Booklists on faith & freedom

Hearing from Greg Schaller, my CCU professor pal, about an online book club starting up at Redstate.com, I compared their list with mineas compiled a few years back at the suggestion of Kevin Teasley, my school-voucher activist pal. The overlap is interesting, and either list is a needed reminder that we're well repaid by devoting more time to the writings that endure, and less to the ephema of journalism, TV-radio, or blogs (this one included). So first, here's the read-and-respond shelf recommended by Redstate:

1. A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard

2. Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg

3. Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt

4. Liberty & Tyranny by Mark Levin

5. The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek

6. The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk

7. Free to Choose by Milton Friedman

8. Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater

9. The Federalist Papers

10. Democracy in America by Tocqueville

11. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

12. God and Man at Yale by W.F. Buckley

13. Witness by Whittaker Chambers

14. The Political Writings of St. Augustine

Then here's my list as put together for Teasley back in 2003. He asked for my "ten best" in terms of books that had the greatest impact on my life. The order in which they are listed is a combination of chronology and categories, not necessarily the most impactful from 1 thru 10.

1. Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy It taught me to love the Bible.

2. The Bible It engaged me with Jesus Christ.

3. The Everlasting Man, G. K. Chesterton It grounded me in Christian tradition.

4. Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis It showed me the beauty of truth.

5. The Conscience of a Conservative, Barry Goldwater It awakened me politically.

6. The Law, Frederic Bastiat It was my primer in political economy.

7. The Road to Serfdom, F. A. Hayek It set me against collectivism.

8. Ideas Have Consequences, Richard Weaver It bonded me to the permanent things.

9. The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien It convinced me that life is a sacred quest.

10. A Man for All Seasons, Robert Bolt It inspired me with the possibility of heroic integrity.

In looking over the authors on both lists, I'm gratified to have met, or seen in person, Bill Buckley, Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Russell Kirk, Jonah Goldberg, and Barry Goldwater. This is said not to name-drop, but rather to record my sense of obligation for helping to hand on our heritage of faith and freedom to the rising generation of the 21st century, in return for having known -- if only slightly -- some of the giants who handed on that heritage in the 20th century.

'Strongest Tribe' well worth reading

Like most news junkies who had followed the war in Iraq on a daily basis for six years, I thought I was pretty well informed. However when I read Bing West’s The Strongest Tribe I was stunned at how much I had missed- not just unreported or misreported events but also how to think about those events in balanced perspective. Soon after the lightning overthrow of Saddam the mainstream media began to turn against a war they had never much liked in the first place. As the war ground on their reporting disproportionately revolved around suicide bombers in Iraq and grieving families in America. Most books that promised “deeper analysis”- even well written ones like Bob Woodward ‘s trilogy- revealed a clear liberal bias and left us yearning for some Paul Harvey to tell us “the rest of the story”.

We find such a person in Bing West whose book is long on “on the ground” reporting and short on political opinion. It radiates an evenhandedness that gives a reader great confidence in its veracity.

West was a career military officer who distinguished himself as an authority on counterinsurgency warfare in Viet Nam. That war produced relatively few good books, but West’s classic The Village is one of them. Later he would serve as an Assistant Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan.

Published in 2008 the book covers the war from the beginning through the success of the “Surge” which snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. West employs a strictly chronological approach and avoids those annoying back and forth digressions that confuse readers.

West comes down hard on both civilian and higher military leadership who through most of the war utterly failed to define a unified and coherent American mission in Iraq. Whether it was Defense (Rumsfeld) vs. State (Powell) in Washington or their counter-parts (General Abizaid vs “Proconsul” Bremer) in Iraq their conflict and confusion over strategy profoundly undermined mission effectiveness on the ground. Underlying this confusion was an American naiveté and general cluelessness concerning cultural/historical and political realities in Iraq.

The State Dept. seemed to think that giving Iraqis a few PowerPoint presentations on tolerance/diversity, constitution writing, and Roberts Rules of Order could swiftly transform their country into an up and running self-defending democracy.

Having achieved their quick battlefield victory a la Afghanistan, the Pentagon wanted to get out of Iraq as soon as possible, and while waiting to do so corralled its soldiers in large isolated bases from which the troops “commuted to work”.

Having no coherent plans for “post-victory” operations both Defense and State bought into the bizarre “Light Footprint” doctrine which suggested that the very sight of American soldiers so inflamed young Iraqi males that they immediately ran to the nearest Al-Qaeda recruiting office to become instant jihadists.

All this confusion went on for three years (2003-2006) during which Iraq spiraled downward into chaos and the American people soured on the war.

The great strength of West’s book rests on his frequent and lengthy stays in Iraq mostly spent embedded with American troops. He persuasively demonstrates that local American commanders and local Iraqi leaders (notably the Sheiks of Anbar Province) figured out what was wrong and what was needed long before the politicans and military brass in either Washington or Baghdad.

Finally a senior military leader emerged who grasped the validity of these local viewpoints. General David Petraeus saw clearly that victory was impossible without local Iraqi support, and that support was absolutely dependent on Americans providing the people with the security and stability that would allow them to inform on and fight back against the detested foreign fighters of Al-Qaeda who were terrorizing them by systematically murdering their men and raping their women.

Petraeus took a strategy that had worked for a number of local American commanders and applied it country-wide. He took his troops out of their isolated bases and had them “move in” with the people and stay. Beginning in the deadly “Sunni Triangle” he also authorized local American commanders to recruit, arm, and pay local Iraqi males (“Sons of Iraq”) as fighting auxiliaries to the American forces. Thus empowered local leaders (mostly tribal sheiks) courageously faced murderous Al-Qaeda reprisals and blessed joint combat operations against a suddenly exposed and then decimated enemy whose power rapidly melted away in the face of this new turn of events.

Petraeus success in selling this new strategy which was the critical element in the success of the “Surge” was absolutely dependent on his views becoming known to key National Security Council staffers who orchestrated an “end run” around the Pentagon and the State Dept- both highly resistant to any notion of increased troop levels.

While West praises the gutsy decision of a politically battered President Bush to authorize the “Surge” despite the rampant and poisonous “defeatism” pervading Washington, he severely faults him for his passivity and unwillingness to challenge senior Cabinet and military leaders during the long period (over two years) when the situation in Iraq was clearly deteriorating. Citing Lincoln, FDR, and Truman as examples, West correctly insists that Presidents must be willing to aggressively intervene and even fire people when a war is obviously going badly. For too long George W. Bush failed that test.

Even more severely does West condemn the rank hypocrisy of Democratic leaders like Reid, Pelosi and Murtha who endlessly chanted their “support for our troops” while doing everything in their power to undermine the mission of those troops and also giving aid and comfort to the enemy by publicly announcing that “the war was lost” when in fact it was about to be won.

The real heroes of West’s book are American soldiers. Their valor uncelebrated by their country’s media, their mission undercut by politicians, and often poorly served by their own higher leadership, they fought against a savage and fanatical enemy in deadly battle spaces like Fallujah street by street, house to house, often room to room with incredible skill and bravery. West sternly reminds us that “They are not victims; they are Warriors”. Their individual stories- the best part of the book- will fill your heart with pain and pride.

The title of the book comes from the remark of a Sunni Sheik when West asked him why the top Al-Qaeda leader in Fallujah had fled the city in a woman’s dress. The Sheik pointed to a passing Marine patrol and in respectful tones replied “Because they are the Strongest Tribe”.

West closes his book expressing concerns about the future of the “Strongest Tribe” in a country whose martial virtues are being drained by the poisonous atmosphere of political division and cultural warfare.

We all should worry about a day when- like contemporary Europe- there will be nothing worth fighting for and no more volunteering young warriors even if there was.

William Moloney’s columns have appeared in the Wall St Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post.

Into a twisted future with Gary Wolf

Imagine a world in the near future where the Left has saddled pro sports with quadriplegic refs, transgendered concessionaires and stuttering sportscasters. Now the festering forces of radical feminism have decided to launch a direct assault upon the blatantly oppressive, misogynist and patriarchal world of “maleness” that is professional football. Such are the premise and storyline of a new novel by author Gary Wolf. A rational person in a rational world should be able to say all this is silly, ridiculous, and prone to flights of fancy. Unfortunately, in the first decade of the 21st century the subject matter and conjecture found in the pages of The Kicker of St. John’s Wood is not so far-fetched and is indeed instead a remarkably accurate and reflective look at the forces, feelings and mindset of the modern-day Left.

Wolf takes us to the 2020 Super Bowl, which has been chosen as the stage to debut the first female professional football player and to announce a major revision in American politics. Both gambits end in dramatic failure, however, and this sets the stage for place-kicker Jayesh Blackstone, born in London of Indian heritage, to be involved in a high stakes game of intrigue as he discovers the courage to fight to be a free American.

Blackstone is selected to be used and manipulated by the administration as a symbol to attack European imperialism and to establish a National Electoral Fairness Commission. Monitored by the United Nations Special Advisory Institute on National Expropriation, it is the final blow against “religious fanatics, stolen elections, the last vestiges of sexist domination, the exploiters of developing nations, and all those whose goal has been to exclude women, minorities, and newly-arrived Americans.” All steps are taken to ensure the most progressive norms of political conduct in the world today.

In addition to the political conspiracy and intrigue, the character of Jayesh Blackstone is taken on an internal journey to discover the draw of his own heritage and native country. He also experiences the love of two women, the struggle to choose between them, and the sacrifices and dedication that embodies true friendship along the way.

The Kicker of St. John’s Wood is definitely one of Gary Wolf’s best novels to date, and a frightening reminder of the fast track of idiocy this country has decided to follow that increasingly defines humanity exclusively in terms of race and gender. I found it to be a page-turner filled with twists, turns, and unexpected surprises throughout the story. It is also an eye -opening book that helps to remind that each and everyone of us will eventually have to decide if we have the personal fortitude, character and courage to choose to do the right thing and oppose the whirling forces of Progressivism, Multiculturalism, Diversity, Political Correctness and “Tolerance” that increasingly dominates every aspect of education, business and even your daily life. Will you be like Jayesh Blackstone and be willing to risk professional and personal attacks, slander, and even worse for what is right and true?

This book is the story of one man’s struggle with that question and the series of choices he must face as he discovers the difference between being a serf to the system and a free citizen. Not all know the difference but the choice is one that all will soon have to face. The end result of the agenda and catalogue of “isms” of the modern-day Left is lunacy and few do as fine a job as Gary Wolf at pointing that out through the medium of speculative fiction.

The Kicker of St. John’s Wood is available for sale at Amazon and all other major online publishers. You may also visit the author’s website at http://awolcivilization.com/ for direct links to the book's page at the various online stores and the opportunity to read the first chapter online. Gary Wolf was formerly an analyst and commentator on international and strategic affairs. He was raised in New York and London, lived for six years in Paris, and currently resides in the state of New Mexico. Wolf is also the author of The Embracer, Shaya, Alternating Worlds and Workshop of the Second Self.

David Huntwork is a conservative activist and freelance columnist in Northern Colorado where he lives with his wife and three young daughters. He strongly believes in the importance of Faith, Family, and Freedom as the formula of success for a good life and a healthy nation. You may view his bio and past columns at: http://DavidHuntwork.tripod.com.

'No Rest Elsewhere' relives Vietnam combat in 1968

Book Review by John Andrews [photopress:orcutt__cover.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

I'm honored to help an old friend, Allen Orcutt, bring out a little book of poems, prose, and pictures that explores how a year at war can change a man for life. And much for the better in this Marine pilot's case, searing as the ordeal was. No Rest Elsewhere: Vietnam Notes, 1968-2008, expands on a poetic collection initially published in 1973, just after Allen came home. It includes his account of reconciling war-shattered relationships in later years, climaxing with a trip back to Vietnam in 2007. You can order the book for $12.50 per copy, postpaid, by sending your check to Allen Orcutt at 737 Storm King Circle, New Castle CO 81647. Or email him at aorcutt@sopris.net, providing your postal address to which book(s) and invoice can be sent.

Below are the Table of Contents for "No Rest Elsewhere," the author's introduction, and my foreword. If you or a friend or family member served in Vietnam or any of America's wars, or if you just enjoy honest, thoughtful writing about life's deepest issues, I encourage you to get this book.

------------------------------------ NO REST ELSEWHERE Vietnam Notes, 1968-2008 By Allen Orcutt Introduction by the Author

My father and both of my grandfathers served their country during world War I and War II . Their portraits in Army and Marine Corps uniforms of the day hang on the wall behind my desk. Although they were awarded several medals including silver and bronze stars, not one of them shared their experiences.

I know that Allen Wood Orcutt, my father’s father, served proudly in WW I. However, all we have of his experiences were love letters sent to my grandmother. He died at age 35 from complications of a virus and mustard gas.

During that same war, my other grandfather, Harvey S. Brown , was a runner-messenger with the Marines in the trench warfare of Belleau Wood., France. He, among very few, survived that assignment. Yet, he never spoke of his experiences.

My Dad, George H Orcutt, served in War II as a Scout with General Patton in France. Although he was highly decorated, his sense of duty made the bullet in his shoulder put there by a German sniper, a reminder to me that in combat, war’s rules and war’s memories remain deep within.

Before l departed for Vietnam, my friend and former WW II South Pacific Marine , David Rennie shared with me this message. He discovered it in a castle in Scotland. In Europe and Great Britain he saw plenty of armor mostly under glass and in pristine condition. There was one exception. It was of modest design with battle dents and heavy damage. On its breastplate was inscribed in Latin, “Nulla Quiat Alibi”. That is “No Rest Elsewhere” than to uphold the honor, camaraderie and trust shared by fellow warriors, in this case Marine Corps pilots.

For us there was No Rest Elsewhere when I began Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia, in 1966, started flight school in Pensacola in 1967, or arrived in Vietnam in 1968, the twelve months after TET proved to be the worst for helicopters, pilots and air crews.

What you are about to read is not just my story. Rather, it’s a story about young men, the warrior elite, in war. It is also about their family and friends. Some who stood beside them, some who didn’t.

------------------------------------ NO REST ELSEWHERE Vietnam Notes, 1968-2008 By Allen Orcutt Table of Contents

Part One: In Country

1. Old-Fashioned War Poem 2. Strike 3. Fogged In 4. Strike Two 5. September 29, 1968 6. Zone Supposedly Secure 7. Delivered Again 8. The Climb 9. Medevac Inbound 10. In Memory of Tom Burton 11. What’s It All About? 12. Operation Meade River 13. Let’s Not 14. Fishing Resort? 15. In Memory of William T. Hale 16. Willy’s Last Day 17. Gold Star Mother 18. Fall of the Eagle 19. Midnight Mortartown 20. Away to Uncompahgre 21. Emergency Leave 22. Sandra, Arch, and the Colonel 23. And I Saw My Mountains Once More before Leaving 24. Linus’s Blanket 25. Kielhofer: All in a Day’s Work 26. Cloud Disguises 27. A Last Goodnight 28. Awareness

Part Two: Home Front

29. Through White into Blue 30. Citadel 31. Anybody Home? 32. Crossing over the Pond 33. At China Beach 34. Haikus for You 35. I’m Here 36. Against the Tide 37. Forgiveness Forgotten 38. Fierce Communion 39. Our Peniel 40. Still 41. Disorientation 41A. Resolution

Part Three: Long After

42. Despite the Rain 43. Shining Horizon 44. Tea with Mr. Houng 45. Glenwood Canyon 46. Smoke Signals on the Periphery 47. Petals of a Smile 48. Ho Chi Minh City, Formerly Saigon 49. Lumahai Beach, Kaui 50. Fallujah Echoes Danang 51. The River Wins 52. Condominium of Hope 53. Peace Rock 54. Before Moving On

------------------------------------

NO REST ELSEWHERE Vietnam Notes, 1968-2008 By Allen Orcutt Foreword by John Andrews

“Jacob would be proud.” (1) A Marine pilot in the war zone wrote that in a poem to his wife between attack missions one night 40 years ago. He had seen death that day and would see more tomorrow.

The hours of darkness were a short and uncertain respite; the airbase itself was often mortared. In the morning his number might come up and he’d never go home again. Home would soon mean something different anyway; their marriage was collapsing. The biblical wrestling image was doubly apt.

Yet he held on fiercely to duty and country, faith and hope. Part of what helped him hold on was the catharsis of scribbling such poems in a DOD logbook. In God’s good time that pilot came home, rebuilt his life, and kept writing. “I will teach my son all about peace,” he poetically promised another wife long after. (2)

Over the decades, Allen Orcutt kept that promise. He has taught his children – and is now beginning to teach their children – all he can about how peace and honor can transcend war and violence, how love and loyalty can transcend loss and sorrow. The teaching continues with this book of Vietnam sketches in poetry, prose, old maps and grainy combat photos.

Unlike the often-stoic veterans of our fathers’ and grandfathers’ generations, Allen has opened up his war memories for the life lessons they can provide the rest of us: comrades, friends, contemporaries, and descendants. I thank him. When you finish these pages, I believe you will too.

Only the inner circle of battlefield comrades can know the full meaning of what is here. But from the next circle, as a lifelong friend, I have known a good part of it. Allen and I were close as brothers in school, fellow volunteers for officer training, business partners and political allies later on, soulmates to this day. Submarine duty gave me few credentials to comment on the harrowing combat journal you’ll read here. What I can do, though, is stand character witness for the author. Absolute integrity is on every line. Blood and tears are in the ink.

This volume grows out of a smaller collection of poems published by Allen Orcutt in 1973, under the title Before Moving On. (3) At that time the war was still going on, he was back to civilian life working for my father, and I had become a presidential speechwriter, from which vantage point Allen asked me to write a foreword. I described the book as “the story of thirteen months in a man’s life, battle episodes sharing the stage with family scenes, introspection, friendship, tragedy.”

The present book, you will find, is all of that and something more. Now enriched by the perspective of a generation, and expanded with additional detail from the helicopter squadron in 1968-69 as well as from the author’s trip back to Vietnam in 2007, No Rest Elsewhere gets at deeper questions the previous edition didn’t anticipate. How can a year at war shape a lifetime of seven decades? How does a man finally become the man he is? It may even hold up a mirror for any reader to ask himself: What fires forged me into the person I am?

Three sections, “In Country,” “Home Front,” and “Long After,” unfold the narrative. We meet Allen’s fellow pilots including the fallen Willy Hale; the Vietnamese Mr. Houng who witnessed Hale’s death; college sweetheart Sandra who abruptly fled the Orcutts’ wartime marriage; and Barbara, Allen’s wife today. Andre and Georgia, his children with Barbara, as well as Amy and Ashley, his children with second wife Nancy, are sensed as a presence in the story though never introduced.

Another unseen presence here is the author’s fight with Parkinson’s disease for the past dozen years. Since the condition is known to Allen’s friends, I asked his permission to mention it. Does the high incidence of this and similar illnesses among veterans stem from their exposure to Agent Orange, the dangerous chemical defoliant? That’s uncertain. But the possibility heightens the book’s theme of what war can cost those who fight it – how it may forever change even those who survive. Courage may be demanded from the warrior, and from his loved ones, long after the shooting stops.

To vow at 25 that you are “determined to be the rock I say I am” amidst war and heartbreak, two storms at once, is character under pressure.(4) To look back at 65 and take inventory of how well you did – and print the results for review – to me that’s character of a higher order still. “Counting years is ugly work,” the younger Allen wrote when things seemed darkest.(5) “I’m so grateful… fare thee well,” the older Allen writes now. (6) Back then his pledge and prayer was to be “able to kiss a tormented sea.” (7) It seems he’s gotten there. The struggle was long, but rest finally came.

This brings us to the title of the new collection, “No Rest Elsewhere.” David Rennie, cited in the author’s introduction as a retired Marine, was also a Bible teacher. I suspect that his motto from a knight’s breastplate, given to Orcutt by Rennie as a talisman for battle, held scriptural overtones for the older man. A secret refuge in the Almighty and a table safe from enemies are mentioned by David the Psalmist. A rest like no other is Jesus’ promise to the weary and beleaguered. Such thoughts are not explicit here, for my friend isn’t one to sermonize. But listen closely and you’ll hear them in the poems.

When he says that “awareness is the constant path of my being,” it’s spiritual reliance that is meant, not just military vigilance.(8) The rest referred to is not found in escape or avoidance, but in keeping faith, hanging on and pushing through, wrestling to the limit of endurance like the patriarch in Genesis. In the Jacob poem quoted earlier, Allen speaks of “our Peniel,” the crucible of love and war.(9) It seems to me that Jacob would have approved the poet-pilot’s tenacity back then in wartime – and that he’d be prouder still today at the way this aging wrestler (Orcutt’s sport in high school, come to think of it) has yet to relinquish his grip.

Politics does not enter into any of this, then or now, even with America’s difficult experience in Iraq replaying the Vietnam agony in some ways. There is only the glancing reference in “Fallujah Echoes Danang” to enduring issues of savagery and civility in combat – more a military concern than a political one anyway. “Condominium of Hope” was prophetically titled in light of all the hopes riding on President Obama, yet the poem’s civic yearnings from 1969 seem no closer to realization in 2009.

Personal crises and victories are really the subject matter here. While the “endless surrender in disguise” may be a double reference to the no-win war as well as the author’s troubled marriage, the drama of the book ultimately turns on his emergence from the inward hell where “a very dead man screams in my ear.” (10) In two of the earlier poems, the rock seems to signify a solid place of rest. (11) In a later one about the Orcutts’ home in Glenwood Canyon, however, Allen suggests that was a false certainty: “Only a patient river wins the battle with the vertical rock [and] brings confidence to our mutual search for our souls.” (12) The ugliness encountered “when time freezes over” has given way at last to the beauty experienced as time flows on. (13)

As the weary pilot’s combat tour of duty ended, he felt sure “the problems I will face will never again be so consistently great, so persistently antagonistic, so emotionally bereft, so human.” (14) In some ways that has probably proved true. Yet for this “Colorado comet with an Oklahoma soul,” life after Vietnam was not going to be a mere postscript to war. (15) New challenges would keep forcing him back to the fields of honor and the fortress of faith. He would keep accepting those challenges in the simple belief that there was no rest elsewhere.

“You got to know how to hold a dream,” says Allen Orcutt in a latter-day meditation on what all the years, all the battles, all the sorrows and joys have meant. (16) He has held his with grit and grace, it seems to me after reading these writings.

-------------------------------------- References: 1. “Our Peniel” 2. “Peace Rock” 3. From the poem of that name 4. “Citadel” 5. “Forgiveness Forgotten” 6. “Resolution” 7. “At China Beach” 8. “Awareness” 9. “Our Peniel 10. “What’s It All About?” 11. “Peace Rock” and “Citadel” 12. “The River Wins” 13. “Forgiveness Forgotten” 14. “Before Moving On” 15. “Citadel” 16. “Despite the Rain”

Author chronicles Ugandan evangelism

Over the past few years I've gotten to know a native Ugandan missionary named Mike Wangolo. He is the leader of a team of Africans called Afri-Tendo who make periodic trips to the United States to witness to Americans through native songs and dances. During his travels he has become a close and valued friend to many of my friends and family. Through his story and example many people have developed a heart of love and compassion for the Ugandan people. One of the people influenced by Mike Wangolo through his trips to the United States was a young lady who eventually ended up participating in a missions trip to Uganda.

The story of Susan Smith’s transformation and experiences in Uganda is amazing. Her life has been changed in a fundamental way and she has become a passionate humanitarian and missionary to the people of Uganda.

Uganda, especially in the northern part of the country, has suffered from over two decades of insurrection, lawlessness and civil strife. Over a million people were displaced from their homes during the fighting, many tens of thousands killed and orphaned, and the famous “midnight children” (thousands forced to flee their villages nightly to hide in forests, hospitals and nearby cities to avoid abduction by rebel groups) have garnered international attention.

AIDS, poverty and all their assorted consequences have taken a heavy toll on the Ugandans but they have proven to be a resilient people. They have also shown themselves to be a spiritually hungry people. Blessed with a heart of service, that is where Susan Smith comes in. She has written a book about her experiences titled Dancing Under the Ugandan Skies.

This is not just some book recording mere facts and a few mildly interesting anecdotes, but a triumph of storytelling. The descriptions are vivid and the entire reading experience is more reminiscent of a good friend sharing an adventure with you than anything else. I was quickly drawn into the story that Dancing Under the Ugandan Skies brings to life. Susan Smith is a descriptive wordsmith who can paint a visual picture like few others can. She brings the places and people she describes to life in a way that places you right at the scene with her as she tells you her story. By page twenty I was hooked. This is good storytelling, and that’s what a good book should be.

You will be moved by this book. You will laugh and you might even cry. You will marvel at the twists and turns that come unexpectedly on life’s journey. And you will marvel at how God can use a person if they are willing to listen and to be used. It will make you understand and appreciate those who have sacrificed much to act upon The Great Commission to go unto all the world and spread the gospel.

Few who read this book will not re-examine their own lives, renew their Faith, and question if there is not more that they are willing and capable of doing for those less fortunate than themselves.

From the author’s website:

"Dancing Under the Ugandan Skies" is an inspiring glimpse inside the journal of a woman embarking on a life changing adventure in East Africa. It is her fears and doubts, successes and trials, and the surprises along the way that only God could orchestrate. She found a life she never knew existed. Be inspired, be moved and see what happens when we let God take the wheel of our lives. This is her incredible story of what happened when God stamped her passport.

It has been a long journey from Colorado to Eastern Africa but Susan Smith is now a full time missionary and is based in the city of Kampala, Uganda. She has partnered with a variety of organizations, both American and Ugandan, such as Flood the Nations, Young Arise for Christ, God's Centre of Blessings Ministries and Gulu Community Church.

Dancing Under the Ugandan Skies is 223 pages and available for sale at http://www.lulu.com/content/4843786. A paperback copy is $17.50 and an electronic download is available for $6.25. Eighty percent of the profit proceeds go towards Susan Smith’s work in Uganda including funding churches and providing scholarships for children and youth to attend school. The author’s website can be viewed at http://www.Betheclay.com and her youtube promotional video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpzKt-QicGw.

David Huntwork is a conservative activist and freelance columnist in Northern Colorado, where he lives with his wife and three young daughters. He is currently working on his first book titled "No Apologies: In Defense of the Conservative Ideology." You may view his bio and past columns at http://DavidHuntwork.tripod.com.