Warner Davis spends 10 years of his boyhood in a region that is home to malarial mosquitoes, ravenous driver ants, prowling lions, 30-foot-long pythons, and highly venomous mambas. It is also a land of intertribal warfare, rebel occupations, and anarchic government. His father's call to serve as a missionary in the Belgian Congo and his mother's eventual acceptance of that summons land them, his sister and him in tow, in this world seemingly abandoned to unleashed chaos.

Beginning with a rabid dog's attack he survives, a suspenseful story unfolds of Warner's dealing with a fierce uncertainty.

His sense of vulnerability reaches fever pitch when he runs into a poisonous snake on his way to the bathroom in the dead of the night. Frightening as is this close call, and as overwhelming as is the subsequent death of his best friend, his breaking point comes years later when his mother is losing her battle with cancer. Engulfed in the darkness of despair, light breaks through when Warner, drawing inspiration from the courageous role models in his life, reaches a conscious decision to embrace their faith as his own.