Leaving a college campus, mother, friends, lace dresses and beloved books, Barbara Westphal encounters a culture she doesn't understand, a language she doesn't speak, and a devoted husband who journeys for weeks into the innermost regions of Peru.
Its seven years before she can visit home again. On the ship home, their longed for baby boy succumbs to an unknown illness.This is the life she and her new husband, Henry, embark on as they carry on the tradition of his family as missionaries.
How does she cope through those years? What sustains her soul? A woman of courage, depth, humor, and elegance, she is sustained by her faith in God, the love of her husband, and the letters she writes home. Letters colored with adventure, experiences, and a taste of culture, with never a hint of discouragement, although loneliness and heartache must have nipped at her heart.
In the pages of this book-through these letters to her mother-you are invited to relive again the stories of yesteryear, of missionaries, of humor and grief, in the far away land of South America.
With romance and adventure, three generations of women tell their stories. These women were ahead of their times in attitudes and culture. Here are the stories--spanning parts of three centuries-of Barbara, her mother Jessie, to whom the letters were written, and her daughter, Halcyon, the author of this book.
This is a tribute to women everywhere whose courage and fortitude carve identity and meaning for not only themselves and their daughters, but for all women who pioneer unknown pathways.