30 Days of Faith

Writer Mike Dellosso has been publishing "30 Days of Faith" at his blog this month, posting a contribution on a story of faith each day from readers. Today (Day 11 in the series) he has a contribution from me.

I've told this story before, but there's a new wrinkle (which I don't mention in the post). In December, I was having breakfast with a good friend who is a missionary in Costa Rica. He and his family were on a home visit and we had some time to catch up. He was telling me about their mission work, and I was telling him about my new book, Dancing Priest. We then talked about the possibilities for short-term mission work, and I mentioned the trip I took to Central Europe in 2002.

And then it hit me. During that trip, our team met with a young German minister in Erfurt who was ministering to scores of people following a shooting at a local high school; 13 people, including the gunman, had been killed. I've described what happened before, but during my breakfast conversation with my friend, I realized that the minister had inspired the character of Michael Kent in my novel.

I could almost hear the click-click-click as all the brain synapses connected.