Book Spotlight: Love's True Home

My guest author today has become a dear friend over the last few years even though we haven't met in person (YET!). I'm blessed to be her content editor, but also in a novella collection with her in a few months too. If you haven't tried one of Lori DeJong's stories, I highly recommend them. So, sit back and check out her thoughts on how her fiction is a mission.

In my newest release, Love’s True Home, Ally, my female protagonist, was raised as the daughter of foreign missionaries in several Central American countries. Now residing in Arlington, Texas, she longs to grow her roots deep into American soil, although her widowed father still works among the indigenous people at a medical mission in Guatemala.
While Ally loves the people of Guatemala and the work the missionaries like her father do there, she believes strongly that it’s not her calling and prefers to work in student ministry back in the US. That’s where she meets Zane, an adventurous young man who loves working with young people as much as she does.
​So, it comes as a shock to her when a visit to the Guatemalan village where her father serves becomes the very thing that threatens to tear them apart, when Zane’s long-held dream of serving on foreign soil is suddenly on the verge of coming true, but Ally knows she can’t share it.

​
As I began the research for Guatemala, the Lord brought into my path, literally, a very special young lady named Natalie Arauco. Natalie and I met in a hallway on the way to a social event at the 2022 American Christian Fiction Writers National Conference in St. Louis. We introduced ourselves and realized we were both from Texas, literally forty-five miles from each other, which we thought was a huge coincidence in itself since Texas is the size of … well, Texas is really, really big, y’all.
I told her she should come to my writers’ group in Georgetown. But then she said she was currently working as a missionary … IN GUATEMALA. I actually stopped in my tracks. Right there outside the door of the event we were going to. I couldn’t believe it. I told her there was a Guatemalan mission in Book Two of the series I was writing, and I had just started my research, and all the information online was completely overwhelming. We made plans to meet up again at the end of the conference, exchanged contact information, then over the next year, exchanged numerous emails and met twice via Zoom.
I have thanked the Lord many times over for Natalie. In fact, I pray very often for Natalie and have her photo on my refrigerator to remember to pray for her and the work she’s doing as a teacher in the Guatemalan village of Chivoc. Natalie spent so much time with me over Zoom answering my dozens of questions, and when she said she would send me some photos, she sent me over 200 hundred photos and videos, y’all! She even did a sensitivity read for me so I could be sure I represented Guatemala the way it should be.
Natalie loves to share about these people she holds in her heart. There is so much poverty, and so much domestic abuse, and many of the children don’t stay in school past third or fourth grade. But through the work that Natalie and other missionaries are doing, many children are staying through junior high and even high school, graduating and improving their lives and the lives of their community. She’s an inspiring young lady, and she’s blessed my heart immeasurably.
In the book, Zane’s in a foreign country for the first time, spellbound as they’re entering the fictional town of Pamoca in the mountainous region of Guatemala. Here’s an excerpt and a photo that might give you a small snapshot of what he might’ve seen that day.
 
Ally squeezed his hand. “Welcome to Pamoca.”
“We’re here?”
“These are the outskirts, about ten minutes from the mission.”
His insides clenched in anticipation. The town of Pamoca, Ally had told him, was home to approximately fifteen thousand souls. There were also several outlying villages close enough that the missionaries could travel there and back in a day, providing medical treatment and dental checks, all while sharing the gospel. He hoped they might get to go on one or two during their two weeks here. How cool to be able to see mission work in a foreign land firsthand.
The area became more congested, and the dirt road gave way again to pavement. In the town square, the marketplace teemed with people, including merchants selling everything from eggs to traditional clothing to woven goods and everything in between.
“Is there no central place to buy groceries?”
Ally shook her head. “You buy what you need from whatever merchant provides it. Meat from one, vegetables from another, beans from yet another, and so on. You’d be hard-pressed to find much dairy, though. Milk, butter, and processed cheese are a luxury.”
He peered out the window again. “So many kids. Why aren’t they in school?”
“The school year is January through early November, so they’re essentially on the equivalent of what a summer break would be back in the US. And, unfortunately, many of the kids don’t go to school past third grade or so. They’re needed to help at home, whether it’s farm work, construction, brick-laying, weaving. Most traditional Guatemalans are of the opinion a higher education isn’t as important as the help their children can provide at home.”
********
I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into Guatemala, and at Zane and Ally. They really are so cute together. And both committed to being who God wants them to be, where God wants them to be. My key verse for this book is from Proverbs 16:3, from the NIV, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and He will establish your plans.”

---

Love's True Home​

Allyson Kincaid needs roots. Born and raised on the foreign mission field, all she wants is home and hearth on American soil. Finally past the break-up with the man she’d thought was the love of her life, she’s ready to put herself back out there. Too bad the first guy who’s made her pulse skip in nearly two years dreams of a life spent in foreign missions. She’s been there, done that, and, although she supports him in his calling, knows his choice means she’ll be laying even more broken dreams, and a newly shattered heart, at the feet of Jesus.
When Zane Carpenter relocates to Arlington, Texas, his seventh move in thirteen years, his only thought is to meet his obligation with Becker Ministries in a few months, then take a foreign mission assignment, his dream for the past several years. But working so closely with Ally in student ministry has him feeling things he’s never experienced. He’s ready for a future with her, until he accepts an opportunity to work on foreign soil and Ally stays behind. He knows God put him there for a reason, although his heart still longs for the girl back home.

---

---

Lori DeJong is a contemporary Christian romance author who enjoys penning stories full of grace and the redemptive power of God’s love that inspire others to hope regardless of circumstance, find joy in the moment, and grow in their faith. She resides in Georgetown, Texas, with her husband and two fur-babies and is the mother of one grown daughter. Lori's debut novel, "Love's True Calling", was the 2022 winner of the ACFW Genesis Award for Romance and was released in June 2023. "Love’s True Home" is Book Two in the series and released in June 2024, and "Love’s True Measure" will release in June 2025. Lori's Christmas novella, "Jingle Bell Matchmakers", releases as part of "A Match Made at Christmas" novella collection in October 2024.
 
Links:

Website:  https://loridejongwrites.com/
Community:   https://bit.ly/LoriDeJongCommunity
Instagram:   https://www.instagram.com/loridejongwrites/
Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/loridejongwrites
Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/author/loridejongwrites
GoodReads:   https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/38460845.Lori_DeJong
Bookbub:   https://www.bookbub.com/profile/lori-dejong

---