable granddaughter Ida Scudder dreamt of building a medical college. With seventeen teenage girls in two rented houses, and a small maternity hospital, South India’s first medical school for women began in Vellore. Born during the First World War, it nearly died during the Second. But it grew to become a pre-eminent teaching hospital of newly independent India, pioneering in thoracic and neurosurgery, gynaecology and leprosy. Based on extensive research across three continents, One Step at a Time contains historic documents, letters and photographs that tell the stories of humble and heroic pioneers. These are archetypal tales of choices and conflicts, losses and legacies, with deep lessons for anyone who wonders if their own finite efforts have any value beyond their lifetime. A little stream, when surrendered into a great river, rests, abides, as a channel of life.