“The Sunflower”
by Richard Paul Evans
Published: April 2005
ISBN: 0743287010

(Updated: November 19, 2006.)

From the Publisher…

“Seek not your destiny, for it is seeking you.”

Just a week before their marriage, Christine’s fiance calls off the wedding, leaving her heartbroken. With hopes of helping her through a difficult time, Christine”s best friend Jessica enrolls them both on a humanitarian mission in Peru, to work at an orphanage called El Girasol — The Sunflower.

It is while working at the orphanage that Christine meets Paul Cook, a successful and charismatic American doctor who has fled the States after one fatal day took away his career, his faith, and the woman he loved.

Unplanned events lead Paul and Christine into the jungle of the Amazon, where Christine must confront her deepest fears, and she, and Paul, must both learn to trust and love again.

I have had this book on my bookshelf for a while. I think that it was the publisher’s description that made me hold off reading it. But, I finally dove in. And, although the book can be described as a love story, I would describe it as a beautiful description of some truly beautiful people instead. (And, yes, I did want these people to get together :o)

This book is about humanitarianism. The wisdom in it is that by looking after and out for others we ultimately look after ourselves. It is a lovely story.

To find out more about the trip that made this book possible, please see here. To find out more about the orphanage in Peru — the Sunflower — the namesake of this book, please see here.