FIRE ROAD PB

Nominated for the CRT 2018/19 'Biography' Award...

'Get out! Run! We must leave this place! They are going to destroy this whole place! Go, children, run first! Go now! These were the final shouts nine year-old Kim Phuc heard before her world dissolved into flames—before napalm bombs fell from the sky, burning away her clothing and searing deep into her skin. It’s a moment forever captured, an iconic image that has come to define the horror and violence of the Vietnam War. Kim was left for dead in a morgue; no one expected her to survive the attack. Napalm meant fire, and fire meant death.

Against all odds, Kim lived—but her journey toward healing was only beginning. When the napalm bombs dropped, everything Kim knew and relied on exploded along with them: her home, her country’s freedom, her childhood innocence and happiness. The coming years would be marked by excruciating treatments for her burns and unrelenting physical pain throughout her body, which were constant reminders of that terrible day. Kim survived the pain of her body ablaze, but how could she possibly survive the pain of her devastated soul?

'Fire Road' is the true story of how she found the answer in a God who suffered Himself; a Savior who truly understood and cared about the depths of her pain. 'Fire Road' is a story of horror and hope, a harrowing tale of a life changed in an instant—and the power and resilience that can only be found in the power of God’s mercy and love.

On June 8, 1972, during the Vietnam War, a little girl made world news when she was photographed escaping her Vietnamese village, which had been bombed with napalm.

Nine-year-old Kim Phuc was so badly burned that she was not expected to survive, but after fourteen months in a Saigon hospital and sixteen skin-graft surgeries, she returned to her village to begin rebuilding her life.

During the years that followed, Kim struggled with physical pain as well as being used as a propaganda tool by the communist government. In 1986, she moved to Cuba to pursue her education. There, she met a young Vietnamese student, Toan Bui, who later became her husband. In 1992, she and Toan defected to Canada, where they have dedicated their lives to promoting peace.

Today, Kim is the founder of the Kim Foundation International in Ontario, Canada. She and her husband live in the Toronto area, along with their two children, Thomas and Stephen.

Ashley Wiersma is a freelance writer of Christian-living and spiritual-memoir books and small-group curricula. She and her family live in the foothills of Colorado.

Paperback: 317 pages
Publisher: Tyndale Momentum (3 Oct. 2017)
ISBN-13: 978-1496424303