In 1972, a plane full of rugby players and their families crashed in The Andes Mountains. The story is well known. Scarcely with any food or water, suffering sub-zero temperatures, only sixteen of forty-five made it out alive. After nearly three months struggling to survive, injured, famished, freezing, against all possible odds a couple of them finally managed to climb across The Andes without any mountain gear and reach a nearby town to call for help. Their survival was legendary. News about it traveled the world, it was called the “Miracle of the Andes.” I’ll remain a member of our Facebook group; hope to see you there. Keep on reading and sharing and reviewing!

This book is a great encouragement to allwho would follow God’s teachings andlead a Christian life. The author details the preparations for her own journey of learning to accept and love Jesus. However, she writes, too,with great honesty about the difficulties she hadto overcome. The manner in which her friends, her fellow travellers, became Christians, receiving God’s guidance and encouragement through the grace of the Holy Spirit, is also described. The author shares valuable insights into the character of God revealed in Jesus Christ and feels strongly that the things that she and her friends have learnt should be passed on to benefit others. She would find herself hiding behind the converted chapel in which they lived to avoid talking to people, begging Moth to speak to them so that she didn’t have to and, when things got really bad, erecting their old tent in their new bedroom and sleeping in it. Many people with urban lives feel that they have no connection to nature, but you can feel that connection anywhere Raynor Winn One of the most heartbreaking aspects transpires as the group starts to run out of food. They ration a bit of chocolate after a few days, but once that dwindles, they look to their fellow passengers as sustenance. Most are completely against the idea because of their religious morals, but as time goes on, they come to the collective decision that the soul has left the body, and if Jesus gave up his body and blood for the people so that they all may live, these frozen bodies would help give them a chance for survival. The details are ultimately soul-crushing, but their fellow passengers who passed on helped a few of them survive in the end.Sixteen Men, Seventy-Two Days, and Insurmountable Odds—the Classic Adventure of Survival in the Andes

Of course our primary instinct as mammals is to survive and the fans and football players alike face this dilemma, Famous story of the Uruguayan rugby team that survived ten weeks in the Andes, largely because they ate the dead passengers.This edition had interviews with the author and two survivors thirty years after the publication of the book. It's really hard for me to believe that Read was only thirty-one years old when he was selected for this great project, even though he'd previously only written fictional novels. I also love that it was extremely fact based. Nowhere in this book is the reader told what they should feel about sensitive subject matter, and yet it was told in such a way that I felt involved–a spectator and visitor to the stranded fuselage that served as home to the survivors. I'm glad I read this before I read Nando Parrado's personal memoir about the ordeal, Miracle in The Andes, although it will probably be some time before I can recircle this event. It really moved me to the core. Definitely a compelling read. Inspirational and gut wrenching. I’m thrilled that my top choice to take on this role has agreed: Claire Musters. She’s already known to you with her articles, interviews and the unseen but fine editing she does for the magazine. She and I share a passion for words, books, writing and spirituality, and I’ve no doubt that she will give her own wonderful imprint on the book club. Passing along the baton feels much easier when I know that she will excel with it. Anne believes the key message she hopes readers take away from The Wilderness Way is the inscription on Cornelia’s cross - ‘Preserve with each other sincere charity and peace’.