Book excerpt: Through her poems, letters and journal excerpts, author Carol Nordman tells the true story of living abroad as she steps into God's calling and gives up "the good life" to become a missionary. In God, My Rock, she illustrates God's promises, goodness, and faithfulness and tells how she; her husband, Vance; and eventually their children encounter and overcome the secret police, political instability, economic collapse, events of the last days of the Cold War, illness, and giving birth in a foreign hospital among other challenges. Nordman provides glimpses of her day-to-day life raising and traveling with three children on the mission field in Turkey, Egypt, the Philippines, Russia, Europe, and Japan. This memoir chronicles the family's surprising cultural adjustments, both abroad and upon returning to the United States. The stories span Nordman's life from finding God in her teenage years, being a UCLA student and serving as a single missionary for five years before marrying at the age of twenty-six. She shares the great adventure of following God's call and watching him work powerfully to bring people into his kingdom by personally knowing his son, Jesus.