In the Presence of My Enemies: Week 8

Chapters 21, 22, 23

I’m anxious to process these three chapters with you. This has been a challenging book for me to read—and I’m sure it has been for you, too. The story of Gracia’s rescue and recovery dramatically alters her life—forever. As you read these chapters, please look for the positives and negatives that you think either help or hinder the healing process in her life. What lessons can you take from those influences to apply in your life?

How do you think Gracia’s experience impacted her?

How do you think this book impacted you? What are the lessons you take away from it?

Again—thanks for sharing this book with me. May God use it to teach us how to live whatever challenges He allows into our lives.

Next book: The Help, Kathyrn Stockett

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In the Presence of My Enemies: Week 7

Chapters 18, 19, 20

Thank you for sticking with us. Let’s finish our book club well—OK. We’re getting to some tough pages—and many have already been very hard to comprehend. I wonder if you will find these three chapters difficult to read. I sure did. They contain accounts of hunger, sickness, despair and worse. As you read, please pay particular attention to the emotional challenges Martin and Gracia experience. What causes them? Where do they come from? What do Martin and Gracia do to fight them?

I’d like to ask you to share about how you cope with emotional challenges. Are there spiritual practices you find helpful?

How do you respond to Martin’s death and Gracia’s rescue? I really can’t imagine living this part of Gracia’s story.

We’ll finish our book next week—Thank you so much for participating. This book challenges my thinking in several ways. I’m glad I’ve been able to process it with you!

In the Presence of My Enemies: Week 6

Chapters 15, 16, 17

Martin and Gracia have constantly been learning and adapting throughout their time in captivity. They’ve learned to flex (when to share their one tooth brush and when not to), when to give up dreams (discarding jeans that no longer fit and take up too much space and energy to carry) and how to interact with the different people in their lives. I really admire their learners’ hearts. They didn’t stay stuck—they kept on learning even in such trying circumstances.

This week—would you please share lessons you’ve learned through trials or difficult circumstances?

How has something hard produced something good in your life through the lessons you learned?

In the Presence of My Enemies: Week 5

Chapters 12, 13, & 14

This week—I want us to comment on two passages from our reading. The first one is found on page 160 where Garcia writes, “I think it was the hunger that made me start to see myself the way I really am…..”

Has there been anything that has revealed your true heart to you? What has God been able to use to confront you with sin in your life?

The second passage is on page 183. Gracia says, “Another thing that helped my mental outlook, if not by body, was remember Scripture I had memorized long ago…..One Sunday, I found a piece of paper and began writing down all the promises of God I could recall.” What are some of the verses you would want to remember if you were ever in a situation like this? You have probably been through some hard times in your life. What verses has God used to encourage you?

Thanks again for your comments—we are able to encourage each other when we share what God has done or is doing in our lives.

In the Presence of My Enemies: Week 4

Chapters 9, 10, 11

This week, I’m going to leave the commentary of our reading to you—so your comments are, as always, very important. In these chapter, Martin and Gracia continue to live on the edge of life during their ordeal in and we see new emotional lows a for them as well as a break through.

Gracia writes honestly of a crisis of faith that she goes through during this particular passage of time.

• In your opinion, what brought on the crisis and what led to its being resolved?


• Have you ever had a crisis of faith? What led to it?


• What helped you resolve it? Or—is it resolved?

Maybe you are continuing to live in a place where you are angry with God, or feeling deeply separated from Him. I hope you’ll share your honest struggle so we can pray for you.

In the Presence of My Enemies: Week 3

Chapters 6, 7, & 8

The beginning of chapter brought back great memories for me—my husband was a pilot with Mission Aviation Fellowship, and we have similar stories of bringing the holidays to missionaries living in the remote jungle areas of Venezuela. One Christmas, my husband and I and our two elementary aged children flew all the food and trimmings to a village that had an airstrip. From there, we had to take a canoe up the river for about one hour to reach a family who had recently moved to their village that was nestled up close to the river.

Deep sand formed the ground and where ever you walked, you basically waded in sand. The village people had provided a used chicken coop for our friends to live in, but because of the filth in the sand, their little one year old child was either held, or sitting in her high chair, or in her bed. The two older children were free to run around to their hearts’ content—but the baby couldn’t walk or crawl for fear that her hands would bring the filth to her mouth. I remember we had a wonderful meal and then spent the afternoon cooling off and playing in the river before our canoe ride back to the plane and the flight home. That night, as I put my children to bed in our primitive home in town, it seemed like we lived in a palace. My “suffering” was nothing compared to what I’d seen that day.

We can each compare our situation to others and find circumstances that are more challenging than ours. At the WOTH Furlough Retreat this summer, we learned about some cross-cultural workers in the Middle East who had gone on a picnic over a year ago and been attacked. Three single women were killed while a man, married but not accompanied by his wife that day) and a family of five disappeared. Months later, two of the children were discovered and it seemed they had been well cared for. No one knows how they got to where they were discovered or what has happened to their baby brother, parents or the man who was with them. The two little girls are now in a European country where they are being cared for by extended family. And, a lamp burns in hope to remind people to pray at the headquarters of the organization where these people served. (I’m writing this 12.2.10—maybe this will have changed by the time this post is published.)

When I read Gracia’s story and hear of stories like above and reflect on people who’ve lived incredibly challenging lives, I have to pay attention. Questions fly in my mind and there are no easy answers.

This week, would you share two things with us, please?

• First, has there been a story of suffering—or life challenges—that has challenged you?
  
• Second—What questions do Gracia’s and other’s stories raise for you? Have you found any answers to them?