This week I’m hosting Stephanie Grace Whitson with A Most Unsuitable Match, Lisa Harris with An Ocean Away, and Leslie Gould and Mindy Starns Clark with The Amish Nanny. If you want to enter the drawings, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (July 17th) evening.
Interview with the heroine from An Ocean Away by Lisa Harris:
1.Lizzy, tell me the most interesting thing about you.
My life, I suppose, has been different from most people. I grew up with my parents in the African bush of Northern Rhodesia. As a child, I spent my free time watching elephants lumber through the tall grass and discovering termite hills and dragonflies in the open veld with my father. It’s a life I wouldn’t trade for the world.
2. What do you do for fun?
I recently spent time in New York City with my friends and family. While I am there, I love walking through Central Park, watching ships come into the harbor, and meeting friends for lunch at the automat.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?
For a long time, I dreaded returning to New York. Being raised between two cultures, made me spend my life trying to figure out which world I belonged to, while never feeling like I completely belonged to either one. Returning, helped me discover that I am the child of the King of Kings, the creator of the universe. God has called us to follow Him, to serve others through His strength, to find intimacy with Him, and to discover that who we are is not based our accomplishments anymore than it is based on our regrets and failures.
4. What are you afraid of most in life?
Hippos. I had a frightening experience along the Zambezi river where they gained my respect and ensured that I wouldn’t go looking for another encounter along those river banks.
5. What do you want out of life?
All my life, I have simply wanted the chance to make a difference in the lives of the people I grew up with. This is something that has come with a cost, but as I have learned in most difficult situations, God has used the situation to dramatically change my own life, forcing me to rely heavier on Him.
6. What is the most important thing to you?
God, family, friends, and my work among the people of Northern Rhodesia.
7. Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read?
My uncle has two walls of floor-to-ceiling walnut bookshelves in his home in New York that hold an extensive collections of books I love to read when I am there. My favorites are on exploration and other cultures.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
As I’ve briefly mentioned already, I’ve learned that I need to change the way I look at life. I have often struggled, living in Africa amongst a people who are not truly my own, and yet not fitting into my own culture either. What I have learned through this is who I am must be based on who God is. Not from me trying to become someone else.
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?
No, but in Africa, one does not have to go far to see a vast array of wildlife just waiting to be discovered.
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
I’ve always enjoyed the story of Queen Esther from the Bible. She was a woman of courage I would love to sit down and talk to and learn from her.
