Cindy Scott spent two years gathering the several manuscripts her mother penned over fifteen years and combined them with taped interviews to fill in the gaps. The finished work fulfills her promise before her mother's death to see this book, Never Forsaken, published.
Never Forsaken is a labor of love told by Cindy Scott, the daughter of Marion Ghent Jose Lau. Her mother’s memoir reaches back in time to the early 1900’s, through WWII, to present day.
Never Forsaken is a true-life testimony of survival and restoration after WWII, including the big move to America for a better life. I was hooked from the first chapter. Marion’s rendition of life back then, her father’s radical transformation, becoming born again after being a drinker and gambler, reeled me right in. With a tinge of humor in the section of Papa’s new life, this is a touching sentiment of how the Word of God broke through such a calloused heart.
Readers will find Marion Ghent’s harrowing journey as a young girl in the Philippines an amazing adventure. Being the youngest of eleven living siblings and the daughter of a colporteur for the American Bible Society, surely this story is an inspiring read that relates God’s absolute faithfulness and how He works in the humblest of ways. The book also relays the efforts of the foot soldiers of the Gospel, and reveals the treasure of how the Gospel goes forth.
The Ghent’s surviving the shock of war and the tragedies that followed, shed light on loss, but a strong, persevering faith that comes to fruition in finding a new life in America. Certainly, this may be a movie in the making. Exciting, touching, and a powerful story, amazing endurance unfolds during some of life’s pivotal moments, relating Marion’s tale of never being forsaken by God.
Leading to a triumphant restoration with long lost family members after the scattering of the War years, the author takes readers from beginning to an end of an era long gone. One will be left in awe and find inspiration to all that Marion Ghent and her relatives had to go through during those humble years in the Philippines, escaping and hiding in the jungle for three years. In this miraculous book, history literally unfolds as the awful horrors of war in a foreign country.
Cindy Scott has culminated history and the telling of Marion's story, and her life experience that also includes photos, maps, text and indexes explaining these far off and quite exotic places in the Philippines. What an amazing read!
One will find that faith, courage, and overcoming do not come without struggles. Yet, God is ever faithful!
This book comes highly recommended for those that enjoy true-life war stories, happy endings, with God in the mix! I sincerely hope this book becomes a movie. For me, as one who reads many books, this one was truly memorable and unforgettable.
