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Harvest House Publishers - Vannetta Chapman

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186 pages

English

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Joshua's Mission is a new standalone novel in the Plain and Simple Miracles collection from popular author Vannetta Chapman. These stories of love and family and Amish community in Oklahoma tell of the miracles that can happen when lives are lived in service to God and to one another. Joshua Kline travels from his farm in Oklahoma to offer aid to an Englisch town on the gulf coast of Texas after a category 4 hurricane has ravaged the area. He brings his brother with him, who needs a change of environment. The last thing he wants for Alton is another brush with the law. He is pleasantly surprised when he hears that Becca Troyer, the bishop's granddaughter, plans on joining their team. What will Joshua find when he arrives in Texas? A lack of electricity, certainly, which poses little problem for the Amish volunteers as they help restore order from destruction. But a budding romance? A call from God? And a possible healing of his relationship with Alton?Joshua's Mission is a story of love, forgiveness, and the grace of God that carries us through even the worst situations.

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Publié par	Harvest House Publishers
Date de parution	01 février 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780736956062
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Books by Vannetta Chapman

P LAIN AND S IMPLE M IRACLES
Brian s Choice
(ebook-only novella prequel)
Anna s Healing
Joshua s Mission

T HE P EBBLE C REEK A MISH S ERIES
A Promise for Miriam
A Home for Lydia
A Wedding for Julia
Home to Pebble Creek
(free short story e-romance)
Christmas at Pebble Creek
(free short story e-romance)
HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version , NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Cover by Koechel Peterson Associates, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Cover photos Shutterstock; Wikimedia; KsC Photography
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
JOSHUA S MISSION
Copyright 2016 by Vannetta Chapman
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chapman, Vannetta.
Joshua s mission / Vannetta Chapman.
pages; cm.-(Plain and simple miracles series; Book 2)
ISBN 978-0-7369-5605-5 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-5606-2 (ebook)
I. Title.
PS3603.H3744J67 2016
813 .6-dc23
2015021165
All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author s and publisher s rights is strictly prohibited.
Dedication
For my friends,
Janet and Ed Murphy
Contents
Books by Vannetta Chapman
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Epilogue
Discussion Questions
Author s Note
Glossary
About the Author
Anna s Healing
Brian s Choice
Fall in Love with the Amish of Pebble Creek!
Ready to Discover More?
About the Publisher
Acknowledgments
This book is dedicated to Janet and Ed Murphy. They graciously provided us with a place to stay on Mustang Island and readily answered my questions regarding the area. Janet and Ed possess an obvious love for the area and a gracious, giving spirit. On top of all of that, they love my dog. They have been a true blessing to me, and they helped to make this novel a better piece of writing than it otherwise would have been.
I d also like to thank the folks at Mennonite Disaster Services who answered my questions. Although I made every effort to remain true to the way they conduct mission work, I allowed myself literary license where it was necessary for the progression of the story. Cameron Pratt with the Port Aransas Museum was very helpful. Charles Crawford also took the time to meet with me, and he was the inspiration for the character Charlie Everman. Thank you to Bill and Connie Voight for the use of their dog, Quitz. And thanks to Bill and Ann Rogers for the use of their names.
My prereaders Kristy and Janet rock. True friendship is always a gift, and I appreciate both of these ladies and their commitment to quality fiction. I owe a debt of gratitude to my family and friends who encourage me as I work to share God s grace through stories. Two agents were instrumental in the release of this book-Mary Sue Seymour, who helped me to place the project, and Steve Laube, who has been with me through its production and release. The wonderful staff at Harvest House deserve an acknowledgment page all their own.
I again would like to express my gratitude to the Amish communities in Oklahoma who were kind and welcoming and showed graciousness to me. If you find yourself near Tulsa, drive east on US-412 for forty minutes until you find the small community of Chouteau-my inspiration for Cody s Creek. And if you re ever in south Texas, stop by Mustang Island and enjoy one of God s places of respite and peace.
And finally always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5:20).
Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.
~M ATTHEW 25:40

If you can t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
~M OTHER T ERESA
CHAPTER 1
Port Aransas, Texas
October 5
C harlie Everman walked along the beach, his heart heavy with the memory of the things he d lost. Waves crashed against the sand, causing his black Labrador to jump back and then dart forward. Seagulls cried overhead. The last of the day s light lingered on the horizon as the night nudged the final rays from the beach. The beaches of Mustang Island stretched eighteen miles, from Port Aransas at the northeastern tip to Padre Island via a roadway at the southwest. That end of the island also connected to Corpus Christi via the John F. Kennedy Memorial Causeway Bridge. Charlie preferred the solitude and quiet of Mustang Island. He always had.
Fetch, girl. Charlie threw the stick, and Quitz plunged into the water. For a moment she looked like the pup she had been when Charlie had found her eleven years ago-found her under an abandoned shack on the bay side. Quitz was back at Charlie s side in seconds. Over the years, he d bought the dog all manner of toys, but Quitz preferred a simple piece of driftwood. Go figure.
Good, girl.
He patted the lab on her head, which was all the reward that Quitz needed. They continued down the beach, side by side, neither feeling the need to break the evening s quiet. The dog would slow occasionally to sniff some fish or shell or garbage washed ashore. Charlie would pause now and again to study a ship in the distance.
The waves continued their march inland as they had since the beginning of time, but Charlie could only testify to the last forty-five years. He d moved to the town of Port Aransas when he was twenty-two and newly married to his high school sweetheart, Madelyn. His younger self had been impossibly naive, still expecting each day to bring a miracle. And many of them had, but then there had also been days black with pain.
Saltwater splashed across his foot, drawing him back to the present.
The smell of ocean spray filled the air. A breeze tickled the hair at his neck. Moonlight bounced off water.
Somewhere close by, a crane cried out before plunging into the water, searching for fish.
It was easy enough to love Port Aransas-Port A, as the locals called it. Charlie was now considered among that group. And love it he did when he looked toward the gulf, but his feelings were harder to define when he turned inland. Behind him buildings rose daily, or so it seemed. Monstrosities. Condos that cost upward of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and homes that easily sold for more than a million. Structures that looked to him like great shipwrecks. The development along the beachfront bothered him, but Charlie understood that the condominiums provided much-needed jobs for many of the people in Port Aransas, and the additional tax base helped the local economy.
The truth was that the world had moved on, as his wife Madelyn had often reminded him. At sixty-five, Charlie was feeling the difference-the gulf between himself and others. This area, the very town where he had become a man, now felt like a foreign land. And most of his neighbors were strangers. Maybe that was true everywhere.
Did people even know one another anymore? He watched them at the diner-eyes glued to their cell phones, not bothering to speak to the person sitting across from them. Often not bothering to raise their eyes to the gulf waters outside the window. Folks said the new generation of teens was disconnected from one another, but to Charlie it seemed they were merely following the example of their parents. The whole world had come apart, and each person was a little island floating in a sea of technology.
These things bothered Charlie. They pricked at his soul like a splinter that was too deep to be removed. Suddenly he thought of Alice, a waitress who worked at the Shack. She was old enough to be his daughter, or nearly so. There was a span of seventeen years between them. Though he and Madelyn had no children, he often found himself thinking of Alice that way and viewed her grandkids as his own. He liked to think that if he and Madelyn had raised a daughter she would have turned out like Alice-hardworking and honest.
Charlie ate at the Shack regularly. Usually Alice patted him on the shoulder as she scooped up the money he d left on the table, including a generous tip because-well, because he knew how hard she worked and that the tips in a small way helped with the raising of her grandchildren. She d provided those grandkids a home for the last several years. Some families managed to squeeze three genera