Lost Are Found (A Prairie Heritage, Book 6)

by Vikki Kestell

  Kari wept, her face pressed against the door, her hot tears staining its wood. She wept and she heard the words of Rose’s journal beating a rhythm in her soul:

  Surrender. Surrender to the Lordship of Jesus. Surrender. Surrender to Jesus.

  The wall of doubt and willfulness within Kari crumbled and gave way. With all the broken pieces of her heart, she surrendered.

  ~~**~~

  Chapter 18

  Kari didn’t know how long she knelt, pressed against the door to Rose’s old room. Her tears had dried. No voice spoke to her again. But within her soul a light flickered and burned, warming her, soothing her.

  “O Jesus,” she whispered. “O Jesus. Thank you.”

  Holy! Kari’s heart thumped. Holy! You are holy, Lord!

  The sacred presence of God in that hallway lingered. Kari became aware that Alannah, too, was on her knees, several feet away, her hands clasped, her eyes closed, her mouth moving in silent words.

  She feels him, too, Kari realized. Jesus.

  Holy! Kari’s heart called again.

  Kari drew a deep breath and slowly stood to her feet. Alannah opened her eyes and stood with her.

  “What happened, Kari?” Alannah breathed. “God did something, something wonderful. I know. I felt him!”

  “You’re a . . . Christian, right?” Kari answered.

  “Yes. I am.”

  In those two words, Kari heard that Voice again . . . I Am.

  “I . . . he . . . Jesus.” The tears Kari thought were finished flowed again. “He spoke to me! From the other side of the door, he said, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. He said, Only you can open the door.

  “What did you do?” Alannah’s eyes had also filled and were overflowing.

  Kari looked down for a moment. “I said yes.” She smiled with trembling lips. “I said yes to Jesus. I kept hearing those words from Rose’s journal: Surrender to Jesus. I said yes.

  Alannah touched Kari’s arm. “You will never be the same, Kari. From this day forward. Now I know and have no doubts that God himself led you to find Rose’s journal and led you . . . here.”

  The two women walked down the long staircase together. “If you don’t mind,” Kari murmured, “I think I’d like to go sit in the gazebo? Would that be a problem?”

  “Not at all.” Alannah walked outside with Kari and they found seats in the vine-shaded gazebo. “Aunt Shan-Rose’s room is just here,” she whispered, pointing to the windows.

  Kari nodded. She wanted to be quiet anyway. They sat for a long while, both of them re-living what had happened in the dank hallway upstairs.

  “Alannah,” Kari asked at last, keeping her voice low, “How did Palmer House end? How did it come to be Shan-Rose’s?”

  “Will you walk around the yard with me, Kari?”

  Alannah took Kari’s hand and folded it into the crook of her arm so that they were walking arm-in-arm. Surprisingly, Kari felt comforted by her gesture of companionship. They wandered through the old pine trees in the front yard and meandered along a path that led down the side of the house to the back.

  “Martha Palmer died in 1917,” Alannah said, quite out of the blue. “I hear that when she passed, everyone was shocked to learn the contents of her will.

  “She left an ample amount to her great-nephew—her only living relative—and a tidy little stipend to a Mr. Wheatley, an dear and trusted old friend of Joy and Grant’s.”

  “Mr. Wheatley! Oh, yes. I read quite a bit about him from Rose’s journal.” Kari nodded, satisfied to hear the elderly gent had been taken care of in his last years.

  “Martha left her house—not Palmer House, but the one she lived in for many years—to Mei-Xing and Minister Liáng’s children. The rest of it, the bulk of Martha Palmer’s fortune—considerable in those days I hear—was not left to Mei-Xing, as some had expected.”

  “Oh?” Kari glanced at Alannah, a little surprised to find her watching her. They stopped their stroll and Alannah faced Kari.

  “She left only her house and a small amount of money to Mei-Xing. The remainder of her fortune was placed into a trust. The trust was to pay a set amount for Palmer House’s expenses each year as long the ministry was in operation. The remainder was to be paid out to two individuals, beginning in the twenty-first year of each of them.”

  “Who were those two people?” Kari asked.

  Alannah observed her closely as she replied, “Shan-Rose Liáng and Edmund Thoresen Michaels.”

  Kari didn’t know why she felt Alannah was waiting, watching for her response. She shrugged her shoulders. “That was quite marvelous of Mrs. Palmer—especially paying the expenses of Palmer House. Rose mentioned several times in her journal how difficult the finances were.”

  Rose prayed her heart out, is more like it, Kari added to herself.

  Then she thought of something. “So what happened to the house’s ministry, anyway?”

  Alannah smiled and took Kari’s hand again. “The house became too difficult to maintain. It cost a fortune to heat and cool and lacked some of the modern amenities the ministry needed. Moreover, there just weren’t as many girls coming into it as had before.

  “The board of directors—yes, they had a board by then—decided that a smaller, more modern facility would work better. They rented a newer five-bedroom house and moved the ministry there. Sadly, it did not work well. Somewhere along the way, the original vision for this ministry got lost. The leadership’s approach became more humanistic rather than God-breathed.”

  “God-breathed?” Kari was unfamiliar with the term.

  “Did Rose describe some of the wonderful things God did in the early years of the ministry? Did she write about women’s lives being miraculously transformed?”

  “Oh, yes! To be truthful, that was what first engaged me in her journal. In her first entry she wrote—I have it memorized, you see—:

  For on those whom you have poured your Son’s lifeblood, you have also placed the most value. Can any earthly treasures be worth more? No, Lord, they cannot.

  Kari shook her head in wonder. “It was the first time I had heard how much value God places on people. I didn’t understand what it meant the first time I read it, but today I feel like she wrote that about me!” The tears threatened to fall again and Kari choked up.

  Alannah gave Kari’s arm an understanding squeeze. “I know. I know just what you mean. Those words she wrote? She wrote them under the influence of the Holy Spirit—as though God himself had breathed on them. That was how Palmer House was birthed and why it was successful for so long.”

  Alannah huffed. “Then the board of directors, over many objections, placed leadership of the new house in those who had no idea what the power of God could do. They relied on programs and methods instead of God’s word and his power.

  “However, Martha Palmer’s trust was set up under strict guidelines. The new leadership couldn’t meet the requirements to continue the funding and lost it. Our family felt The Lord was leading us in another direction, so we let go of it, knowing that God’s heart was guiding us.

  “You see, according to what I’ve heard and later observed, from the time she was a teen Shan-Rose had a powerful call of God on her life. Her entire life, she has been on the front lines, working with women in prison, in drug addiction, in prostitution—you name it, she was there, leading the way. She never married and she never veered from her calling. I admire her more than any woman I know.”

  Alannah sighed in remembrance. “Anyway, when the board of directors of Palmer House moved the ministry from here, Shan-Rose asked her siblings to buy her out of her part of the house they had inherited from Martha Palmer. Shan-Rose took her share and the money she had left from Martha’s trust fund and bought this house.

  “She used it in a limited manner as it had been intended for several years. But about fifteen years ago, when she was nearing seventy, she more or less retired—after her siblings begged her to slow down.

  “She lived here alon
e until last year, still ministering a little outside the house but not having women live here with her. Then the family insisted she either move in with one of them or have someone live here full time to care for her. Shan-Rose picked Mixxie, which was quite a shock to us all, given Mixxie’s attitude and behaviors.

  “Everyone was equally surprised when Mixxie accepted. Well, she needed a job and wanted to get out of her parents’ house, but I think Shan-Rose has ulterior motives.” Alannah grinned. “It’s my opinion that Shan-Rose will work on Mixxie until she gets what she’s after.”

  Kari made a face. “That girl! I almost slapped her, Alannah; I won’t deny it. She said some pretty rude things—even some strange things about me.”

  “Oh?” Alannah feigned mild curiosity. “What sort of strange things?”

  Kari shrugged. “She was raving about how I came in here with a sob story saying I didn’t have any money and something about my saying you guys were my long-lost family. First of all, I certainly never asked for money or even hinted at such a thing! I have my own money and I sure don’t need anyone else’s! Second of all, I’d like to know how I could be related to the Liángs! Um, hello! If you’ve got eyes, you can plainly tell that I’m not even remotely Asian, right?”

  Alannah cut her eyes at Kari. Nothing, Lord. She really hasn’t a clue!

  Alannah picked up the pace of their meander around the house and asked in a playful manner, “So you have your own moolah, huh, lady? Don’t need ours?” Alannah laughed but at the same time she was digging for information. “Despite how this place looks, Shan-Rose has little left and the rest of us are all just working slobs.”

  “No, I don’t need anything,” Kari muttered. “To quote my attorney, I just inherited ‘plenty’ from my great-uncle. He left me a home in New Orleans, too.”

  “Really? How nice.” They walked in relative silence again, but Alannah’s brain was whirring in high gear. “New Orleans is a wonderful place. What part of town is your house?”

  “I’m not familiar enough with the city to say what area it’s in. It’s on Marlow Avenue, 2787 Marlow Avenue, if you know where that is.”

  Alannah made careful note of the address. I need to make the trip to NOLA for myself, she decided. I want my own boots on the ground to ferret out exactly what is and isn’t true. And who was this “Great-Uncle Peter” anyway? I have my suspicions, but we need proof.

  Kari and Alannah joined Shan-Rose and Mixxie in the dining room for a late lunch. “We usually eat in the kitchen,” Shan-Rose confessed, “but having you here is a special occasion.”

  Me? A special occasion? Kari glanced at Mixxie and ran up against her perpetual scowl.

  “Tell me what you thought of the house, my dear,” Shan-Rose invited. “And help yourself to some of that salad.”

  Kari thought for a minute. “I confess that the upstairs is rather sad-looking after all the years of use and now . . . nothing.” She dithered, shy about saying anything more.

  “Will you tell her what happened upstairs?” Alannah asked. She was staring at Kari, telling her it was all right.

  “Something happened?” Shan-Rose fretted. “Oh, dear. I told Quan that the roof could be leaking up on the third floor!”

  “No; it’s nothing like that, Shan-Rose.” Kari didn’t want the old woman worrying. “It’s a . . . good thing that happened.”

  “Oh?” Shan-Rose seemed to sense the momentous tone of Kari’s response. “Will you tell me?”

  Kari did want to tell, but maybe not in front of Mixxie who seemed to heap scorn on everything she did not like or understand. She glanced once at Mixxie and then turned back to Shan-Rose.

  “I—that is, we—had finished looking at the house, everything except Rose’s old bedroom. I knew which one it was, you see, from the descriptions she put in her journal. Anyway . . .”

  Kari’s words trailed off a moment as she placed herself back in that hallway, outside Rose’s door. “I was standing at her door, but the other rooms were so . . . different from what they used to be . . . that I decided I wouldn’t open the door to Rose’s room and be disillusioned. Disappointed.”

  Shan-Rose nodded, saddened. “I understand. It’s not the same for me anymore, either.” She placed her tiny, frail hand on Kari’s and patted it gently.

  “Well, I was just standing there . . . sort of, I guess, talking to Rose. Oh, not talking to her; I know she’s not there and not a ghost or anything—that would be silly. But I just stood in front of her door and wished that I could talk to her.”

  I wished she would hold me, Kari admitted to herself, like she used to hold her girls, the girls of Palmer House. How I wanted to be one of her girls!

  “I told her I wished she were there to tell me about Jesus. But then I heard.” Kari stopped, the words thick in her throat. “I heard Jesus calling to me! To me! He said he had always been there and that he was standing at the door and knocking and I should let him in.”

  Kari looked from Shan-Rose to Alannah and back. “That sounds crazy, doesn’t it? That Jesus should be on the other side of the door? But I know he was there! And he asked me to surrender. And I did! And I felt him inside of me! You felt it, too, Alannah, didn’t you?”

  Mixxie made a show of rolling her eyes. Kari ignored her and saw that Alannah and Shan-Rose did, too.

  “Oh, yes! I did feel it, Kari. I felt the presence of God in that hallway,” Alannah agreed. “I was on my knees praying because I could feel he was doing something powerful, something wonderful, even though I didn’t know what. But what you heard him say to you? What he asked you to do? That isn’t crazy at all, Kari.”

  “Right,” Mixxie grumbled, “’cause we don’t do crazy here.”

  No one paid her any attention.

  Alannah went into the great room and returned with Shan-Rose’s Bible. She had it opened toward the back. “You see this passage? Read what it says.”

  Kari took the worn book and looked where Alannah’s finger was pointing. She read aloud,

  Behold,

  I stand at the door, and knock:

  if any man hear my voice,

  and open the door,

  I will come in to him,

  and will sup with him,

  and he with me.

  “But that is almost exactly what Jesus said!” Kari was so excited she was stammering. “How can it be the same thing?”

  “Because whatever God does will always agree with what he has already said,” Shan-Rose answered. “After he has promised something, he doesn’t change his mind and go back on his word, like people do.”

  “Why are the words printed in red?” Kari asked.

  “Everywhere Jesus himself is speaking is printed in red,” Mixxie sneered. “Can’t believe you don’t know that.”

  “Mei-Xing Liáng!” Shan-Rose’s rebuke was loud and sharp. “You do not sneer at what God himself is doing or has done! What he has done in Kari is sacred and is not to be ridiculed.”

  “What a crock! It’s all a crock! And I can’t stand it anymore—you least of all,” Mixxie spat the last words at Kari and ran from the room.

  Kari blinked, unsure of what had just happened but realizing that Mixxie’s anger was more than about her coming to Palmer House.

  Shan-Rose sighed. “Please don’t be offended by Mixxie, Kari,” she advised, stirring her tea and sighing again. While Shan-Rose seemed perturbed, Kari thought she also seemed resolute. “Mixxie is running as fast as she can from The Lord. Anger is her defense, but you cannot outrun the God who created you.”

  Kari nodded. “Someone said to me not long ago, ‘It is both sad and astonishing how hard people fight against Jesus when he calls to them.’ I relate, because honestly . . . I have been fighting against him a long time. My whole life, in fact.”

  Shan-Rose placed her hand on Kari’s again. “And he never gave up on you, did he? No matter how fiercely you fought him, he still heard you when you called to him. That’s the way our God is.”

  She picked
up her fork but stopped to reflect. “A family that is committed to The Lord has tremendous power to pray for family members who have lost their way. Or have been lost to them. It is our motto, you know, the Thoresens, O’Dells, Liángs, and Carmichaels: Lost Are Found.

  “Our families are tied together by the blood Jesus shed for us, by our shared service in The Lord, and by our shared troubles. We do not give up, Kari. We have never given up on those who walk away—or on those who were taken from us. We—Joy and O’Dell, Isaac and Breona, Grandma Rose, and my mother and father, and our families—have lived by this motto for as long as I can remember.”

  Kari thought she saw Shan-Rose and Alannah exchange the most fleeting of glances but she wasn’t sure. She turned her eyes to her plate.

  Lost Are Found? I thought that was the name of Joy’s missing children’s ministry. It seemed to Kari that another facet of that simple phrase was hidden from her in a manner that Shan-Rose and Alannah understood but she did not.

  Kari was saying goodbye, getting ready to take her leave. She was exhausted physically but oddly at peace otherwise. “Shan-Rose, was Quan serious when he said I should go to RiverBend and visit Rose’s family?”

  “Oh, yes, Kari. Quite serious.”

  Kari thought for a moment. “Alannah, do you know where Grant Michaels is buried? For that matter, where Joy and O’Dell are buried?”

  Alannah, who was also readying to leave, looked to Shan-Rose. “Grant’s grave is here in Denver, isn’t it, Auntie?”

  “Yes; Riverside Cemetery, I believe. I have a faint memory of going there with Mother and Father when I was a little girl. We met Joy, O’Dell, Grandma Rose, and several others to place flowers on his grave. I think it was right before Joy and O’Dell married.”

  “Would you like to go there?” Alannah asked Kari.

  “I very much would. Quan asked me to stay another day and night before leaving for RiverBend. I could go to the cemetery tomorrow.”

  “I work tomorrow, but I believe Fen-Bai would be delighted to take you.”