Book excerpt: Margaret Trost was in her 30s when her husband died suddenly of asthma, leaving her to raise their young son alone. In despair, seeking meaning in her life and in her husbands death, she accepted an invitation to visit Haiti as part of a pilgrimage of reverse mission, to serve the poor as a means to transform the providers. This is a moving account of her immersion in the West's most impoverished nation. Gently and viscerally, Trost describes her experiences in a hospice and in the horrific slums of Cit Soleil. As she struggles to make sense of such extreme conditions existing so near the US, readers discover with her the healing power of reaching out. In the process, we meet and come to love the eternally optimistic and enterprising Father Jean-Just, and the wise octogenarian Manmi Dt, who teaches Margaret to work hard and also to play and to dance. And we have a front-row seat as this unlikely group of friends creates a food program for Haiti's children. In straightforward, conversational prose, with humility, candor, and love, Trost shares the story of a serendipitous flow of events that guided her on her passage from despair to hope.