I have already announced to the whole world via my social media accounts and even to my eleven Twitter followers that I consider it the best book I have read in a long time.  Maybe ever.
 
Eric McLaughlin is one of the first members of the Kibuye Hope medical mission team in Burundi, East Africa.  Along with John and Jess Cropsey, well known to LPC, Eric and his wife Rachel, and Jason and Heather Fader are the pioneers in a growing team of physicians and others who, in less than a decade, have built something of eternal consequence. Kibuye Hope Hospital is a place of healing and the gospel proclaimed in Word and Deed. 
 
LPC has had the privilege of contributing a small bit to the Kibuye Hope story.
 
The book, just published, is Promises in the Dark, and through it Eric McLaughlin reflects on the past nine years of his life and ministry as a missionary physician, as he writes, “walking with those in need without losing heart.”  The stories told come from Africa.  The truth conveyed is for Christians in the living of their lives in a real world of need wherever that may be. Tears flow from the stories told; deep thoughts and challenges to the way we live sink into heart and mind as Eric humbly tells us what he has learned. 

It’s really a good book.

So I told my eleven Twitter followers about it and posted an encouragement to read it for my friends on Facebook and Instagram (I’ve even come up with a scheme to help you get a copy – see below). 
 
I also wrote a short review and posted it  at Christianbook.com and GoodReads.  And since they own the whole world, I thought I’d say something at Amazon, as well.  That’s when the persecution began. 
 
The exact same short review welcomed so warmly by Christianbook and GoodReads, was coldly and unjustly rejected by Amazon. I felt the chill from the screen when the email arrived: Thank you for submitting a customer review on Amazon. After carefully reviewing your submission, your review could not be posted to the website. While we appreciate your time and comments, reviews must adhere to the following guidelines. 
 
I read the guidelines, community standards, they who destroy communities call them, over and over again. Did I say something that was “libelous, defamatory, harassing, threatening, or inflammatory?” Did I “express hatred or intolerance for people on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender or gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, age, or disability?”
 
What had my careful reviewer found that so offended? What had I written to be labeled a violator of community standards?
 
Of course, I thought. I used the “C” word.  I named the thing Jeff Bezos and his secular friends cannot tolerate.  Perhaps Bezos himself was my careful reviewer.  He must have flinched when he read the word “Christians” in my review. 

Persecuted for righteousness sake. Eric McLaughlin is such a good writer, maybe he could write my chapter in the Book of Martyrs.
 
It turns out that, like most American Christians, I am not a martyr.  This was not a case of persecution due to my righteousness.  We’re pretty sure some machine they use at Amazon found code in the URL I had used – a link from the Kibuye team’s Word and Deed website. They decided I must be a friend of Eric’s trying to help Eric become a rich man by writing a friendly review to be read by unsuspecting Amazon customers. 
 
Heaven forbid, Jeff Bezos, that Amazon might be used to make someone rich. 
 
Helping a friend get rich. I would count it all joy to call Eric McLaughlin a friend.  For now, I am someone 7,000 miles away who is very impressed and inspired by Eric and his team. I think it might be nice if Eric and Rachel got rich, but I have a feeling they’d give all their money away. 
 
But, Jeff Bezos, guilty as charged. I’d do just about anything to get your unsuspecting customers to read Promises in the Dark. As I said, the best read in a long time. Maybe ever.
 
Becky and I have ordered a big batch of copies of Promises in the Dark (not from Amazon). Those of you on our Christmas gift list – sorry to ruin the surprise.  LPC folks, there will be enough copies left for you to purchase one at a really good discount.  As soon as the books arrive, I will let you know and you can give me $10 exact cash and I will get you your copy.  I am really eager for a lot of us to be able to reflect on this amazing book.
 
Finally, if you need any more encouragement, Becky has written a review that should be posted on the New Growth Press site any time now. 
 
Here is what Becky wrote:

Promises in The Dark is simply one of the best books I have ever read.  Don’t think it is just about inspiring or moving stories of medical mission — though it is certainly that and each chapter is deeply moving. Any reader involved in mission or service will be the better for having read this book.

But more than this, the stories Eric relates are the vehicle for his open account of trying faithfully to live the life God has lead him to, in spite of his own flawed self. His honesty about his faith struggles brings this book’s message to anyone’s circumstances.  Discouragement is a faith issue. One does not have to be involved in health care or human services to be disheartened or protest the circumstances in one’s life or work or church or family.

The third chapter, “Promise,” is my favorite. Referring to Jesus’s promise to make all things new, Eric writes:

“I don’t know any other words in the Bible that rend my heart as much as those. It feels like a beauty that’s anchored in the very center of the earth, in the very center of the human heart. God has loved us with an everlasting love, and he is making all things new…. But what do we do with this promise? How do we reconcile our world to a promise so bold and audacious?”

This ache of the human heart is part of the human condition. Believing and trusting in a God we cannot see surrounded by the world we can see is the lifelong endeavor of every Christian.

The epilogue leaves us with a beautiful account of our reason to hope:

“The promises of God are given to sustain us on this road. They are not ethereal abstractions, but rather promises as real and everyday as the dust of the path we walk. Though it’s never easy, we find, along the way, the reminders and the whispers that the promises are true and that the one who promises is faithful. He has placed these promises in the dark, precisely where he knows we need them. They shine in the night sky like eternal diamonds…”

I loved reading Promises in The Dark. I want everyone I love to read it, too. It’s that kind of book.