Mable looked at her closely. "Where were you born, if not Canada? Your English is perfect."

Heat rose in Mary's cheeks. "I was born in Chengtu, Szechwan, China."

And so began the sharing of Mary Sibley's life story and her exploration of a foundational question. Was it worth the cost of all the dedication, and even the very lives, of the missionaries, doctors, and nurses who strove to bring the Word to inland China?

And after Mary's parents returned to the mission field from furlough in Canada without her, how did she cope as fourteen-year-old left alone in a faraway country? China had at one time been an all-new adventure for her Canadian-born parents, but to Mary, China was all she had ever known. Canada was the strange country.