Introduction

When Anna König first meets Bairn, the Scottish ship carpenter of the Charming Nancy, their encounter is anything but pleasant. Anna is on the ship only to ensure the safe arrival of her loved ones to the New World. Hardened by years of living at sea, Bairn resents toting these naïve farmers--dubbed "Peculiars" by deckhands--across the ocean. As delays, storms, illness, and diminishing provisions afflict crew and passengers alike, Bairn finds himself drawn to Anna's serene nature. For her part, Anna can't seem to stay below deck and far away from the aloof ship's carpenter, despite warnings.

When an act of sacrifice leaves Anna in a perilous situation, Bairn discovers he may not have left his faith as firmly in the past as he thought. But has the revelation come too late?

Amish fiction favorite Suzanne Woods Fisher brings her fans back to the beginning of Amish life in America with this fascinating glimpse into the first ocean crossing as seen through the eyes of a devout young woman and an irreverent man. Blending the worlds of Amish and historical fiction, Fisher is sure to delight her longtime fans even as she attracts new ones with her superb and always surprise-filled writing.

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Excerpt

Chapter one

April 15th, 1737
It’s a hard crossing, they’d been warned. Eight weeks in a wooden tub with no guarantee they’d ever get there. Anna König crouched beside a bed of roses, breathing deeply of the freshly turned loam. She had done all she could to avoid this treacherous sea journey, and yet here she was, digging up her rose to take along with her. She jabbed her shovel in the ground, mulling all the reasons this voyage was fraught with ill. ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1. In the beginning of the story, Anna struggled to leave the past behind. We meet her as she is digging up her most precious rose to take along to the New World. To her, the survival of the rose was a symbol of the survival of her people. Now that you’ve discovered why this particular rose was so important to her, what do you think this rose truly represented to her?

2. Context is key. Have you ever not recognized someone if you’ve seen him out of context? It might seem unlikely that Bairn didn’t recognize his own mother, but eleven years had passed, and in his mind she was still a young woman, pleasingly plump, with russet-colored hair. On the ship, she was thin and gray from sickness and sorrowing. But how could a mother not know her son? Dorothea thought her son had died, a boy at the age of eleven. She would never have expected an English-looking sea carpenter, complete with a long hair queue and bushy whiskers, to turn up as her missing son. Why is context so important to memory?

3. Usually, Amish fiction has a rural setting, a reminder to the reader that she is escaping to another world. This story had no such reminders. It took place almost entirely on a ship. Even seasons weren’t relevant—though weather certainly was. Still, it was a challenge to create tensions in which the Amish showed a better way to respond to life’s trials without the usual props. It stripped away what draws us to and distracts us about the Amish (such as a simple farm life) to show their depth and commitment to faith in their responses to crises. Challenging, and inspiring. If you were taken out of your ordinary setting, what would identify or set you apart as a Christian?

4. Anna wanted Bairn to see that faith could keep a person, as well as a church, in the world but not of the world. When Anna and Christian offered to provide water to the slave ship, what were your initial thoughts? Did they waver when day after day went by and no rain appeared? What did the water symbolize to Anna? To Bairn?

5. God is often slow, but never late. Why is that? What was happening, spiritually, to Bairn during this drought on the ship?

6. Let’s consider the water from a different angle. What could be a metaphor for the water in your life? And what could be a metaphor for the slave ship? Could you, or should you, offer your water to the slave ship?

7. Anna believed that God wouldn’t bring them this far if He didn’t plan on delivering them. She never wavered from that conviction, even as she started to suffer the effects of severe dehydration. Did she mean that God would deliver them by providing water? Or did she mean something beyond physical provisions?

8. There were some gruesome details in this story. The shark with Decker’s body in it, for example. The horrific smells of the lower deck mingling with the bilge. The tradition of throwing a dead mother and her living child into the sea together. (A vivid account of ship mortality in 1750 is given by Gottlieb Mittelberg in his published Journey to Pennsylvania. In it he wrote that if a woman died in childbirth, the dead mother and the living infant were both thrown into the sea together. [Also documented in Unser Leit, page 271.]) You might be surprised to learn that those gruesome details were true! Have you had an event in your life in which fact was worse than fiction? (I have! A couple of them. But I’ll save those for a book club discussion.)

9. One of the themes in this book is a basic question: Can I trust God? Bairn struggled with it. If we’re honest, most of us do. Anna said, “We think of trusting God by relating it to our circumstances. Trust is much more than circumstances. Much, much more.” What do you think she meant by that?

10. Bairn believed in God, but a mercurial, unpredictable one. Understandably! He was only eleven years old when he was essentially abandoned, orphaned, and left to his own survival. Do you think God did abandon him for a season? Why or why not?

11. Another theme in this book was broken expectations. Bairn had endured many failed expectations of God. His despair and disappointment caused him to give up hope that God had any regard for him. In another scene, Anna said, “Our story is not meant to be read by itself.” What do you think she meant by that—and how would it be applicable to Bairn?

12. During the drought, Anna was confident that God would provide water to them, though there were no rain clouds in sight. The situation on the ship grew dire, worse and worse. Anna might have been desperately thirsty, but she did not lose hope in God. “Broken expectations shouldn’t make us give up,” she said, “but look up.” Describe a time in your life when God did not meet your expectations, at least not in the way you had planned. Looking back on that time now, what are your thoughts about your expectations and God’s response?

13. Bairn said that Anna and Felix and the other passengers “lived loved.” And he did not. What do you think he meant by that? What difference does it make to you to “live loved”?

14. Eleven years later, Bairn had a miracle of his own—an amazing coincidence that his mother and brother were on the Charming Nancy. What does that reveal about God’s timing?

15. What was the most interesting historical detail you learned as you read this story?

16. Have you ever had an experience in your life when circumstances converged and you knew it was an “Only God” moment? I have! Not many, but I can think of a handful of times when I knew that only God could have brought unlikely details together in such a remarkable way. Those “Only God” moments are meant to build our faith, but our faith rests not in those moments, but in the supreme sovereignty of God.

Weblinks

»	Author Suzanne Woods Fisher's web site
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»	Amish Wisdom

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