Melody Carson, Notes From a Spinning Planet – Papua, New Guinea

Notes from a Spinning Planet - Papua, New Guinea

Melody Carson

Waterbrook, February 2007, $12.99

ISBN: 1400071453

Twenty year old Maddie Chase wonders how you're gonna keep her down on the farm after she's seen Ireland, while accompanying her Aunt Sid on an investigation into Catholic-Protestant peace camps. Unlike the trepidation during her first trek, this time when Aunt Sid invites Maddie to accompany her on her next assignment, she is euphoric, feeling prepared for the world.

However, Maddie is stunned with what she and her Aunt Sid find in Papua, New Guinea in the South pacific. AIDS is a pandemic leading killer, and life is cheap. Maddie tries to bring solace through Jesus to those dying from AIDS, while the Lord enables her to see a beautiful country in crisis.

The second journey is an insightful tale that enables teens and adults to better understand the AIDS crisis in an impoverished third world nation. Some readers might find it difficult to see hope and inspiration as Maddie does in the Lord, as the age old question of why bad things occur to good people consistently surfaces. Melody Carson provides a deep discerning tale that surfaces a global catastrophe, using New Guinea as the conflicting model of hope and despair.