Full Summary:
Mercy Williams is the only daughter of Missionary Markus Williams. She has lived in the Congo her whole life. She has been pen paling Ruthie for two years. What happens when war breaks out in the Congo, stranding Mercy with nearly five million refugees at a Mission that is about to be overrun by Militia? Will the American Embassy help her out? Or is it up to Mercy to get her people to safety, killing everyone in their path? And how do the Camden's react when they find out that Mercy has over five million refugees with her and that she may be headed to the Cameroon Boarder? Will they get the American Military to go after an American and her people? And will everyone make it out alive?
Mercy Williams:
Hi, my name is Mercy Williams and I am sixteen years old. I have grown up in the forests of the Congo my whole life. I am the only daughter of Markus Williams, and American Missionary who came to the Cong to help his people. We call them our people because I am half African, half American. My mother had been born in the Congo and she had always told me that she wished I could someday see my homeland. She was with us for the first two years, but then she died in an accident. Her car flipped over in a stampede and she never made it to the hospital.
I have grown up with my father ever since. We help our people and they rely on us to keep them safe. But I have not grown up naïve. My father and some of the men at the Missionary taught everyone, girl and boy alike, how to shoot a gun when we turned eight years old. They said that because our home was prone to war, that everyone needed to know how to defend themselves. I loved my new family, despite the constant fights between the Militia and the Rebels. The Rebels were on our side, but the Militia was prone to kill at random. And that was why we were always in constant fear and why every one of my friends carried a gun, as I did. But we didn't just carry 9mm hand guns, we also carried semi-automatic rifles and anything else we could get our hands on when a Militia group died within or around or Mission.
I alone carried a fighting sword and two daggers which were strapped to my ankles. I had another sword, a samurai sword across my back at all times. It was a prized possession, a friend had given it to me and also taught me how to use it before he had been taken away from me and went to join my mother. I carried it everywhere with me and it never left my sight. I even slept with it, clutched tight in my hands as all my other weapons surrounded me, just in case we were attacked during the night and I had to fight to see my friends and family, fight to stay alive. I was a very skilled sixteen-year-old, more skilled and more knowledgeable then most teens my age.
I started pen paling Ruthie Camden through a pen-pal organization through the church my father worked for. Ruthie's father was the Reverend at Glenoak Community Church and he was the one that had given her my letter. That is how the Camden family became forever entwined with the Williams family and they could not break that bond, not now and not ever. Ruthie and I exchanged photographs, and she was surprised by my photograph, as I had all my weapons on and I was wearing comfortable blue jeans, a tight halter top and my samurai sword was hanging over my back and across my shoulders, my long black hair was pulled into a ponytail and the tattoo of my lion cub was showing on my right shoulder. I also had on my machete, which was tied onto my belt to keep it from slipping off my belt. She of course wasn't as exotic as I was, but she still loved hearing from me everyday and I loved writing to her and hearing from her.
But when war broke out in my country, I had to stop writing to her, knowing that the possibility of our letters being interrupted by the Militia was more possible than ever. And she started to wonder if I had forgotten about her, until I called on a secure line from the American Embassy within the Congo. Then she knew that she was not going to be able to get another letter from me and she told me she would do everything in her power to get me out of the Congo with my refugees and to the safety of America, to the safety of Glenoak, no matter what it took. She was a true friend and I could count on her, no matter what happened.
So why did my father think I needed to go to a normal school in America? Did he know what was about to happen? And how did he know? Was he like what almost all the elders had said about him? Was he somehow linked to the past, present and the future? And was I somehow about to fulfill a prophetic destiny that I never knew about? Would Ruthie be able to fulfill her promise and get me and my people to the safety of America, to the safety of Glenoak, California, no matter what the risk was?