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Eight-year-old Charles Thomas has a mission: He's lookin' to find Jesus on Johnsontown, a tiny, fast-eroding Chesapeake island that's home to 400-plus souls. He's been hearing about Jesus forever, but it wasn't until that Visitin' Preacher came to the New Believers' Church on Father's Day that Charles Thomas thought he might could find Him right there on the island, just the way that Visitin' Preacher said. Livin' right among them. It made sense to Charles Thomas since all the people he knew talked about knowin' Jesus the way they talked about knowing their neighbors, so Charles Thomas…mehr

Produktbeschreibung
Eight-year-old Charles Thomas has a mission: He's lookin' to find Jesus on Johnsontown, a tiny, fast-eroding Chesapeake island that's home to 400-plus souls. He's been hearing about Jesus forever, but it wasn't until that Visitin' Preacher came to the New Believers' Church on Father's Day that Charles Thomas thought he might could find Him right there on the island, just the way that Visitin' Preacher said. Livin' right among them. It made sense to Charles Thomas since all the people he knew talked about knowin' Jesus the way they talked about knowing their neighbors, so Charles Thomas figured, if Jesus lived among them, it had to be one of the people he knew. If he could find Him, maybe his Lord and Savior could perform a miracle or two for him, and God knew Charles Thomas could use a miracle. For starters, He could fix up his broke arm, and if he could do that, maybe He could even bring back his father. Inspired by an intimate knowledge of the people on isolated Tangier Island, VA, Fortenbaugh has conceived a tale of the innocence and sustaining power of hope despite the challenges that the people of Johnsontown face - discouragement and the failing economics of the rural working class, wresting a living from a beleaguered Bay, the loss of regional micro-dialects, traditions, and the cultures they reflect, all colored by conflicts of race, class, and identity. These challenges have been a part of our nation from its beginnings, yet all are surging in these turbulent times of tremendous change and the inevitable backlash that always accompanies such change. "I feel," author Pete Fortenbaugh says, "that Johnsontown is a perfect petri dish to explore the complex dynamics of small community life in the face of an ever-changing world." The rich cast of characters is fully realized, from kind, steady Uncle Furry, who relies on The Lord to guide him and is convinced that climate change is bunk, to Calhoon Greenhawk and his sometime girlfriend Marsha, who is called 'whore' by the island's church women as casually as hanging out laundry, to black Mr. Abe Johnson, the island's librarian and only accountant, whose grown son, Rodney, has the mind of a five-year-old. Charles Thomas's more personal struggle to find Jesus and apply to Him for specific cures for what ails his own life is poignant, funny, wry and ultimately a parable for our times.
Autorenporträt
Pete Fortenbaugh, whose family roots on the Delmarva Peninsula date back to 1693, was born and raised in Chestertown on Maryland's Eastern Shore. He attended Kent County public schools through ninth grade, attended Gunston Day School and graduated from Washington College in Chestertown with a major in Hispanic Studies and a minor in Creative Writing. His degree in Hispanic Studies took him throughout Latin America, first to Costa Rica and Nicaragua for four months, then to Ecuador and Peru for five months, and finally to Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia for eight months. After graduating, Pete moved to Spain for four years with his French-born girlfriend Cécilia Karelidze. While there he taught English in public and private schools, and in 2018 completed a Masters in Teaching through the Universidad de Alcalá, then spent eight months in Dakar, Senegal teaching English and improving his French. While he had throughout college written about the fictional Chesapeake island, Johnsontown, based in part on family lore and familiarity, he spent five months in 2015 working as a carpenter on the isolated island of Tangier, VA. That experience grounded his writing in place, forged deep friendships and inspired many stories, though he has been building a collection of stories of Johnsontown. Years abroad only intensified his love for the truly wondrous ecosystem and community that is the Chesapeake Bay, especially its Eastern Shore on the Delmarva Peninsula. Writing Johnsontown stories is a way of connecting with cherished ideas of family, friends and home. Pete now lives in Chestertown, MD, where he works for the Master Fine Woodworker, Vicco von Voss, producing high-end furniture and timber frame buildings. He spends one day each week having adventures with his special needs cousin, and in his free time races on log canoes, wanders the marshes, fishes, hunts, and explores the Chesapeake and its endless tributaries and communities.