Hope Indeed

Gerald Shenk has traveled to and lived in many difficult places. He goes to teachand to spot people who act out of hope. When he began to feel fortified by what he discovered, even foolishly rich, he wrote what he had witnessed and heard for the rest of us. Hope Indeed! is his collection of stories of stunningly ordinary people behaving with extraordinary hope. Here are the stories of Ned Wyse, a farmer/pastor in Michigan, chosen randomly for a violent beating by some neighborhood kids, and what he did about it. The Palestinian parents who gave their young murdered son's organs to ill Jewish children. The Amish, who subverted the vicious violation of their innocent children in the Nickel Mines school by refusing to multiply the horror, and instead offered forgiveness and generosity. Jewish Cantor Michael Weisser and his family who took carry-out food to the white supremacists who had harassed them mercilessly. The German Lutheran pastor couple who offered their home to recently desposed and homeless Erich Honecker, who had ruthlessly ruled East Germany. Brother Ivo who kept bringing former Catholic and Muslim neighbors together as war escalated in Bosnia. Says Shenk, 'Here are stories to rehearse if we want to become people who subvert vengeance with kindness.'