Talk About a Lost Mission....

I need your help. I dropped a ball. My friends at Litfuse sent me a book to read and share with you, and I totally let it slip through the cracks that are my life. So, here's where you can help me out. Go out and buy yourself a copy of this book, then buy another one to give to a friend (Christmas is coming you know), and maybe even another one to donate to your local library. Then go around and tell everyone that you know that you found out about this book here, and maybe I can redeem myself to those who send me these books! :)

But seriously, let's talk about this book. This book is quite different from most of the fiction that I read. I read a lot of what I call conversational fiction-- books that read like normal, everyday conversations. This book isn't like that. This book is more like the combination of a spiritual journey on an archaeological dig. And you have to pay attention, or you're going to miss the details.

"Lost Mission follows Lupe de la Garza, a simple shopkeeper in a mountain village in Mexico, on a quest guided by her people's greatest treasure: an altarpiece painted by the eighteenth century Franciscan friar who founded her village after fleeing the mysterious destruction of his California mission outpost. When Lupe is distracted by desire for a young minister who rescues her from certain death in the Arizona desert, and when her preaching in a southern California beach town inspires only apathy and laughter, she begins to lose faith in her quest. Then the slumbering evil that destroyed the friar's Franciscan mission rises up again after two hundred years, and Lupe once more looks to the altarpiece for guidance, only to find he true purpose in the midst of her single greatest fear.

Lost Mission was inspired by news of bishops from Africa and Latin America traveling to the United States to offer guidance to churches, and churches in South Korea sending more missionaries around the world than America. Dickson began thinking about what it means to go from being a country that offers spiritual help to other nations, to being a country that needs spiritual help from some of those nations, and thus the idea for Lost Mission was born."

The book tells two different stories at the same time. Two stories that happened centuries apart, but are linked by a spiritual and generational connection. The story is so complex, that it can't be categorized into one label. The press release on this book says that it "Explores Generational Consequences", but it is so much more than that. How do you feel about illegal immigration, and border patrols? What about our relationship with other nations? Could your personal choices today affect many generations in the future? If you aren't interested in exploring those questions, then don't read this book....because this book will make you think about those things. This book will make you pray about those things. And this book will make you truly consider that you CAN make a difference in this world.

The question is, what kind of difference do you want to make?

About the book: What haunting legacy awaits deep beneath the barrios and wealthy enclaves of Southern California?

A billionaire
driven mad by grief.

A pastor
in love with the wrong woman.

An illegal immigrant
desperate to feed his family.

Only Lupe de la Garza can save them from the ancient evil lurking in a lost mission's ruins, but it will take an act of faith beyond all human power. An idyllic Spanish mission collapses in the eighteenth century atop the supernatural evidence of a shocking crime. Twelve generations later the ground is opened up, the forgotten ruins are disturbed, and rich and poor alike confront the onslaught of resurging hell on earth. Caught up in the catastrophe are... · A humble shopkeeper compelled to leave her tiny village deep in Mexico to preach in America · A minister wracked with guilt for loving the wrong woman · An unimaginably wealthy man, blinded to the consequences of his grand plans · A devoted father and husband driven to a horrible discovery that changes everything Will the evil that destroyed the Misión de Santa Dolores rise to overwhelm them? Or will they beat back the terrible desires that led to the mission's good Franciscan founder's standing in the midst of flames ignited by his enemies and friends alike more than two centuries ago? From the high Sierra Madre mountains to the harsh Sonoran desert, from the privileged world of millionaire moguls to the impoverished immigrants who serve them, Athol Dickson once again weaves a gripping story of suspense that spans centuries and cultures to explore the abiding possibility of miracles.