NERVOUS, NAÏVE, AND OVERSEAS FOR THE FIRST TIME,
Ian and Heather Reilly volunteer to teach in Samoa, where after battling a devastating cyclone, they painfully struggle to find place and purpose in a bewildering culture and oppressive climate.
EMERGING FROM DESTRUCTION AND DEBRIS,
they work by candlelight and labour by day teaching Indigenous children with blackboard and chalk. When mystifying cultural behaviour conspires with the oppressive climate to frustrate their futile efforts, they wonder why they came. Lurching from confusion to crisis, and from comedy to tragedy, we journey with them through impossible value conflicts in confrontation with violence, suffering and suicide.
WITH A LIFE AT RISK and LOOMING CATASTROPHE,
how far will they go to intervene in an ancient culture to save someone they love?
ENCOUNTER SHARES TIMELESS WISDOM with a contemporary world engulfed in culture wars, and hungry for significance, truth, purpose and hope. By giving us a ringside seat to the visceral grittiness of cultural clash, we have our own deeply held beliefs challenged, and take time to re-think how we should live.
“I felt like I was there…” (Healthcare CEO, Australia)
“… gut wrenching and very beautiful” (Teacher, UK)
“I’ve never thought about it that way before…” (Art student, USA)
“very well-written”, “impressive and beautifully clear”, with “evocative colour and detail at the heart of every story” (former Hachette editor, UK)
ENCOUNTER delivers culture shock in a page turner, upending comfortable beliefs about people, place, and purpose. Engaging deeply in the lives of real people like us—flawed, uncertain, vulnerable and sometimes frightened—ENCOUNTER uses true stories to enrich our lives by exploring the confluence of culture and worldview.
