Final Redemption

By Helen Heinmiller

Emmy Harris was about to embark on a humanitarian mission when an unexpected appearance of an angelic woman brings back memories of the mysterious events surrounding her mother’s death. The beautiful angel delivers a disturbing message from Emmy’s past and reveals a bitter betrayal that sends her to Kazakhstan to start her life over.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sacred Stories Publishing
• Release date: Mar 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781945026294

Helen Heinmiller

Author, Healer, and Spiritual Teacher, Helen Heinmiller, offers unique new restorative meditation programs and online courses that can help people of all ages lead a healthier and happier life. Helen spent fifteen years working in Corporate America, before becoming an author and spiritual practitioner. For over twenty years, Helen has been receiving valuable guidance from a variety of spiritual sources. Helen has been given great knowledge recently about Solar Color Energies and has developed remarkable new meditations programs to support healing on the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical levels. Helen's novels reflect the depth of her understanding about the human condition.

Book preview

Emmy Harris never expected to celebrate the last day of school sitting at the foot of her mother’s grave. Having just completed her second year as a 7 th -grade history teacher at West Middle School, she should have been partying at Jasper’s with her best friend, Jodi, and her other team teachers, as planned. The end of the year was the only time when the usually subdued faculty let loose and got a little crazy, right before hitting the beaches or part-time jobs that were a welcomed break from their daily middle school grind. But the events of the night before had her already feeling more than a bit crazy and, ultimately, brought her to the only person she thought she could talk to—the mom she never knew.

The cemetery was set on a slight hill that once overlooked a rundown drive-in movie theatre that was torn down long before Emmy was born and replaced with a Smart-Mart discount shopping center. Even though the sun was shining brightly, the ill-maintained landscaping and storm-tattered tree line gave a morbid people-lay-dead-here feel to the place. Dried leaves and branches, along with empty cigarette packs and beer bottles left by teenagers, lay strewn against a rusting chain-link fence that separated the property from the shopping center. Emmy’s mom’s grave was located about ten yards from the fence at the foot of the hill, along the side road of the shopping center. Her grandfather had purchased one of the last plots available, as her mom’s death was an unforeseen trauma few parents plan for.

Emmy was only four years old when her mother, Beth, died of cervical cancer in her early twenties and was buried here. Her memories from the funeral and all that happened beforehand had long faded. She remembered the graveyard was much greener back then, and the small asphalt road that wound through the property was gravel. However, these trivial details were nearly all that she could recall about that time, except for bits and pieces of her yearly visits on her mom’s birthday, and one other thing—the gravestone.

Her mother’s gravestone was a big deal for her family, especially her grandfather, Frank Harris. As she grew older, Emmy thought it was odd that they placed such importance on a stone marker and remembered the day it was unveiled to her at the gravesite. It was her grandfather’s creation and took almost a year to make, after stubbornly arguing with the stone maker and metal crafter over what they saw as design flaws. Frank was sure that he knew better than them, and he was the paying customer, only he didn’t.

The stone was of medium height, which wasn’t unusual at all, except for the fact that it was made of gleaming white marble that made it stand out amongst the normal gray granite stones in the cemetery, especially on a dreary day. Emmy remembered thinking when she first saw it that it looked like something a princess would have at her grave for being so special. The stone maker tried to explain that marble was no longer used, because it was too soft and could not endure the test of time, but Frank insisted that it be the purest white the stone maker could find. Now the marble had a yellowish hue that would catch your eye as something odd, instead of strikingly beautiful.

Emmy’s eyes traced the smooth carvings of hovering hummingbirds facing inward towards her mom’s name on the two top corners of the stone, whose nooks were now filled with green and black moss, and felt a little sadder than usual from the reminder of how long she had been without a mother.

She continued to follow small spider vein cracks that started at the tail of the left hummingbird and fanned out to the tip of the B in her mother’s name, where her eyes dropped onto the most unusual piece of the headstone. Right below the name, between the etched dates that marked her mother’s short life, was the word MOMMY formed in copper pennies.

Emmy did remember how beautifully those copper pennies gleamed against the stark white marble that day, and how much she had loved and obsessed over pennies when she was young, even more than buttercups and dandelions. Emmy had discovered that shiny, clinking pennies were as abundant as raindrops that fell from the sky. Everyone always had some on them and never hesitated to give them away to her. She was not aware of their monetary value, only that the piles she collected led to a collection of delightfully amusing coin banks that lined her dresser.

She had a dinosaur bank, a jukebox-shaped bank, a really old monkey bank that deposited the coin for you but never worked, along with a half of a dozen different piggy banks—the bright pink one with a daisy glued on behind its ear being her favorite of all the banks. Copper pennies always represented good luck to her. That is why she had squealed with delight when she saw them on the gravestone. Thinking about it now, Emmy was grateful that somehow, back then, her young mind was able to separate the beauty of the stone memorial from the awful truth it represented and that her reaction was able to bring some happiness to her grandfather that day.

It was Frank’s idea to put the pennies on the stone for Emmy, because they represented the last good memory he had of his daughter and granddaughter together. Frank had stumbled on Beth and Emmy napping amidst a pile of pennies spread out on Beth’s bed, right before Beth became ill. It was the first time he realized that his daughter was far more responsible and caring than he had given her credit for. Her grandmother, Mary, had confided to her once that she thought that the gravestone on some level was his way of trying to make amends for his part in the conflicts that the family went through before Beth died.

Only now, a third of the pennies were missing from being carved out by vandals, as was predicted by the metal crafter, who wanted to encase them in an expensive insert covered with Plexiglas. Frank was too proud to admit that he could not afford that idea.

The pennies remaining were tarnished blue-green and rusted, and most of the heads of Lincoln were beyond recognition. Emmy was sort of glad that her grandfather did not see how bad the gravestone looked today, considering how special the details were to him. The significance of the hummingbirds and the pennies on her mother’s stone was only familiar to her, because of the stories repeatedly told by her grandmother to anyone she reminisced with about Beth’s passing.

Emmy had lived with her grandparents and her single mother since she was born, and the identification of her father remained a mystery to her even today. Her grandparents avoided the subject like the plague, not that she ever really had the desire to know who he was. This lack of interest had always puzzled her about herself, but she attributed it to being stably raised by both grandparents all her life. The utter devotion that her grandparents gave her turned out to be a huge advantage at times, when she compared her life to her friends.

Her grandfather never spoke about the past voluntarily. Emmy knew that he and her mother had a bad relationship for many years before she died, and that her mom had left the house to live elsewhere for a while before her illness was discovered. Her grandfather would always give her short answers when she approached him with questions. She found out the most information about her mother through her grandmother. It seemed to her that her grandfather had put all his emotions into that headstone and was content to leave them there for good. He only talked about Beth with any kind of emotion with his friend, Father Pat, who was with the family when her mother died, and, even then, they seemed to speak in code about what had happened.

Emmy remembered there were a few visits to her mother’s grave early on with her grandparents, Father Pat, and Mrs. McCafferty, another family friend who worked at the rectory with Father Pat. Beth introduced them to her grandparents before she died. Both had helped her mother through a horrible experience that happened to her while she lived away from them, which her grandfather felt responsible for. Only Father Pat knew all the details about what happened to her mother that involved being date-raped. When Emmy turned sixteen, he told her some of what he remembered about the horrible ordeal. It was a shock to learn about it, and left her wishing that she could meet her mother and find out who this mysterious woman really was.

Mrs. McCafferty died two years after her mother, and the four of them made the visit to Beth’s grave together for a couple more years, until Father Pat retired and moved an hour away to a retirement community for priests. When Father Pat disappeared, so did her grandfather. Emmy and her grandmother continued their once-a-year pilgrimage together, until she entered high school, when she decided she did not want to go anymore. This had been the first time she came to visit since then.

The late afternoon sun brought beads of sweat to her forehead, and she grabbed her water bottle out of her bag for a drink. Emmy turned to face away and leaned her back up against the cool stone, which sent shivers down her spine. Looking out over the shopping center, she contemplated on how to begin a conversation with a dead person. Not just any dead person, but her mother, who she had not visited for such a long time. Emmy wondered if she was even there to talk to. She questioned if the dead kept track of how long they had been there and who came to visit them, or do they even hang around their decaying bodies at all? What would be the point to that?

Emmy recalled that people often made comments that they felt the presence of their loved ones who died, but she wasn’t sure she ever did. Maybe when she was young? Her grandmother told her that her mother had loved her so much, and that they had made a pact to always be together in spirit, but Emmy did not remember any of the conversations that she was told she had.

Today Emmy had a hard time even remembering what her mother looked like without looking at her picture. She only had her grandmother’s memories to go by. She could not remember living with her mother. She could not connect with all the talk by her grandmother and Father Pat all these years about the miraculous events that happened, when her mother got sick and died. Especially the bizarre story about how she had told them that an angel had visited her and took her to Heaven. Or, even more bizarre, the tale her family believed about a little hummingbird that held the spirit of a young man named Matt, who had come from Heaven to rescue her mother. He was supposed to have taken over Father Pat’s body, but made a tragic mistake and entered a hummingbird’s body instead. And, even crazier, this hummingbird could communicate with her mother like a human.

She argued that they had fallen victim to a little girl’s wild imagination and the delusions of a dying person. However, Father Pat was certain that it all happened. He insisted that he had witnessed some of it, though nothing that had to do with her angel experience. If it was true, it was like a veil had descended upon her shortly after her mom died, and, for the life of her, she could not go back to that time.

Father Pat said it could be post-traumatic stress disorder, but that had seemed melodramatic to Emmy; and, by the time she became a teenager, she did not want to talk about it anymore. From time to time, however, she secretly wondered if she was suppressing the memories of a miraculous angel visit, so she would not have to relive her mother’s death and her loss. Or, maybe even more importantly, she would have to face the possibility that no miracles really came from the divine interventions, because her mother still died. So, what did that say about God and angels and rescue missions?

After Father Pat became sick and went into a nursing home, the talk finally ended. The mysterious and wild tale of the angel that visited her when she was four, and the crazy story about the hummingbird that held the spirit of a young man, had faded away from all their grieving desperate imaginations, until today.

Today, Emmy could not dispute those adult fairytales about angels or hummingbirds or rescue missions or little girls going to Heaven. Not after last night, when a tall blonde woman walked out of an indescribable light to stand a foot away from the side of her bed. Emmy was even able to reach out and touch her silky cold iridescent robe, and feel the soft, warm flesh of the angel’s hand, before she melted away. Emmy easily could have shrugged it off as a dream with all the stress she had been under, if it was not for the touch that not only felt so real, but also felt so familiar.

Emmy recalled what happened the night before, while she was sitting there staring down at the ground. It was almost midnight by the time she slipped into bed, softly swinging her legs under the sheet, so she didn’t wake her soon-to-be fiancé, Jared. He had to get up earlier than her the next morning. Her mind was still racing about the important decision she had to make very soon, and, at first, did not notice the shimmering spots of light on the ceiling. As she closed her eyes, she got the feeling that she had not, because of the brightness under her eyelids.

Opening her eyes, there was no change, and Emmy looked at the ceiling to see what appeared to be pinholes of light cascading down on her bed. After blinking her eyes a few times, her puzzlement turned into a spacey feeling, as if she was beginning some kind of drug-induced trip that felt surprisingly good. The spots on the ceiling grew more numerous and brighter, like a magnificent stellar constellation, and Emmy cast her eyes down to her sheets to refocus. It was then that she felt a hot spotlight pour down onto her head, and move to the right side of the bed where she lay. As she peered right, she watched it form into a brilliant pulsing white circle of light that stretched into a long vertical oval from floor to ceiling with a new depth to it, forming a hallway of light that would have had to stretch through half of her apartment building.

Emmy propped herself up on one elbow and tried to focus her eyes on the tunnel. At first, there appeared a small dark spot growing inside, but as it became larger, it appeared to be the silhouette of a person in a long robe walking towards the edge of the light. The shadow finally took the form of a lovely woman, draped in a soft clinging white fabric with a light blue rope cinching in her waist. She was tall, with long blonde hair and looked about 30 years old. She had a simple beauty, not model-gorgeous Emmy thought, but still incredibly beautiful. What became puzzling was that she seemed so familiar. Emmy’s heart jumped as she thought for one moment that it could be her mother, but her mother’s hair was brown. Yet, she was absolutely certain that she knew this woman.

Time stood still while Emmy’s eyes locked the angel’s patient gaze and the realization sank into her vibrating senses. An eerie déjà vu overtook her, as she realized that this beautiful lady could be the angel, the woman she had told her grandparents and Father Pat about after her mother died. This felt like the story she had told them long ago, when her mother was rushed to the hospital, and she lay shaking with fear and confusion about what was happening. Back then, she said this woman came to the edge of the light and softly spoke her name and told her not to be afraid. She told them that she felt her whole body relax, just like she felt right now, propped up in bed.

Without thinking, Emmy reached forward, extending her hand into the light and touched the billowing sleeve of her white garment. She felt a slippery, icy-cold material that was smoother than silk, and so shiny it looked like tiny crystalline flakes were somehow woven together.

The cold material slipped through her fingers, and Emmy pulled her hand back out of the light, brushing the warm flesh of the angel’s hand that cemented the reality of her experience. Emmy bolted up into a sitting position and reached back to shake Jared awake, not daring to break her stare and discover it was, after all, a crazy dream.

As she stretched her twisted arm to feel for Jared’s warm body, the angel smiled and raised her left hand and put her straight index finger to her lips, signaling Emmy not to react. Emmy watched her dissolve into a thousand spots of sparkling light and fade into blackness.

The buzzing sound of a honeybee approaching her right ear brought Emmy back to the present moment. I wanted it to be you, Mom! Emmy exclaimed out loud, while lightly shooing away the bee. Why couldn’t it be you! she moaned to herself, and pulled out the dry grass from the ground that she had been absentmindedly clenching with her left hand. She squeezed the tears out of her eyes and let them roll down her face, tasting the salt on her lips.

If it was you, she continued talking out loud, not caring if someone saw her, then I could have asked you what to do. And maybe I would have some answers, instead of having more questions. I don’t understand the purpose of life anymore! Was the world this scary for you?

Emmy was only 24 years old, but already felt physically tired of life. As she thought about what she had already witnessed during her short time here on earth, she surmised that the whole world was growing weary of life on earth, too. The 21st Century was supposed to usher in peace, love, and a great leap in human consciousness in the Age of Aquarius. But it appeared to be off to a slow start, Emmy observed. Every advancement in technology, medicine, and social progress was matched by an insidious dictator, an over-zealous religious faction, or depraved computer hacker determined to take the world back a thousand years.

In the last eleven years, the world had seen a series of disastrous events that chipped away at humanity’s good nature; and, being overly empathetic herself, Emmy was feeling the intense pressures of the times she lived in. She recalled the state of the world and all the crazy events that she had already lived through.

The world seemed to take a downward spiral back in 2008 with the collapse of the financial markets that led to the longest global recession in history.

At the same time, the Middle East wars with Iraq, and then Syria, produced multiple terrorist groups that sprang up as fast as the older ones were denigrated. The world was hit with major tsunamis, drought, and disease outbreak. Unprecedented flooding events rose up in every corner of the world, including two devastating hurricanes on the Eastern U.S. coastline. It was as if Mother Nature became the catalyst in helping the whole world see how fragile life had become. None of these tragedies, however, prepared the world for the next unimaginable disasters.

The first disaster came in January of 2015, with a nuclear missile attack in Pakistan that almost brought the world to its knees. It was a huge shock to everyone, especially the World Intelligence Community, when a secret radical group synchronized a surprise uprising at the Kharan Nuclear Testing Facility and carried out a nuclear missile launch before anyone knew what was happening. However, it was surmised that someone at the facility either made a mistake, or purposely caused the launched missile aimed at India to fail during flight. It struck Larkana, one of Pakistan’s most beautiful cities in the east instead, wiping out almost the entire population. People all over the world were stunned at how unstable the world had become.

As if this disaster was not enough of a burden to bear, in the summer of 2016, two major earthquakes happened simultaneously, along the entire northern coastline of the Caspian Sea. These were the first manmade earthquakes that scientists had warned us about for years, caused by over-drilling for oil along the major fault lines in the Caspian Sea. The earthquakes stretched across the coastlines of both Russia and Kazakhstan, and the damage to life and property was unimaginable.

To add to the crisis, a conflict broke out on the Russian border with Kazakhstan, when old Soviet sympathizers formed a terrorist group called the United Cossacks for Russia, better known as the UCR.

The UCR, with major support from Moscow, saw a real opportunity to exploit the crisis, and wanted to retake the western part of Kazakhstan, as part of their movement to reclaim the Motherland. However, most intelligence analysts believed it was more about reclaiming the operating oil fields left in Kazakhstan, which had survived the earthquakes. The UCR moved down along Kazakhstan’s western coastline and took control of the oil fields in the Mangystau Providence and the port of Aktau.

In the third year of the conflict in Kazakhstan, the United Nations and U.S. Forces joined the worn out Kazakh Army, and the UCR was driven out of Aktau, securing relief operations. Relief agencies finally had a real base to operate from. However, the UCR became a greater threat to destabilizing the entire Eastern Hemisphere than any radical jihadist group ever did.

The culmination of these disasters created another major shift in the global consciousness concerning the future of the world. This brought about a united call from most of the world to destroy all nuclear warheads. But these events also served to strengthen some fanatics’ paranoia, and small groups of radicals of every type tried to strike Armageddon fear into the average person’s mind.

As time went by, Emmy watched the events unfolding in the news feeling a deep desire to do more than just give money, but unsure of what to do. In college, she decided that teaching was her calling and hoped that this vocation would somehow help the struggling world. When Emmy graduated from college, she was ready to go out and enlighten eager young minds. However, during her first few years of teaching, she found many frightened and stressed-out children acting out in multiple ways. Her students were deeply affected by the world events and their own families’ personal financial struggles.

The age of the Internet and reality TV exposed everyone to excessively graphic and polarizing media coverage that grew worse with every disaster and conflict. Emmy and her team teachers at West became concerned about the trends that they were seeing. Grades were slipping, student absence increased, and verbal and physical fighting were up dramatically.

After some diligent research, the teachers concluded that even though their students were not experiencing the tragedies firsthand, the constant media exposure was creating an unconscious level of uncertainty about their own safety. The latest findings from psychologists suggested that children felt safer when they actively contributed to the solution to a problem.

So, at the beginning of the school year, the teachers decided to add a major educational fundraising project to aid the victims of the Caspian earthquakes to their Current Events Curriculum, to see if it could make a difference in their students’ outlook. They arranged for speakers from various relief organizations to come and talk with their students, and a major fundraising campaign was organized to contribute to the different agencies. It was during this time that the children became enthusiastic about one particular program called Peace-n-Play.

Peace-n-Play was a relief organization that helped children of disaster areas around the world through psychological play programs. It was one of the first relief agencies to set up operations in the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan, after the UCR was forced out. The students were mesmerized by their presentation regarding the plight of the children in Kazakhstan and Russia. They raised almost $27,000 in the fundraiser, and voted to send the largest portion of the money to Peace-n-Play.

When the students found out that Peace-n-Play had an office in nearby Philadelphia that trained counselors to go over to the refugee camps in Kazakhstan for six weeks in summer, they all wanted to go and help the children. They were devastated when they found out that they were too young to go. It was then that a fellow teacher and Emmy’s best friend, Jodi Porrini, suggested that they both go that summer to represent their school. Their students thought it was the greatest idea. They were even more excited when one student suggested filming the trip and Jodi agreed. Emmy became swept up in everybody’s enthusiasm, and they signed up for classes with Peace-n-Play that included learning some basics of the Russian language.

Now, seven months later and only days away from leaving for Kazakhstan, Emmy was sitting here on her mother’s grave, unsure if she could go through with the trip.

Emmy brought her awareness fully back to her present predicament. It was more than just a case of cold feet. As the trip grew nearer, she started feeling more and more pressure from everyone around her. The school and her students were super-excited about the trip, and she did not want to disappoint them. On the other side, her grandparents were not thrilled with the idea, but were trying to support her. Her boyfriend, Jared, however, was furious that she was going to go away. And now, to make matters worse, she was hallucinating about angels.

Sweat ran down her temples. The sun was blazing straight overhead and she felt her forehead burning. Emmy wiped her face with her bare arm, as she thought to herself, Now, I don’t know whether I should go to Kazakhstan next week or put myself into a mental institution! Jared seems to favor the mental institution.

Emmy recalled the argument from that morning, when she told Jared about the angel experience the night before. He hardly paid attention to her, at first, while he was dressing for work, and brushed it all off as a silly dream. But then he adeptly turned it around and used it against her to support the demand he had been making all spring, that she should stay home this summer.

Jared was vehemently opposed to her plan from the beginning, claiming it would put too much stress on their relationship, since she would be so far away from him. However, most of her family and friends thought his reaction was more self-centered and over-possessive than protective, as Emmy chose to believe.

Emmy has always had a big heart, and was able to overlook her semi-fiancé’s domineering personality. Jared Grainger was a charmer and relatively good-looking. He boasted of being a mover and a shaker, although he still held an entry-level accounting position at his company, the prestigious Arthur B. Chatham & Associates.

For the past two years, he had been working on a promotion to Assistant Controller, but there was always some professed legitimate reason why he did not make the cut. They talked about plans to marry, but Jared insisted that they wait to be engaged, until he could respectfully support her and the lifestyle that he wanted to have.

Although Emmy was not exactly a pushover, she was also not the strongest of personalities. However, being around Jared seemed to give her more confidence in herself, even though he seemed to dominate their relationship. There was something about Jared’s tough-boy behavior that deep down gave her a thrill she had never experienced before. Her whole life had been a struggle with trying not to be like her unlucky mother in her family’s eyes. Being a good girl was a lot more work and a lot less fun. Besides, it wasn’t like Jared ever physically abused her. He could get a little bossy, but Emmy reasoned that was because he was a take-charge kind of guy. She never could understand why her friends and family mistrusted him so much.

Emmy straightened up against the now warm tombstone and twirled her hair in her fingers. So what am I supposed to do? She half-muttered to herself. "Oh, Mom, why is this happening to me? I mean, come on! Maybe I am crazy! Maybe it didn’t really happen! Maybe Jared’s right. I should stay home. I’m under too much pressure and look what’s happening. I’m sitting on the ground talking to a dead person. A stranger! God, my mother is a stranger to me!" Emmy poured out her heart, until the deeper questions she really wanted to ask finally broke through the surface, and spewed out from the broken cracks that last night’s unexpected mirage managed to create in her heart.

"Were you ever really real? Why did you die? Why did you leave me? Why aren’t you at home, waiting for me at the God damn kitchen table like every other mother?" she cried out loud, as a flood of tears erupted down her face. She drew her knees to her chest and placed her head on them.

Mom? She asked again, Are you in Heaven? Was the angel real? Was she a sign that I should go? Or was she here to tell me I should stay home? Emmy blew her nose into a tissue to clear her head.

Why didn’t she say anything? God damn it! I am so confused! Emmy was not usually prone to such outbursts. She started to bang her clenched fists on her forehead. "Why don’t you speak to me? Why don’t you prove to me that you existed? I don’t know what to do. Nothing makes sense! The world has to make sense at some point!"

After minutes of silence passed, she realized it was useless. There was no one else to help her make sense of this. She was on her own, but could she really come to terms with what was happening, or what was best for her? She wished she could talk to Father Pat, but he was already beating her to the crazy place she felt she was headed. Emmy picked up her bag and water bottle and headed for her car, knowing it would be a long time before she ever came back looking for answers.

Emmy stirred under her damp beige cotton sheet, feeling the effects of one glass of wine too many from the night before. It was Thursday morning and for a split-second panic engulfed her, as her blurry eyes read the time on her alarm clock as 8:05. Luckily the foggy state of her mind lifted long enough to recall that school was out for the summer.

The wet crumpled towel on the floor told her that Jared had left for work already, sending a twinge of annoyance through her over his sloppiness, something he refused to change since they started living together. She was glad he was gone, so she did not have to risk the chance of picking up the half-argument she had with him the night before, especially with her throbbing headache. It seemed she was always having arguments with him that he managed to turn back on her, leaving her feeling guilty that she started them in the first place. Oddly, she loved that about him, because she could never stay mad when he swept her into his arms and kissed her, which always led to a great make up session.

Only last night did not end that way. By the time Jared got home late from work, Emmy had already had two glasses of wine and was in a foul mood, frustrated by her experience at her mother’s grave. She chastised herself for thinking that somehow her dead mother was going to actually talk to her. She was desperate, feeling caught between two realities and resenting the fact that Jared could not see how important this trip had become to her. It was the first time in her life that she felt like she was about to do something that was exciting and had meaning. She knew that going into a conflict area was dangerous, but the people who ran Peace-n-Play assured her that their complex and satellite camps were well-secured by U.S. Forces.

Emmy only intended to go this one time. She believed that her example was going to inspire her students to reach out even more to the people around the world, who were experiencing horrible tragedies far worse than their own. After she and Jodi came back, the students would create a mini-documentary for the school, and see the power they had to make a difference in someone else’s life. They were all so excited.

Besides, her assignment would be an easy one. She was going to help schedule the refugee camps’ play group activities and work one-on-one with the children in most need. It came down to being a daycare worker. Her only challenge would be in understanding the different Russian dialects.

Emmy truly felt in her heart that she was supposed to go, even though she was a little nervous about the danger in that part of the world. She also loved Jared and could understand his concern for her safety. It bothered her sometimes that he did not give her any indication that he was proud of what she was trying to do. His comment was always the same—there are plenty of other people to do that stuff.

However, sometimes his whining about what it would do to him while she was