Six-foot-six; 300 pounds of iron muscle; 1908. No one argues with Cornelius that bitterly cold day as he relieves the townsfolk of their massive church door for a less religious, but far holier purpose than keeping the dogs and sheep out. No one tries to stop him as smashes it to splinters with his sledge hammer and delivers it to the shivering family of thirteen who live next door to the church and have run out of firewood. And no one will forget.

Fortified by such a heritage, and spurred by rumblings of imminent political chaos, Cornelius' daughter-in-law Katrina takes her family on a six thousand mile journey from a remote subsistence farm on the inhospitable Russian steppes to western Canada. Along the way, they inadvertently become involved in a clandestine operation rescuing half-starved children from forced labor, and face cultural clashes and moral dilemmas, all with surprising results.

Two World Wars challenge their Mennonite imperative of non-resistance. By the end of World War II, the family can no longer ignore the conflict between their suffocating cultural tenets and the social realities of the new era. And young Smiley, the focus of a dark family secret, makes a painful decision with lifetime consequences. Was it the right one? With the help of a recovering alcoholic and a disillusioned call girl, he finds the answer.

Much of the book is based on true stories, and takes the reader from Russia to the Canadian prairies to the Kamloops and Cache Creek region of British Columbia.

This is a tale of uncommon courage and resilience of the human spirit.