Sunday, December 18, 2016

How Much Should You Sacrifice to Live Someone Else’s Dream?

Living as missionaries in Nepal is a struggle for Lauren and her son Ryan. It’s not their dream. They are there in support of Sam who believes he has a calling from God to minister to the tribes in this poverty stricken land. Lauren tries to be a good wife and adapt to the power failures and the loneliness of living in the native area where she has no support systems.

Although Lauren believes it is her duty to support her husband. He has a calling and he’s doing God’s work, but Sam’s driven approach to Christianity is not hers, She believes in the softer, loving aspects of God. As Lauren struggles and Sam is gone for three weeks at a time, thirteen-year-old Ryan is hurting. He’s living far from friends, and hates Nepal. Being a teenager, he gets deeper and deeper into his unhappiness while his parents, because of their own struggles, fail to help him.

This is a powerful story highlighting two ways to see God and the consequences to a family ripped apart by their divergent concepts. The characters are beautifully drawn. Sam believes in his mission so strongly that he can’t see what it’s doing to his family. Lauren tries to be a loving mother, but her own needs push her away from being able to help her son. Ryan is a frustrated teenager caught is a world he doesn’t understand and hates. Why would a loving God put him in this situation?

I highly recommend this book. It’s beautifully written and will make you think about the costs of zealotry.

I received this book from Handlebar for this review.



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