Kennedy Stern Christian Suspense Complete Box Set (Books 1-9)

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Grandma Lucy frowned at the gruesome image. “And your roommate?” she asked. “Is she born-again, too?”

Kennedy was spared the chore of stammering an awkward reply when the math teacher Willow had been flirting with came up to their row.

“Bathroom full?” he asked.

Willow plucked out her earbuds and offered her most winsome grin. “Hey, Ray. I was hoping we’d bump into each other during the flight.”

Kennedy unbuckled her safety belt. “It looks like there’s a line, so why don’t you take my seat and I’ll come over here.” She stepped across the aisle and sat in the window seat beside Grandma Lucy. Her contacts were getting dry anyway, so now was probably as good a time as any to take a break from reading.

Grandma Lucy took Kennedy’s hand in hers. Her skin was surprisingly soft for someone with so many wrinkles. “That was sweet of you, dear. Now let me take a look at you.” She stared for several seconds before she gave her hand a squeeze. “You don’t have to tell me. Let me guess. You’re studying to be a missionary, aren’t you?”

Kennedy slipped her hand away, surprised at how warm it felt. “A doctor, actually.”

Grandma Lucy nodded, as if she had known that all along. “Medical missions, then?”

Kennedy didn’t know what to say. Did Grandma Lucy’s version of a born-again believer require some sort of ministry focus to prove your devotion?

“I’m not sure. I’m still doing my undergrad studies, so I guess I have plenty of time to figure that out.” She let out an uncomfortable laugh.

Grandma Lucy chuckled too, tentatively as if she weren’t sure what was so funny. “It’s just that when I first looked at you, something in my spirit said missionary. I’m sure that’s what I heard.” She frowned and looked around her, as if her train of thought had derailed and she had to visibly track it down.

Kennedy had an unsettled feeling in the base of her spine. Why did it seem as though every other Christian on this flight was getting direct messages from the Lord except for her? Had God ever spoken to her that way before? Or maybe he had tried, and Kennedy just didn’t know what to listen for.

“You’re sure you’re not a missionary?” Grandma Lucy pressed.

“No, but my parents are.”

Grandma Lucy’s face lit up before Kennedy could continue. “That’s what it was. I knew you had a missions call on your life the moment I saw you with that book. My family was good friends with Gladys, you know. She came to visit us on more than one occasion when we lived in Shanghai.”

“Really?” Kennedy’s interest was piqued, and since Willow was busy laughing with her new travel partner, Kennedy figured she may as well try to enjoy her conversation.

“My parents were missionaries in China. I was born over there, in fact, and my father had a little Christian store he ran for decades before the Communists shut it down. When war broke out with Japan, we ran into Gladys on more than one occasion. She was taking care of so many kids!”

Lost in thought, Grandma Lucy continued to speak of her time in Shanghai during the Sino-Japanese War. Stories of bombings, narrow escapes from death, heroic ventures her father undertook to help the injured, the selfless sacrifices her mother made to assist the war orphans.

“Of course, she never took in as many as Gladys,” Grandma Lucy remarked with a smile that lit up her whole face and pushed her spectacles up on her cheeks. “But she did what God called her to, which is all he expects from each one of us, isn’t it?”

Kennedy nodded, even though her mind was still back in war-torn Shanghai where Grandma Lucy had recounted stories of fires and destruction as readily as if she were talking about Sunday picnics in Central Park.

“And what about you?” she finally asked. “You say you’re in medical school?”

“Pre-med,” Kennedy corrected and spent the next few minutes answering questions about life as an undergrad student at Harvard.

“And are you part of a good church body over there?”

“Yeah.” Kennedy didn’t admit that she only made it to St. Margaret’s once or twice a month, fearing it might make Grandma Lucy rethink Kennedy’s previous claim of being a true born-again believer.

“That’s good.” Grandma Lucy nodded sagely. “I ask because that grandson of mine I just visited, he graduated from Harvard a few years ago, and it filled him with so many idolatrous, liberal views of God and religion and the world.” She sighed. “He’s a great boy, don’t get me wrong. Has a heart bigger than most Christians who fill the churches across this country. Gets worked up over injustice and actually does something about it. Just to give you an example, before he left for work in Asia, he was in Detroit of all places, interviewing parents about this issue they’re having in the education system there. The schools, they’re falling apart. Not just the system, I mean the actual buildings are falling apart. One school’s pipes were so bad, they were leaking lead into the drinking fountains. Had been going on for years before anyone fixed it. Just terrible. And then this whole big mess over the Brown Elementary School. You heard about that whole controversy, I’m sure.”

“Actually, no.” Kennedy tried not to sound embarrassed at the confession. She’d been so busy with her studies that if her dad didn’t send her a link from one of his conservative news sites or Pastor Carl didn’t say anything about it from the pulpit, she’d never hear about a particular current event. Especially not one from as far away as Detroit.

Grandma Lucy shook her head. “Terrible thing. I don’t have all the facts. You’d have to talk to Ian about that. But it has something to do with them closing down one elementary school and merging it with another. Well, that was the plan. But the school they needed to shut down was mostly minorities, and the one they were going to merge with was more upper-class, and those parents got themselves all worked up. Made such a stink that the school district decided to build a new school for the poor kids instead, except the site they were planning to build on was in a bad part of town. I’m not talking crime. That’s bad just about everywhere in Detroit from what I hear.

“But where they planned the new building, the land itself was no good. All kind of contaminants in the soil, toxic waste from chemical factories. Except the parents of these students, they weren’t like the upper-class folks. They’re working families, lots of single parents who are at their jobs during the day and can’t attend meetings and forums. Even the ones who have time, a lot of them don’t speak English well and they’re too intimidated to stand up for themselves. So my grandson, he went and documented everything, got some statements from the families and a few other community members to show just how bad things had gotten.

“He sold it to one of the major networks, had it all lined up to air on national television, but then that night some big breaking story took its spot. Something about a murdered politician if I remember right, and that hogged the news for the next week or two until it was past back-to-school season and his network contact said nobody wanted to think about the education system anymore.

“He was pretty upset, obviously, not because of the money or anything, but because he believed in what these parents were going through. Really felt for them, I mean. He told me what he hated most was seeing how the school district gave in to intimidation when it came from the upper-class folks. The rich ones had the clout they needed to make the right kind of noise, but these minority families — the ones whose kids are going to suffer most in this new school they’re building — they don’t get a say at all. He thought he was giving them a voice with his camera, but it never even aired.” She sighed. “He’s got such a sensitive soul, I know God can use him for mighty things if he only gives his life to the Lord.”

“It sounds like God’s already using him,” Kennedy suggested, but Grandma Lucy wasn’t listening.

“I pray every day for that boy to come back to Christ. And now he’s off travelling around Asia. Same thing. Human rights abuses, refugee crises. Always ready to speak up for the downtrodden and oppressed. So he’s off to China with his camera but without the Holy Spirit to guide him. I gave him a Bible, and I told him I’d be praying for him. You know, that’s all any of us can do in these situations, right? What about that roommate of yours? Is she born again?”

Kennedy kept her voice low, glad that Willow was sufficiently distracted. “I don’t think so.”

Grandma Lucy stared over her spectacles. “I take it you’ve witnessed to her by now?”

Kennedy glanced at Willow, who was snuggled up by Ray so they could share the same screen. “Well, I ...”

“You can’t ever be ashamed of the gospel,” Grandma Lucy interrupted. “Your roommate ... I can tell by the way she carries herself, that blue hair, those long earrings, that she’s looking for something.”

Kennedy wasn’t sure you could discern that much about the state of a stranger’s soul at first glance, but she didn’t say anything. Something in Grandma Lucy’s words had snuck past Kennedy’s conversational barriers and found its mark in a conscience already ridden with guilt.

A year and a half sharing the same three-hundred square feet, and what had she done with that time? How many opportunities had she lost, opportunities to share the gospel with Willow, who was hurting, longing for more out of life whether or not her hair color had anything to do with her spiritual condition?

On the one hand, Kennedy was certain that if she were to bring up God or salvation, Willow would go off on one of her tirades against religion. So what was the point? Willow said once that Kennedy was the only Christian she could stand to be around because she never tried to convert anyone. If Kennedy started preaching the gospel every minute of the day, telling Willow she was a sinner in danger of the fires of hell, that would only confirm her assumption that all Christians are judgmental jerks.

But even though her silence on the subject kept the peace between them, was that in Willow’s best interest? Kennedy thought about the missionaries she’d been reading about in those biographies: Hudson Taylor, David Livingstone, Amy Carmichael. The Chinese called Gladys Aylward a foreign devil and threw mud at her the first day she stepped foot on foreign soil. But she had remained faithful to God’s call and ended up leading hundreds to Christ.

Kennedy had never had mud thrown at her, had never been called horrid names, but maybe that was because she’d kept her faith so hidden. She thought about the refugees her parents trained to send back to North Korea as underground missionaries. How many of them would suffer imprisonment or death as a result of their witness? And here was Kennedy, scared of mentioning God because she didn’t want to annoy her roommate.

Were her priorities that askew? Or was she just doing what God wanted her to do? What was it that Grandma Lucy had said earlier, something about nobody having to do more than God asked them to. Maybe Kennedy’s job was to prove to Willow that not all Christians are out solely to win more converts or smugly judge sinful behavior. Maybe that’s all God expected of her.

But how would Willow ever get saved if she never heard the gospel? Kennedy didn’t like the guilt trip, Grandma Lucy’s insinuation that if she really was a born-again believer she should have converted her roommate by now or else died trying like the martyrs of old.

Grandma Lucy laid her hand on Kennedy’s forearm. “Now, you tell me your roommate’s name, and I’m going to add her to my prayer list. Then I’ll give you my phone number and you can let me know when she’s been born again, all right?”

Kennedy sighed. “Her name’s Willow.”

Grandma Lucy pulled a tattered notebook out of her purse. “Willow,” she repeated. “Oh, dear. She’ll be one of the last ones, I’m afraid.” She smiled and explained, “I keep my list alphabetized, so when I’m going to sleep I don’t forget who’s next on the list. I always start with my granddaughter Alayna and make my way down from there. The good news is by the time I get to the Ws, I’ll be nice and warmed up. If I haven’t fallen asleep, that is.”