Joshua's Mission Read online

  Books by Vannetta Chapman

  PLAIN AND SIMPLE MIRACLES

  Brian’s Choice

  (ebook-only novella prequel)

  Anna’s Healing

  Joshua’s Mission

  THE PEBBLE CREEK AMISH SERIES

  A Promise for Miriam

  A Home for Lydia

  A Wedding for Julia

  “Home to Pebble Creek”

  (free short story e-romance)

  “Christmas at Pebble Creek”

  (free short story e-romance)

  HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

  EUGENE, OREGON

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  Cover by Koechel Peterson & Associates, Minneapolis, Minnesota

  Cover photos © Shutterstock; Wikimedia; KsC Photography

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  JOSHUA’S MISSION

  Copyright © 2016 by Vannetta Chapman

  Published by Harvest House Publishers

  Eugene, Oregon 97402

  www.harvesthousepublishers.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Chapman, Vannetta.

  Joshua’s mission / Vannetta Chapman.

  pages; cm.—(Plain and simple miracles series; Book 2)

  ISBN 978-0-7369-5605-5 (pbk.)

  ISBN 978-0-7369-5606-2 (ebook)

  I. Title.

  PS3603.H3744J67 2016

  813'.6–dc23

  2015021165

  All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author’s and publisher’s rights is strictly prohibited.

  Dedication

  For my friends,

  Janet and Ed Murphy

  Contents

  Books by Vannetta Chapman

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Epilogue

  Discussion Questions

  Author’s Note

  Glossary

  About the Author

  Anna’s Healing

  Brian’s Choice

  Fall in Love with the Amish of Pebble Creek!

  Ready to Discover More?

  About the Publisher

  Acknowledgments

  This book is dedicated to Janet and Ed Murphy. They graciously provided us with a place to stay on Mustang Island and readily answered my questions regarding the area. Janet and Ed possess an obvious love for the area and a gracious, giving spirit. On top of all of that, they love my dog. They have been a true blessing to me, and they helped to make this novel a better piece of writing than it otherwise would have been.

  I’d also like to thank the folks at Mennonite Disaster Services who answered my questions. Although I made every effort to remain true to the way they conduct mission work, I allowed myself literary license where it was necessary for the progression of the story. Cameron Pratt with the Port Aransas Museum was very helpful. Charles Crawford also took the time to meet with me, and he was the inspiration for the character Charlie Everman. Thank you to Bill and Connie Voight for the use of their dog, Quitz. And thanks to Bill and Ann Rogers for the use of their names.

  My prereaders Kristy and Janet rock. True friendship is always a gift, and I appreciate both of these ladies and their commitment to quality fiction. I owe a debt of gratitude to my family and friends who encourage me as I work to share God’s grace through stories. Two agents were instrumental in the release of this book—Mary Sue Seymour, who helped me to place the project, and Steve Laube, who has been with me through its production and release. The wonderful staff at Harvest House deserve an acknowledgment page all their own.

  I again would like to express my gratitude to the Amish communities in Oklahoma who were kind and welcoming and showed graciousness to me. If you find yourself near Tulsa, drive east on US-412 for forty minutes until you find the small community of Chouteau—my inspiration for Cody’s Creek. And if you’re ever in south Texas, stop by Mustang Island and enjoy one of God’s places of respite and peace.

  And finally… always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5:20).

  Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

  ~MATTHEW 25:40

  If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.

  ~MOTHER TERESA

  CHAPTER 1

  Port Aransas, Texas

  October 5

  Charlie Everman walked along the beach, his heart heavy with the memory of the things he’d lost. Waves crashed against the sand, causing his black Labrador to jump back and then dart forward. Seagulls cried overhead. The last of the day’s light lingered on the horizon as the night nudged the final rays from the beach. The beaches of Mustang Island stretched eighteen miles, from Port Aransas at the northeastern tip to Padre Island via a roadway at the southwest. That end of the island also connected to Corpus Christi via the John F. Kennedy Memorial Causeway Bridge. Charlie preferred the solitude and quiet of Mustang Island. He always had.

  “Fetch, girl.” Charlie threw the stick, and Quitz plunged into the water. For a moment she looked like the pup she had been when Charlie had found her eleven years ago—found her under an abandoned shack on the bay side. Quitz was back at Charlie’s side in seconds. Over the years, he’d bought the dog all manner of toys, but Quitz preferred a simple
piece of driftwood. Go figure.

  “Good, girl.”

  He patted the lab on her head, which was all the reward that Quitz needed. They continued down the beach, side by side, neither feeling the need to break the evening’s quiet. The dog would slow occasionally to sniff some fish or shell or garbage washed ashore. Charlie would pause now and again to study a ship in the distance.

  The waves continued their march inland as they had since the beginning of time, but Charlie could only testify to the last forty-five years. He’d moved to the town of Port Aransas when he was twenty-two and newly married to his high school sweetheart, Madelyn. His younger self had been impossibly naive, still expecting each day to bring a miracle. And many of them had, but then there had also been days black with pain.

  Saltwater splashed across his foot, drawing him back to the present.

  The smell of ocean spray filled the air. A breeze tickled the hair at his neck. Moonlight bounced off water.

  Somewhere close by, a crane cried out before plunging into the water, searching for fish.

  It was easy enough to love Port Aransas—Port A, as the locals called it. Charlie was now considered among that group. And love it he did when he looked toward the gulf, but his feelings were harder to define when he turned inland. Behind him buildings rose daily, or so it seemed. Monstrosities. Condos that cost upward of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and homes that easily sold for more than a million. Structures that looked to him like great shipwrecks. The development along the beachfront bothered him, but Charlie understood that the condominiums provided much-needed jobs for many of the people in Port Aransas, and the additional tax base helped the local economy.

  The truth was that the world had moved on, as his wife Madelyn had often reminded him. At sixty-five, Charlie was feeling the difference—the gulf between himself and others. This area, the very town where he had become a man, now felt like a foreign land. And most of his neighbors were strangers. Maybe that was true everywhere.

  Did people even know one another anymore? He watched them at the diner—eyes glued to their cell phones, not bothering to speak to the person sitting across from them. Often not bothering to raise their eyes to the gulf waters outside the window. Folks said the new generation of teens was disconnected from one another, but to Charlie it seemed they were merely following the example of their parents. The whole world had come apart, and each person was a little island floating in a sea of technology.

  These things bothered Charlie. They pricked at his soul like a splinter that was too deep to be removed. Suddenly he thought of Alice, a waitress who worked at the Shack. She was old enough to be his daughter, or nearly so. There was a span of seventeen years between them. Though he and Madelyn had no children, he often found himself thinking of Alice that way and viewed her grandkids as his own. He liked to think that if he and Madelyn had raised a daughter she would have turned out like Alice—hardworking and honest.

  Charlie ate at the Shack regularly. Usually Alice patted him on the shoulder as she scooped up the money he’d left on the table, including a generous tip because—well, because he knew how hard she worked and that the tips in a small way helped with the raising of her grandchildren. She’d provided those grandkids a home for the last several years. Some families managed to squeeze three generations into the period usually occupied by two. Alice’s family had done just that. When her daughter visited the island and announced she was taking a job overseas, one where she could “find herself,” Alice stepped into the role of parent without hesitation.

  Charlie wished he could help more, but he couldn’t—retired teachers made very little. So he left the tips and made sure to eat at the diner at least three times a week. That’s what friends did. They watched out for one another.

  The beaches were open to horse riding, bicycling, and even street vehicles. A car filled with college-aged kids passed him, driving slowly down the hard-packed sand. Music and laughter spilled out into the night. They didn’t honk or acknowledge him in any way. For all Charlie knew, he’d become invisible.

  “Don’t sulk,” Madelyn would have said. She’d peer over her glasses and point whatever was in her hand his way—usually a crochet hook or a pen or maybe a bookmark. “The world doesn’t stand still, Charlie. And you wouldn’t want it to.”

  A cloud drifted in front of the moon. When it had passed, Charlie stopped to study the sky. Hurricane Orion was out there, churning, gathering strength from the warm waters of the gulf. There was only a forty-percent chance it would head their way—or so the computer models said. Charlie looked for signs in the surf and the sand, but he wasn’t a weatherman. He couldn’t tell what would happen in the next six hours or six days.

  Quitz pressed against his side, no doubt wondering why they had stopped.

  Most of the time Madelyn was right, but not always. Would he wish for time to stand still?

  He might. Given a choice, he could easily opt for the world to stop turning, for life to simply freeze on a moment, for nothing at all to ever change.

  He wouldn’t pick this day, but they’d had a fair supply of good ones. He wouldn’t have any trouble choosing one—perhaps ten years earlier before they had ever heard the diagnosis of breast cancer. When Quitz was still a young pup and less of the coastline was covered in condos. Arthritis wouldn’t cause his knee to ache, Quitz wouldn’t have trouble standing in the morning, and Madelyn—well, Madelyn would still be by his side.

  A child’s wish.

  He understood too well that the world would keep moving, keep trudging forward. God had His reasons, and who was Charlie to question the Almighty? As to the fate of Port Aransas, the hurricane either would come or it wouldn’t. He supposed there wasn’t much he could do either way. The little community had blossomed into a vacationer’s paradise. It wasn’t his idea of a perfect place, not anymore, but then no one had asked him.

  His mind drifted back over his memories of 1970, Hurricane Celia, and the aftermath of that beastly storm. They had suffered through it together—as a town, as a community. Each family’s loss had affected others, and they had done their best to help one another rebuild. Out of that terrible storm had come some of the worst memories and best friendships of Charlie’s life.

  And though many of those fine people had remained his friends, most had moved away now—to golf course homes and senior communities. They had sold out, and Charlie didn’t blame them one bit. Perhaps he should consider doing the same. There wasn’t a month that went by when someone didn’t offer him an enormous amount of money for the three acres of ocean frontage he’d bought all those years ago.

  Quitz whined as they turned toward home. The old dog would continue down the beach until she could no longer walk if Charlie let her.

  “Maybe I’m the one who’s tired,” Charlie said, and then he reached down and scratched behind the dog’s black floppy ears.

  Glancing at the sky once more, he peered into the darkness but could see little. The steady roll of waves crashing provided a background to his world, his life, that he couldn’t imagine living without. Move? Not likely. He would stay as long as God saw fit to allow him a home there.

  His thoughts turned back to Hurricane Orion as he trudged through the sand. Where did the meteorologists get these names? Orion, indeed. He’d looked it up. The name meant fiery hunter. How could a hurricane be that? He’d been an English teacher for forty years, but if that was some weatherman’s idea of symbolism, it made no sense.

  Madelyn had enjoyed astronomy. She’d loved quoting verses out of the Book of Job from the Old Testament. She especially liked the parts that mentioned the stars and nature and God’s omnipotence.

  Orion. Charlie supposed a hurricane could look beautiful when seen from a satellite—those great white swirls that covered miles upon miles of sea and sometimes land. Perhaps a hurricane could be a hunter, though it seemed to him more like a beast.

  He thought of Beowulf, a text his high school seniors had sometimes strug
gled with, but ultimately they had enjoyed the tale of the hero, the monster, and the tragic aftermath. It had appealed to their teenage sensibilities. Charlie hadn’t been in a classroom in three years, but he still missed it.

  Hurricane Orion sounded ominous. If tragedy were to strike, Charlie didn’t think the community would withstand it. Oh, maybe the insurance companies would pay and the people would rebuild, but it wouldn’t be Port A anymore. The people wouldn’t grow closer because of it. Those days were gone now. The world had, indeed, moved on.

  As he walked back toward home, the clouds parted and the moon again cast its spotlight on the water.

  CHAPTER 2

  Cody’s Creek, Oklahoma

  Joshua Kline heard the pebbles hitting the window near his bed, but he ignored them. At twenty-seven he might be in the prime of his life, but farming was hard work and he longed for more sleep. He turned over, covered his head with the pillow, and attempted to fall back into his dreams. The onslaught continued. Finally, he sat up and glanced at his brother’s bed—empty. No surprise there.

  Groaning, he pushed away the covers and walked to the window, heaving it open at the same time he warned, “Hit me with one of those pebbles, Alton, and you’ll be doing extra chores for a week.”

  “You’re not my dat, you know.”

  “Then why are you waking me?”

  Moonlight spread shadows across the front yard of their parents’ two-story house. Like most Amish homes, it was a rambling structure, having been added to as needed. All of the bedrooms were upstairs. Joshua and Alton shared the room at the front of the house. His parents slept at the back. Four sisters occupied the two rooms in between.

  Alton ducked his head, a familiar gesture when he was about to confess to something. “I need your help. Can’t you just come down?”

  His words slurred slightly, and he stumbled when he craned his neck back to look up at Joshua. Had he been drinking again? Or was he merely sleep deprived? His brother had recently turned seventeen, and he appeared intent on fully embracing his rumspringa. Joshua thought that time of testing, of trying Englisch ways, was merely an excuse for bad behavior, but then he’d always been the more serious of the two boys—the more responsible. He’d heard it all his life, and he’d come to believe it.