To Hope And Back

Lisa and Sol board the luxury ocean liner St. Louis in Hamburg, Germany on May 13, 1939. Lisa and her family are in first class; Sol and his parents are below in tourist class. Both children have mixed feelings Ð theyÕre excited to be beginning this voyage to a better life, but sad to be leaving their old lives behind. They are Jewish, as are almost all of the 937 passengers on board, and although war has not been officially declared in Europe, the Nazis have been persecuting Jews for years. As the ship sets sail for Cuba, the atmosphere is optimistic. The passengers feel fortunate to have been able to buy landing permits, and their German captain, Gustave Shršder, is determined to get them to safety. The captainÕs voice alternates with Sol and LisaÕs, revealing the details they didnÕt know. As HitlerÕs propaganda machine turns Cuba against them, the mood on board changes to despair. The St. Louis and its Jewish passengers are turned away Ð first from Cuba, then the United States, and then Canada. This was the tragic true history of the St. Louis. Denied entry from port after port, the captain was forced to return his passengers to Europe, where many died in the Holocaust. Through the eyes of Sol and Lisa Ð both of whom survived the war and shared their experiences with Kathy Kacer Ð we see the injustice and heartbreak that were caused by the prejudice and ignorance of so many.

Based on the true story of the last refugee ship to leave Germany in 1939, the St. Louis, this powerful book tells the story of two of its passengers, Lisa and Sol, who were children on board the ship. They were among the lucky ones to survive. Lisa and Sol board the luxury ship St. Louis in Hamburg, Germany on May 13, 1939. They are Jewish, as are almost all of the 937 passengers on board, and although war has not been officially declared in Europe, the Nazis have been persecuting Jews for years. As they set sail for Cuba the atmosphere on the ship is optimistic, led by the German captain Gustave Schroeder, who is determined to see his passengers to safety. But as they learn that Hitler's propaganda has turned the country against them, the mood changes to despair. Denied entry from port after port the captain is forced to return his passengers to Europe and the Holocaust ... 'A tragic story about an historical event that deserves to be told.' Quill and Quire

This story is about a stubborn, German workaholic farm girl who qualified for the marathon, but instead conquered the fight of her life through 30 years of surgeries, illnesses, severe pain, job loss, loneliness, financial loss, and divorce, but kept her focus on one thing, her faith through the strength and love of Jesus, and becoming an Overcomer to help others in their struggles. With two visits to Heaven, and a special message from Jesus to you, I can tell you that life on Earth is just the beginning. Jesus has a special Home for each of us, only if we want it. The righteous will be saved, the wicked will be punished and Jesus is establishing a Heaven on Earth. The success, is going back to that very first day and trying to qualify for that race again, but this time with a tarnished, broken body and an unwavering Faith in our God. Coming soon, is her new book, "The Gift, God's Fulfilled Promises." This sequel tells the results, what happened after the first book was published and does God really keep His promises?

Liberia was founded by the American Colonization Society (ACS) in the 1820s as an African refuge for free blacks and liberated American slaves. While interest in African migration waned after the Civil War, it roared back in the late nineteenth century with the rise of Jim Crow segregation and disfranchisement throughout the South. The back-to-Africa movement held great new appeal to the South's most marginalized citizens, rural African Americans. Nowhere was this interest in Liberia emigration greater than in Arkansas. More emigrants to Liberia left from Arkansas than any other state in the 1880s and 1890s. In Journey of Hope, Kenneth C. Barnes explains why so many black Arkansas sharecroppers dreamed of Africa and how their dreams of Liberia differed from the reality. This rich narrative also examines the role of poor black farmers in the creation of a black nationalist identity and the importance of the symbolism of an ancestral continent. Based on letters to the ACS and interviews of descendants of the emigrants in war-torn Liberia, this study captures the life of black sharecroppers in the late 1800s and their dreams of escaping to Africa.

#1 New York Times bestselling author of It Starts with Us and It Ends with Us held readers spellbound with her novel Hopeless, the story of what happened when a troubled girl named Sky encountered a long-lost childhood friend, Dean. Now, in Losing Hope, we finally learn the truth about Dean Holder. Haunted by the little girl he couldn’t save from imminent danger, Holder’s life has been overshadowed by feelings of guilt and remorse. He has never stopped searching for her, believing that finding her would bring him the peace he needs to move on. However, Holder could not have anticipated that he would be faced with even greater pain the moment they reconnected. In Losing Hope, Holder reveals the way in which the events of Sky’s youth affected him and his family, leading him to seek his own redemption in the act of saving her. But it is only in loving Sky that he can finally begin to heal himself.

“[A] landmark book . . . Solnit illustrates how the uprisings that begin on the streets can upend the status quo and topple authoritarian regimes” (Vice). A book as powerful and influential as Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, her Hope in the Dark was written to counter the despair of activists at a moment when they were focused on their losses and had turned their back to the victories behind them—and the unimaginable changes soon to come. In it, she makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable. Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environmental, cultural, and political history, Solnit argues that radicals have a long, neglected history of transformative victories, that the positive consequences of our acts are not always immediately seen, directly knowable, or even measurable, and that pessimism and despair rest on an unwarranted confidence about what is going to happen next. Now, with a moving new introduction explaining how the book came about and a new afterword that helps teach us how to hope and act in our unnerving world, she brings a new illumination to the darkness of our times in an unforgettable new edition of this classic book. “One of the best books of the 21st century.” —The Guardian “No writer has better understood the mix of fear and possibility, peril and exuberance that’s marked this new millennium.” —Bill McKibben, New York Times–bestselling author of Falter “An elegant reminder that activist victories are easily forgotten, and that they often come in extremely unexpected, roundabout ways.” —The New Yorker

“It can start with a knock on the door one morning. It is the local Indian agent, or the parish priest, or, perhaps, a Mounted Police officer.” So began the school experience of many Indigenous children in Canada for more than a hundred years, and so begins the history of residential schools prepared by the Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). Between 2008 and 2015, the TRC provided opportunities for individuals, families, and communities to share their experiences of residential schools and released several reports based on 7000 survivor statements and five million documents from government, churches, and schools, as well as a solid grounding in secondary sources. A Knock on the Door, published in collaboration with the National Research Centre for Truth & Reconciliation, gathers material from the several reports the TRC has produced to present the essential history and legacy of residential schools in a concise and accessible package that includes new materials to help inform and contextualize the journey to reconciliation that Canadians are now embarked upon. Survivor and former National Chief of the Assembly First Nations, Phil Fontaine, provides a Foreword, and an Afterword introduces the holdings and opportunities of the National Centre for Truth & Reconciliation, home to the archive of recordings, and documents collected by the TRC. As Aimée Craft writes in the Afterword, knowing the historical backdrop of residential schooling and its legacy is essential to the work of reconciliation. In the past, agents of the Canadian state knocked on the doors of Indigenous families to take the children to school. Now, the Survivors have shared their truths and knocked back. It is time for Canadians to open the door to mutual understanding, respect, and reconciliation.

“Rania Abouzeid has produced a work of stunning reportage from the very heart of the conflict, daring to go to the most dangerous places in order to get the story.” —Dexter Filkins, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Forever War Award-winning journalist Rania Abouzeid dissects the tangle of ideologies and allegiances that make up the Syrian conflict through the dramatic stories of four young people seeking safety and freedom in a shattered country. Hailed by critics, No Turning Back masterfully “[weaves] together the lives of protestors, victims, and remorseless killers at the center of this century’s most appalling human tragedy” (Robert F. Worth). Based on more than five years of fearless, clandestine reporting, No Turning Back brings readers deep inside Bashar al-Assad’s prisons, to covert meetings where foreign states and organizations manipulated the rebels, and to the highest levels of Islamic militancy and the formation of the Islamic State. An utterly engrossing human drama full of vivid, indelible characters, No Turning Back shows how hope can flourish even amid one of the twenty-first century’s greatest humanitarian disasters. Winner of the Overseas Press Club of America's Cornelius Ryan Award for the best non-fiction book on international affairs and a finalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize.