Sunday, January 18, 2015

The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz

We're book people in this house.

There are books and shelves to house those books in every room in our house.

The old fashioned kind.  With ink and pages.  Bindings and covers.

I came upon this book in one or our small bedrooms, casting about one evening for the next book I would read.  I can't say that I had ever considered reading it, or had actually seen it before, and wasn't hopeful that it would be one of my more interesting "reads" of the year.

But it was and is.....

And almost unbelievable!

It is the true story of a Polish soldier and a small group of fellow prisoners who escape from a Russian labor camp in Siberia in 1941, and walk out to freedom through Russia, Mongolia, Tibet, the Himalayas and the Gobi Desert.

The journey takes a year and 4 of the original 7 make it to India and freedom.

I noticed some vocabulary words written on some of the blank back pages in Jon's handwriting.  When speaking with him later I asked him about the book.  Yes, he had read it.  No it wasn't in connection with his mission trip to Mongolia when he was in Vet school.  It was a book he had read for college at Wheaton.

Similar to Unbroken, it is a picture of incredible courage and strength of will to survive amid the  cruelest of environments with little or no resources.  It tells of the cruelty of people to others.   And the love and humanity and sharing of meager supplies of others.  The hospitality and generosity of the Mongolian and Tibetan people continue today, as experienced by Jon at every little enclave of settlers they encountered.

And the memoirs speak of the mercy of God, the resourcefulness and tenacity of  man, and the fullness of life after an unimaginable trial.


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