Religious Refugees

Questioning our faith and spiritual beliefs, while leaving the familiarity of our religious homeland, can be excruciatingly painful. Loneliness, isolation, and fear of rejection - from God and others - can give rise to shame, guilt, anger, and sadness. In Religious Refugees, therapist and ordained pastor Mark Karris explores this disorienting faith shift through the lens of cutting-edge psychological research, theology, philosophy, and, most importantly, the real world experiences of those who are going through - and have gone through - this arduous and confusing journey.

How do you cope when facing life-threatening illness, family conflict, faltering relationships, old trauma, obsessive thinking, overwhelming emotion, or inevitable loss? If you're like most people, chances are you react with fear and confusion, falling back on timeworn strategies: anger, self-judgment, and addictive behaviors. Though these old, conditioned attempts to control our life may offer fleeting relief, ultimately they leave us feeling isolated and mired in pain. There is another way.

In 1939 Rev. Waitstill Sharp, a young Unitarian minister, and his wife, Martha, a social worker, accepted a mission from the American Unitarian Association: They were to leave their home and young children in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and travel to Prague, Czechoslovakia, to help address the mounting refugee crisis. Armed with only $40,000, the Sharps quickly learned the art of spy craft and covertly sheltered political dissidents and Jews and helped them escape the Nazis.

Ever since she was a child, Audrey wanted her life to be extraordinary. But as the daughter of a viscount born in late 14th-century England, the only thing expected of her was to marry - until an act of malice by her sister, Maris, four years ago damaged her face and her prospects. Though Maris was sent away, 20-year-old Audrey is still suffering the scars of her sister’s cruelty. When her father announces his plans to marry off his damaged daughter and bring Maris home, Audrey decides to flee in search of her true destiny.

Early one morning in 1929, Mary Seneca Steele spontaneously packs a suitcase, gathers up her son and daughter, and drives away in her abusive and dissolute husband’s brand-new Auburn Phaeton automobile, leaving her privileged life in Charleston behind. It is the beginning of a journey of enlightenment that leads Mary “Sen” to the mountains and mysteries of Appalachia, where she will learn unexpected family secrets, create a new life for herself and her children, and finally experience love and happiness before tragedy will once again test her.

Refuge seeks to restore moral purpose and clarity to refugee policy. Rather than assuming indefinite dependency, Collier - author of The Bottom Billion - and his Oxford colleague Betts propose a humanitarian approach integrated with a new economic agenda that begins with jobs, restores autonomy, and rebuilds people's ability to help themselves and their societies.

It's December in Fairy Glen, and everyone should be getting into the holiday spirit. But Lina's marriage is on the rocks, her job is in jeopardy, and now she's being asked to loan out her extra horse for equine-assisted therapy. Thirteen year old Sam ran away from her parents and lived in the woods until she was rescued by the Fairy Glen equestriennes last month, but she hasn't talked about why, and the horsewomen think riding will help. Lina has been equally tight-lipped about her troubles, but as Lina and Sam ride together, they bond, revealing painful secrets—Sam's upbringing in a ...

To keep the people she loves safe, Sara left everything she knew behind. She soon learns this new world is nothing like her old one, and she struggles to make a place for herself among the Mohiri. But it soon becomes apparent to Sara and to everyone one around her that she is not your typical warrior. As the weeks pass, Sara builds new relationships, copes with her new trainers, and tries to manage her ever-changing powers while keeping her unique heritage a secret.

It has been five years since Justus lost his father. On the eve of his thirteenth birthday, when the community ceremonially plans to deem him a man, tragedy strikes. Forced to flee his home, family, and everything he has ever known, The Evolution of Justus is a City of Refuge story filled with destructive anger toward God and one boy's struggle to become a man. Can a boy become a man without a father? Or will tragedy be his demise before his chance to rise? How does one process the loss of innocence caused by traumatic events?

With the coruscating gaze that informed The Sympathizer, in The Refugees Viet Thanh Nguyen gives voice to lives led between two worlds, the adopted homeland and the country of birth. From a young Vietnamese refugee who suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco, to a woman whose husband is suffering from dementia and starts to confuse her for a former lover, to a girl living in Ho Chi Minh City whose older half sister comes back from America having seemingly accomplished everything she never will.

In the spring of 1983 Terry Tempest Williams learned that her mother was dying of cancer. That same season, The Great Salt Lake began to rise to record heights, threatening the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and the herons, owls, and snowy egrets that Williams, a poet and naturalist, had come to gauge her life by. One event was nature at its most random, the other a by-product of rogue technology: Terry's mother, and Terry herself, had been exposed to the fallout of atomic bomb tests in the 1950s.

Whether dethroned royalty, delusional, or something else—she’s knock-out gorgeous. And I'm way out of my depth. Swapping combat boots for cowboy boots, I'm limping through life at Southern Refuge. Then Ellie storms in—a mix of innocence and arrogance. An icy diva dressed for dumpster diving, barking orders like I'm her servant. Was she stunning? Oh, yeah. And the chemistry? Instant combustion. She lit a fire I thought long dead. I vow to keep my distance to avoid the inevitable heartbreak. But when her mask slips, revealing a wounded heart, I'm smitten. Then Ellie’s secret explodes....

Annahita Parsan was born into a Muslim family in Iran and grew up with the simple hope of one day finding a good husband, having children, and doing some good in the world. Married and a mother before she turned 18, Annahita found herself unexpectedly widowed and trapped for years in an abusive second marriage that she later fled - discovering instead a God who might love her. Stranger No More is the remarkable true story of Annahita's path from oppression to the life-changing hope of Jesus.

In this “jewel of a novel” (The Observer), Hilary Byrd flees his demons and the dark undercurrents of contemporary life in England for a former British hill station in south India. Charmed by the foreignness of his new surroundings and by the familiarity of everything the British have left behind, he finds solace in life’s simple pleasures, travelling by rickshaw around the small town with his driver Jamshed and staying in a mission house beside the local presbytery where, after a chance meeting, the Padre and his adoptive daughter Priscilla take Hilary under their wing.

Kenan loves drawing and playing soccer with his friends. He wants to be a famous athlete, hates it when his classmates trash his buck teeth by calling him “Bugs Bunny,” and fights with his big brother, who’s too busy and cool for him lately. Sometimes his parents drive him crazy, but he feels loved and protected—until the war ruins everything. Soon, Kenan’s family is trapped in their home with little food or water, surrounded by enemies. Ten months later, with help from friends and strangers, they finally make it out of the country alive. But that’s only the beginning.

Mainstream perceptions about what it means to be Buddhist in America often whitewash and invisibilize the diverse, inclusive, and intersectional communities that lie at the heart of American Buddhism. Be the Refuge is both critique and celebration, calling out the erasure of Asian-American Buddhists while uplifting the complexity and nuance of their authentic stories and vital, thriving communities. Drawn from in-depth interviews with a pan-ethnic, pan-Buddhist group, Be the Refuge is the first book to center young Asian-American Buddhists' own voices.

The small town of Refuge is the perfect hideaway for Patrick Lahm and the Freys. Miles away from the Kurtain Motel, Refuge promises both tranquility and ease of mind. The mundane routine of working in the local post office and buying groceries is all Patrick could hope for. For the first time in his life, things are finally looking up. But one can only escape from his sins for so long. Occasional nightmares, visions of the dead, and a priest hell-bound on confessions leave the survivors feeling that it is only a matter of time before the darkness catches up.

Consumed with a need for revenge, Cole Jackson becomes blind to all he should hold dear. It’s not until vengeance has been carried out that he realizes what he’s almost lost. After being brutally attacked, Leeza Snow has kept her head up with her pride intact. What everyone doesn’t see is the shattered heart she conceals, not only from her pack but from the man she’s destined to be with. While time can heal scars, it will take trust to offer a promise of a happy future.

Tani Adewumi didn’t know what Boko Haram was or why they had threatened his family. All he knew was that when his parents told him the family was going to America, Tani thought it was the start of a great adventure rather than an escape. In truth, his family’s journey to the United States was nothing short of miraculous - and the miracles were just beginning.

Now married, Paul McAllister and Anna Jaramillo McAllister, continue building their fledgling Estancia into the refuge they’ve dreamed of. Where family, friends, and employees can live a life safe from the violence of daily life in the wilderness of the New Mexico Territory. Surrounded by high desert mountains, roving hostile Indians, and bushwhackers, Paul and Anna struggle to overcome devious plots, far and near, as well as the mysterious villains behind those plots.