Written by Kim Vogel Sawyer
Published by Bethany House Publishers, 2008
This book begins in March, 1886, in New York on a cool night, as everyone sleeps. Young Maelle wakes to a strange glow. After she wakes her Da, he packs a quick bag and rushes Maelle, Mattie, (her brother Matthew) and their baby sister, Molly, out the door with clear instructions to wait for him and Ma across the street and they would be out of the burning building as soon as they could gather a few more items. Da's last words to Maelle were to take care of the wee ones.
Maelle, Mattie and Molly are taken to an orphange where Maella pretends to be Mattie and Mollie's brother, so she and Mattie are not seperated, as they were from Molly because she was a baby and babies, boys and girls are seperated into three sections of the orphanage. Maelle became Michael, then later Mike and is determined to somehow care for her younger siblings.
The three are placed on an orphan train and sent west to find new homes with families who wanted children. Unfortunately, Maelle did not realize that they were to be seperated until a fancy couple took Molly. Later a man came to take her and she refused to leave Mattie, so unwillingly the man took them both. Later he gave Mattie to another couple and "Mike" was to be raised by Richard. The three children had made it all the way to Missouri. Mike had given the family bible to the fancy couple. To Mattie she gave a family picture of the three with their Da and Ma and she kept the letters written by her mother before their death in the fire. Her vow was to someday find her siblings.
After 13 years, Mike finds her way to Shay Ford, Missouri. Richard had been good to her and taught her a trade in photography but her heart still yearned to find her siblings. Mattie, had had a slightly rougher life and his years of traveling had left him with a yearning also, to someday find his siblings. Mattie had moved around for years and felt he might never be in one place long enough for Maelle to find him.He found work just outside of Shay Ford and decided it was a good place to call home. Molly had had a very good lifie, raised by the loving couple but upon their sudden deaths, she found herself an orphan, unaware that she had been an orphan years ago. Molly, was sent to Shay Ford, to work as a lowly housekeeper.
As the three lean on God to lead them in their lives their dreams become one, only non of the three know the others are involved. The three of them become involved in building an orphanage and also in making a law against child labor.
This is a great story that shows us that God has a reason for everything that happens and how He will take a bad situation and turn it into something good for His people.
other books written by Kim Vogel Sawyer : Where the Heart Leads; Where Willows Grow; Waiting for Summers Return
