If you are reading this then you have volunteered to help to edit this book. Thank you. Before we continue there are a few things you should know first about this book that will help you.

Guidelines for my book

Brief book overview: Join Chaz, a missionary kid, on a journey into a remote jungle in SE Asia.  Be swept away by life endangering events that will either doom or save a group of desperate villagers. Encounter mortal-threat, mystery and spiritual warfare, as he learns to hear the voice of God and discover his spiritual giftings. A high stakes battleground determines the fate of many souls. The Final showdown will have you anxious for the sequel: “Garuda’s Wings.”

Target audience: Primarily Christian teenagers ages 12-19. Geared towards boys (more action than romance). Most Christian kids are forbidden from reading Harry Potter and Twilight but are not given an acceptable alternative. This generation is known as Gen Hex because of their interest in the supernatural. My goal is to prepare young people for spiritual realities without preaching at them. I had expected non-Christians would be annoyed with my books, but I have only heard praise from them. Primarily because there is subject matter containing: cross-cultural evangelism, prayer, casting out demons.

About the author: The author grew up in Thailand as a missionary kid. He returned to Thailand as a missionary and has learned to read and speak Thai fluently. He has now lived in Thailand for 18 years primarily involved in Church Planting and Frontier Missions and has led over 40 outreach teams. He, his wife and two children live in ChiangMai Thailand. He now wants to prepare this next generation for spiritual warfare and hearing God’s voice as he writes a series of books from the point of view of missionary kids.

My goal: To offer Christian kids an alternative competitor to Harry Potter.  Since we are on that subject: In the Harry Potter books Harry is very disobedient, and is often rewarded by saving the world and becoming a hero. In my books, disobedience leads to penalties and failure.

Chaz starts out bored, dissatisfied, easily irritated, critical, proud, reckless, wants a girlfriend. I did this to make him human and also to give him room to grow. Also, it emphasized that missionaries are just ordinary people. This adventure grows him up and gives him confidence, wisdom, and held him to understand his spiritual giftings better.

As a part of this you may wonder why the outreach team that visits is so horrible and it might discourage anyone from ever wanting to go on an outreach. First of all, books are made up of conflict. If everything were perfect, then I would have nothing to write about. Secondly, I am contrasting the first team with the second smaller team that goes on the main adventure. In future books I might have a nice team come. Third it moves the plot along- to deal with forgiveness at the end.

Technology – minimal use and mention. This could have happened 50 years ago or 50 years in the future. I don’t want these books to be dated. I avoid cell phones, computers, and as much technology as I can. If you need a place holder then it happens in 1983.

(What I hate about most Christian books is that the hero’s are too squeaky clean to be believable.) If my Characters are to overcome their selfishness, hatred, grouchiness, etc… then I need to show how they got there.

Goals – readers will learn cross-cultural evangelism, demon hunting, tools for Hearing the Voice of God, Finding your Spiritual Gifts. Explore unusual supernatural giftings – miracles happen, supernatural is common place, learn wisdom in how to use these skills. I also want to emphasize the normality that missionaries encounter miracles all the time.

My readers will appreciate what missionary life is – a perfect calling, not perfect people. My characters are not holier-than-thou otherworldly people that no one can understand. They are normal people.

I show how great Thailand is but balanced with showing it’s imperfections.

Cyrptozoology – this is a big planet – there are still undiscovered species.

Burma – gently highlight the evils of Burmese military. I want my readers to know that the Burmese army does evil things everyday but I don’t want my readers to hate the Burmese citizens who are victims. I call it Burma instead of Myanmar for very specific political/historical reasons.

I capitalize pronouns for God. This practice is archaic but for my book it will help the reader know what’s going on.

POV- I try when in possible to give Chaz’s Point of View. Not everyone likes this style, but for those that do – they love it!

I try to avoid too much flowery language. I don’t want to slow the pace too much. This is an action book.

I have settled for now to use grammar conventions from the USA.