In the House of My Pilgrimage

They were strangers in an alien land, simple people of the soil transplanted into the tangled complexity of city life. Would they be able to find peace— and a new life— in America? It is the early 1900s. California. Russian refugees have settled in L.A.’ s eighth ward. Many, like Piotr and Fenya, carry the sorrow of loved ones killed or scattered in uprisings in their homeland. They wonder if any in their families have survived. But as the couple prepares for their wedding, friends back in Russia send joyful news: They have found the surviving members of Piotr’ s family in a remote mountain village. Nadya and her infant brother were rescued by a young man from the village, and he now wants to marry her. But Nadya is too damaged by the terrors she has experienced to return Vaktang’ s love. When Piotr’ s friends offer to help her go to America, she accepts, unaware that she is setting out on the journey toward healing and love. In this moving story, God’ s single-minded intent transcends the pain of man’ s strivings as love surmounts all distance, and God miraculously fills a peasant’ s longing for the land— and a woman’ s deep longing for a child.… (more)