As I started doing the research for Blood Covenant, I found myself afraid that my readers would find the plot unbelievable. Surely the story of a humanitarian crisis dealing with so many issues-from cholera to measles to rebels-could only be fabricated and would never happen in today’s world. Yet as I read story after story of individual refugees I found myself weeping with them over what they experienced. And I realized that, if anything, I had sanitized my story to make it more believable, because the facts tell another story.
According to the international aid organization Doctors Without Borders, there are forty-two million people in the world who have been displaced by war and violence.
Read that again: forty-two million.
So while the story behind Blood Covenant, including the setting, is fictional, the issue of those being forced to leave their homes with nothing more than the clothes on their back, often after witnessing murder, rape, violence and kidnappings, is very real. But in spite of this horror, I didn’t want to stop the story there. Drawing from my own experiences across Africa over the past twenty years I wanted to tell a story that went beyond the adversities and gave a message of hope.
The truth is we don’t have to travel around the world to see people hurting and exploited abd needing that message of hope. They’re real people we pass every day, living in our neighborhoods and attending our churches and schools. They’re empty and broken, searching for freedom and hope in an often hopeless world.
It’s tempting to believe one person cannot make a difference, but it all starts with each one of us, wherever we are, letting God take us on that amazing journey He’s prepared for us.
Be blessed today,
Lisa Harris
You must be logged in to post a comment.