The New Adventures of Starr Gazer: A Christian Fantasy Novel

By Dennis Koranek

Starr Carpenter certainly has her share of adventures as Starr Gazer. They started in the book "From Lightning to the Light" and are continuing in this book. These new adventures include helping a little country church do publicity, capturing outlaws in the old west, going on an evangelism trip to Bolivia, helping a field hospital deal with biological warfare, rescuing international astronauts from sabotage, and being caught in the past while getting Albert Einstein to help get her back to the future. Regardless of the adventure, Starr is always up to the task and continually looks to God to do the right thing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667834634

Book preview

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© 2022 by Dennis Koranek

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Print ISBN: 978-1-66783-462-7

eBook ISBN: 978-1-66783-463-4

To the glory of God

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

The First Xtreme Christmas

The Think Tank

Financial Problems

Rescued

The Service

The Next Few Months

Typical Starr Adventures

A Case of Anonymity

A Request from the President

Starr of the West

Out of this World Trouble

The Second Xtreme Christmas

Caught in the Past

Guardian Angel

A Surprise Visitor

Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank those that have made this second book possible.

My son Simeon who had spent time reading the text to provide initial comments early on.

My sister Diane who encouraged me to finally get this published.

Betty Gray Thompson who volunteered to provide the needed proofing and editing close to publishing time.

Preface

God works in mysterious ways. The first paragraph of the Preface of my previous book, "From Lightning to the Light" was as follows:

There are no such things as coincidences in life. God is in control of everything. He takes care of the sparrows and knows how many hairs are on our heads. Things that happen in our lives that we question may have happened the way they did because God has planned events to carry out a specific purpose. We wonder why people are sick or die at times that may be premature. Sometimes we find out the answer and sometimes we don’t. The Lord may bring people into our lives at certain times for a single purpose and then we are left wondering why. We may or may not ever find out.

That paragraph continues to be very true, and in the age we live in, if we didn’t have God to rely on, our lives would appear to be meaningless, and we would go through life in despair with no hope for the future.

In this book, we see that Starr continues to have adventures where it is apparent that God has put her in those situations for a reason. Some situations relate to war and minimizing the loss of life, others bring people closer to God by making it blatantly obvious that God is real, and still others allow the love of Christ to be shown through humbleness and mercy.

Enjoy,

Dennis R. Koranek

Part I

The First Xtreme Christmas

Chapter 1

The Think Tank

Evelyn had been busily working on the report that her boss was expecting when she heard the beeping sound from her computer’s electronic calendar. As she looked up to clear the reminder, she shook her head.

Looks like I’ll have to remind the boss about the board meeting in a few minutes.

Evelyn quickly saved the electronic file for the report since she never knew when there would be a power glitch. Her boss was one that thought highly enough of the engineers to get them an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) since an interruption in their work could cause a large drop in productivity, but he was a real Scrooge when it came to the administrative support staff. She got up from her desk and walked to the large closed door that was only about 10 feet from her desk. She knocked on the door and then immediately opened it and entered.

Excuse me, Mr. Crawford, but the meeting with the board is in 10 minutes in the Manassas room.

Thank you, Evelyn, replied the CEO. I’ll be right there.

Sir, you know they don’t like to be kept waiting.

A smile from the boss was all it took for Evelyn to get the message. She left the office and thought to herself, He can’t blame me if he’s late.

Brad Crawford was the billionaire CEO of Crawford Enterprises, a high tech think tank devoted to technology that pushed the envelope that was considered to be well beyond state of the art. He was not only a highly respected businessman but was also a technological wizard. That combination is very hard to beat. Brad had been interested in technology from an early age and always won blue ribbons at science fairs. His fame started when he came up with the idea for an oven that could thoroughly cook any kind of food in less than a minute without burning it. He started a small company, hired an advertising firm and outsourced the manufacturing portion. Housewives were immediately drawn to this invention, and Brad sold millions of units making him an instant millionaire. Business grew at an exponential rate for some time since he continuously came up with new inventions.

Though Brad was a very demanding boss, the company employees were loyal to him. They knew that he had great ideas for products and that if they stuck with him, their future would be secure.

The meeting with the board today was to be quite routine. Brad would tell them that the stock was continuing to rise at better than 50% per year and that he saw no end in sight. This would please them to no end and the meeting should be over within an hour.

Brad got up from his executive chair, walked over to the office door, opened it and proceeded to walk by Evelyn’s desk.

Sir, you have 2 minutes.

With a sigh, Brad responded with, Thank you, Miss Markham.

One more thing, sir. You’ve received an invitation to be the guest speaker at the UVA convocation next week.

Kind of short notice isn’t it? They probably had somebody back out at the last minute.

I think you’re right sir.

Tell them I’ll bail them out. It’ll be a great way to talk to the kids about their possible future with Crawford Enterprises.

Evelyn just shook her head and sarcastically replied, Whatever you say, sir.

As Brad walked down the hall he responded in a loud voice, That’s the attitude Miss Markham.

Twenty six seconds later Brad opened the door to the Manassas conference room and immediately went to the head of the table. There were six other people in the room, five sitting at the table and one working at a computer at the far end. There were three gentlemen in business suits, two women in business suits and one woman in her early 40’s at the computer.

Good morning, everyone, said Brad in a loud and commanding voice. Let’s get to business. The company has made a 50% profit every month this year, and with the new super high efficiency house plans and appliances we are about to roll out, our profits are only expected to climb even higher.

One particular business woman spoke up. I’ve seen the plans and prototypes for these units, and I’m very impressed. As a mother and keeper of a house myself, I can’t wait to try them out. They should reduce energy consumption, all are very eye appealing and they should cut down on the workload of the buyers rather dramatically.

This was all that the rest of the board members needed to hear. One man started to clap his hands, and then the rest of the board followed.

With that, Brad smiled and said, Unless anyone else has something to bring up, I suggest we adjourn the meeting.

All agreed and the meeting was adjourned.

On the way back to his office, Brad was intercepted by Evelyn. Excuse me sir, but the local food bank has asked us to make a donation to help the needy at Thanksgiving. What should I tell them?

Brad shook his head as he walked past her and was about to enter his office. Tell them we don’t believe in the basic principle of Thanksgiving and all the religious stuff that accompanies it. Brad finished entering his office and closed the door.

Evelyn just shook her head and in a loud voice, but not expecting to be heard, declared, Whatever you say, sir.

A couple of thoughts came to Brad’s mind. That’s another board meeting I can check off, he said with a rather pleased look on his face. A few seconds later he began thinking about the group wanting money for Thanksgiving. He shook his head from side to side and said, When will these people learn that there is no God and that all the time, money, and fighting these people do in the name of religion is a total waste of time? If these wretched people would have gone to school like they should have and had a good education, they could have been a benefit to society instead of a burden. They might have even been lucky enough to get a job with Crawford Enterprises. This made him smirk and then laugh quite loud.

Evelyn heard the laughter coming from the boss’s office and just shook her head. Brad in the meantime started thinking about what sort of speech to give to the students. He wanted to promote Crawford Enterprises but didn’t want to come across like such a task master that none of them would want to work for him.

Okay, let’s see what I can come up with. I should talk about how the future is in their hands, and the decisions they make will decide the kind of life and retirement they will have, that working hard really does pay, how slacking off will not get them very far, and they should continue their education so they won’t get stagnant in their field. Even getting additional Bachelor’s degrees to broaden their knowledge is better than just wasting their life away.

This seemed to please him to no end, and he was quite satisfied with his preparation, however small. He was always very confident, and this came out in his speeches.

Evelyn knocked on the door and then walked right in.

Sir, another social service agency called. Even though Christmas is a little ways away, they want to know if we would like to make any donations to support children whose fathers are in jail.

Brad just looked at Evelyn with his head cocked and quite stern. Evelyn decided to be proactive this time.

Should I just take care of it and give them a similar story as the last group?

This made Brad smile, shake his head in the affirmative and respond with, Evelyn, I’ll make a manager out of you yet.

Evelyn left the room to respond to the agency, and Brad just smiled saying to himself, For someone without a major education, she has some promise. I’ll need to review her salary and likely give her a raise. Maybe I’ll suggest that she go back to school and get an MBA.

Chapter 2

Financial Problems

Pastor Bob Tanner had been the part time pastor of Greene Community Church for 10 years. When he arrived, there were about 50 regular attendees, and now there were only about 25. It was nothing in particular that he did wrong, the drop in attendance was seen among all the churches in not only this county but also the surrounding ones. The likely contributing factors included people moving to the city instead of the country, people wanting more pizazz in their services, and just the basic fact that people have so much going on (sports, work, and entertainment) that they no longer had time for God. It wasn’t like the people were being asked to spend Sunday morning, night, Wednesday night and other nights of the week at church, they were just being asked to come Sunday morning for Sunday school and church. Since some sports events were now taking place on Sunday for children, people simply decided that was more important than attending church. The lack of people attending church seemed to make the attending congregation depressed and wonder why they should even keep the church open.

It was Monday night, and Bob was getting ready for the leadership board meeting. During dinner, Bob looked at his wife Sue with a very concerned look. She didn’t normally see him in this state and decided to reach out for his hand. Seeing her hand extended, he smiled, and then reached out for her hand.

What’s the matter honey? she said. This isn’t like you.

With a big sigh, he replied, I’m concerned about the church, it’s in financial trouble and I think we may have to close if we don’t get some ideas on how to bring in some money. I already don’t take a salary and the piano player doesn’t take any money. We had to take out a loan just to make basic repairs to the building and we’re having trouble paying that off. The $400/month that’s required for the next few years is really killing us when you only take in about $800/month. The church has nothing in savings and the checking account is now costing us $5/month just to keep it open. It’s not as if we can bail the church out since we’re living on the edge ourselves.

Sue smiled, gripped her husband’s hand tight and said, Has the Lord ever let us down before?

Sue was a very loving wife and made an excellent pastor’s wife. She was in her mid 30’s, had shoulder length chestnut brown hair and generally preferred long skirts and dresses to pants. This served multiple purposes. It was something she really liked, was more comfortable, and also happened to keep the congregation from gossiping. Though she had a Bachelor’s degree in social work, she had decided to stay home and care for the children until they were out of college. She had seen too many problems with children whose parents both worked full time outside the home since many of the parents left the house early, didn’t get back till evening, and were continually gone on business trips.

After a few seconds, Bob responded with a smile and a Never once, dear.

With that, Bob looked at his watch and said, It’s about time for that meeting.

Bob got up, kissed his wife goodbye and walked to the door. Their four children