Escape From The Shining Path

By Julie Richmond

Have you experienced a total cultural shock? Have you been in a situation where everywhere you looked, your eyes were broadened with sights before unseen? With sounds your ears had never before heard? With smells you had not yet imagined? With a nation full of people whose hatred for you, an American, and a do-gooder (missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), visually boils from their core? Have you traveled to a place that brought you, physically and mentally, to your knees? In 1991, the leaders of our Church asked my husband, Lloyd, and me to oversee a group of about 180 young missionaries and to serve the beautiful, humble people of Peru. Were we obligated to go to Peru? No. Did our church insist that we leave our family and go far away for three years? No. We were asked if we would go, we answered, "Yes", and we couldn't wait to be on our way. This whole thing was a natural for us. We loved young people, we loved adventure, we loved seeing new things, and we loved the idea of serving. We knew ahead of time there were "political problems" in Peru, and we soon realized these problems even had a name - The Shining Path - a powerful terrorist group that was seeking to overthrow the existing government and replace it with their own communistic form of rule. They slaughtered thousands of innocent victims, and soon after Lloyd and I arrived in Lima, we found ourselves front and center in their vicious plot. Our lives were spared, for some reason unknown to us, by the God in Heaven who is all powerful and who loves every human, animal, fish, and each little sparrow heard chirping in the trees with a profound love that we can't even comprehend. We know our Father in Heaven is not going to solve our problems for us. We know He lets us suffer the consequences of our poor choices, and He'll also stand by while we grieve from the pain of someone else's shameful behavior. But this I also know. He will always be there for us. He will give us the hope, the comfort, and the peace that will carry us along. The whole way. God's people, which includes every single one of us, and which also includes those who are on His errand, suffer pain and death. In these cases, we still know that He has not forgotten us. He is there, He's watching, I believe He's weeping with us during our trials, but in the end, if we endure and continue to serve others and Him, our day of a glorious reunion with Him and His Son, our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ, will come.Written by Julie Richmond, mother of five, grandmother of 23, great-grandmother of eight and still working (struggling!) toward a bachelor's degree at age 80.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1799080943
• ISBN13: 9781799080947
• Release Date: March 2019
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"