In Love Mercy, Christy award-winning novelist Lisa Samson and her eighteen-year-old daughter, Ty, experience a life-changing, soul-rattling journey on a mission trip to Africa. Having lived a plentiful life in suburban America, Samson and Ty thought they were headed off to minister to the African people while chronicling the AIDS crisis devastating the continent. Confronted not only by the AIDS epidemic, but with child prostitution, preventable illness, poverty and death so prevalent it leaves no time to mourn their journey takes a decidedly different tack.

Offering two unique perspectives, Lisa and Ty share the questions they encountered on their journey and tell the stories of those they met along the way - from the children themselves, to adult AIDS victims, to the compassionate mercy-givers who seek each day to alleviate their suffering.

In Love Mercy: A Mother and Daughter's Journey from the American Dream to the Kingdom of God, having lived a life of plenty in suburban America, Lisa Samson and her eighteen-year-old daughter, Ty, thought they were traveling to Africa to minister to the people and chronicle the AIDS crisis devastating the continent. Their trip, they assumed, would be missional, merciful, giving. Instead, they experienced a life-changing, soul-rattling journey. As mother and daughter are confronted with incidents of child prostitution, preventable illness, poverty, oppression, abuse, and death so prevalent it leaves no time to mourn ... their journey takes a decidedly different tack. Love Mercy confronts us directly with the AIDS crisis in Africa---in particular Swaziland, which has the highest AIDS rate in the world and where the average life expectancy is thirty-two years of age. Offering two unique perspectives, Lisa and Ty share the questions they encountered on their journey and tell the stories of those they met along the way---from the children themselves, to adult AIDS victims, to the compassionate mercy-givers who seek every day to alleviate their suffering. Smiles in a place of aching sadness. Mercy in a place of heart-wrenching poverty. Two people transformed by God in ways, and places, they never expected, discovering that even in a land riddled with heartache ... Christ's love and redemption are ablaze.

Lisa Samson is the author of over twenty-five books, including the Christy award-winning novel Songbird. Her novel, Quaker Summer was Christianity Today's novel of 2008. She is coauthor with her husband, Will, of Justice in the Burbs. Ty Samson loves art, literature, playing upright bass, and baking bread. She enjoys working with children and serving at the East Seventh Street Center in downtown Lexington, Kentucky.

When the call that would change my life came from my agent, I had no idea that’s what it was.

“Lisa, it’s Don. A friend of mine wants to write a novel. He’s a great guy, it’s a great story, but he needs some help. Can you talk to him on the phone?”

“Sure.”

When Tom Davis, the president of Children’s HopeChest, phoned a few days later, I was sitting with my friend Leigh on her screened porch. I was in Maryland for a summer visit, and it seemed justice was following me back home, and an opportunity to help a budding novelist would turn into something far more life-giving to me than it would ever be to Tom.

We discussed his story, engaging right away in talk of the need for conflict, the importance of the setting, and the keys to developing memorable characters. Sometimes, you talk to someone, and you just know they’re your kind of people. Immediately I felt a rapport with Tom, and soon, due to the fact his novel was about an icon found in Russia, we began talking about his work with orphans. Children’s HopeChest has been providing much-needed care and service to orphans in Russia for several years. It was obvious he loved the country and its people.

“We’re heading to Swaziland,” Tom said, telling me about the need in Africa.

We soon began talking frequently about his book, and when he was offered a book deal for a series of books about orphans, he visited for long editing sessions, food provided by my husband, Will, of course.

One day, Tom told me about a vision trip to Swaziland. “You should come.” Tom surrounds himself with people – a well-meaning entourage – who aren’t afraid to see the hard things of the world, people capable of looking beyond their borders and taking their faith to the whole world, no matter how hard that might be.

I thought about it. Thought about how much it would cost. Thought about how much our seventeen-year-old daughter, Ty, would love a trip like this.

“Let me get more information,” I told him, and a few days later the emails began to arrive. Swazi culture. Fund-raising tips. The great work Children’s HopeChest was doing, and wanted to do, in the tiny kingdom of Swaziland.

Hmm. Maybe I could make jewelry to sell. Maybe I could dip into the kids’ college fund. Maybe, maybe, maybe…anything! But don’t ask me to raise support. I’m a proud woman, unfortunately, and sending out letters just isn’t me.

Meanwhile, Tom kept asking, “We have a trip coming up next January. You in?”

“I dunno…”

“Oh, come on, Lisa! You’ll love it.”

Of course I would.

A lightbulb eventually went on. I called Tom. “What if I put together a book proposal? I could write a book about the trip, and the advance would pay our way and the rest could go to Children’s HopeChest.”

“That’s a great idea! Not only would it get you here, but your book would raise awareness.”

I immediately put together a three-page proposal and sent it off to my agent, and he began shopping it around. A book. Nonfiction. A new way of writing. Could I do it? And Africa? Really? I’d been to England, but that was it. I wasn’t a well-traveled person at all.

Tom’s excitement grew. “This is going to be great. A lot of trips concentrate on going to our carepoints where we feed the kids, but I want you to see as much as possible. This will be a vision trip more than a mission trip. You can see what the people are going through and tell others.”

It sounded like the perfect plan. If only I could find a publishing house that would take a chance. Lisa Samson writes novels. She does not write about her life, about trips to Africa with her daughter. In this day of bottom-line sales, would someone catch the vision, see the possibilities? We could only hope and pray.

Obviously, you know what happened.

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