My Hands Came Away Red by Lisa McKay
Eighteen year old Cori decides to join
a mission trip to a small island in Indonesia, to help a village
build a church. The main reason she has gone is to avoid
complications in her love life. After a few weeks of the team being
there, the violence in nearby Ambon flares up and Cori and her team
get caught up in the destruction and violence that ensues,
encompassing both the surrounding Christian and Muslim villages. The
church that the team has just built is a smoldering ruin within a few
days and the pastor and most of the villagers are dead. The team is
then forced to flee and their only guide is the pastors son. Hiking
through the jungle Cori searches for spiritual answers and emotional
stability which she finds as hard to cope with as the physical
journey.
This is an amazing book which is a bit
confronting, raising questions about our motives for doing things and
how we cope when things don't turn out as planned. It also raises the
question of what our faith is built on and whether it can with stand
the pressures that life throws at us.
I really recommend this book to anyone
who loves reading about adventure and Christian faith. It would also
be interesting for anyone interested in the mission field.