After Shock: Searching for Honest Faith When Your World Is Shaken
"Kent Annan walks his readers through the rubble of the January 2010 earthquake that hit Haiti unforgettably. I have known Kent for eight years since he and his wife first moved here to Haiti and lived with a family in the countryside to learn and experience Haitian life.After Shocktells the story of all of us who have lived through this terrible event." (Jean Claude Cerin, Haiti country representative for Tearfund)"Kent Annan's writing is both reflective and purposeful. Searching for faith among the rubble of shattered homes and lives in Haiti, he lifts up  lamentations of sorrow and stories of joy. This is a credible book for anyone who has ever wondered where God is in a world full of suffering." (Jim Wallis, president, Sojourners, and author of The Great Awakening)"This is no ivory-tower exploration of faith and doubt. InAfter Shock,Kent Annan offers a muscular, gritty and devastatingly hopeful model of a faith lived between the questions. Like Haiti after the earthquake, it recoils from quick-fix inspiration or a sappy resolution. Instead it offers something much more powerful: truth." (Jason Boyett, author of O Me of Little Faith and Pocket Guide to the Afterlife)"Page after page inAfter Shock,I've been blown away by Kent Annan's raw honesty, risky vulnerability and human sensitivity. On top of that there's his robust and clear writing style. And there's the simple fact of where he's been, what he's seen and felt, what he's asked and refused to accept, and how he's struggled to make sense of it all. It yields a rich book that has the chance, with your cooperation, to make you a better Christian and a better human being." (Brian McLaren, author/activist)"Kent Annan asks the hard questions inAfter Shock.Where was God during and after the Haiti disaster? How could a loving God allow his children to suffer? The questions as well as the answers might surprise you. This is a deeply personal account of a man's walk of faith--a man heavily invested in this island nation and its people." (Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestselling author)"Like Kent Annan, I've walked through the devastation of Port-au-Prince and its surrounding mountains in the wake of the January 2010 earthquake. Like Kent I've seen and smelled the tragedy, and shaking questions have met my soul. InAfter Shockhe describes palpably how Christ’s broken, resurrected body meets our brokenness in a tangible, fragile, personal way--a way so essential to a lasting faith.After Shockwill summon you to a journey of real, vibrant, honest faith in the Holy God who promises to be with us always, even in the bruised and broken circumstances of life." (Benjamin Homan, president of John Stott Ministries and former president of Food for the Hungry)"Annan has put into words the questions many of us wrestle with in silence, and done so with such humanity and humility, it's impossible to walk away unchanged. This is a raw, beautiful and courageous book, brimming with truth on every page." (Rachel Held Evans, author of Evolving in Monkey Town)"It is hard to explain how I can say that this is a truly beautiful book, when it comes out of a background of such horror. But that was my dominant emotion as I finished it. Beautiful, perhaps, because up-close honesty is beautiful where the clichés of certainty-at-a-distance are repellant. Beautiful because it touches depths of reality where the beauty of God glimmers through the inexplicable darkness of suffering and the desperation of faith, love and hope. Of course, it is also a deeply disturbing book. But if its brutal honesty upsets you, or if the questions it throws before God with baffled anger and gritty trust seem too irreverent, perhaps you have not really spent enough time in the company of Jeremiah, Job, the psalmists--and Jesus. This is a book to read alongside the author at the foot of the cross, and at the empty tomb, where knowing, loving and trusting God make sense, even when understanding his world does not." (Christopher J. H. Wright, international director of The Langham Partnership International, and author of The God I Don't Understand)"After Shockis one man's scrupulously honest search for God. Although Kent Annan hopes  for unshakable faith, he celebrates doubt as part of the process, a necessary part of being alive. There are no easy answers. There may be no answers at all.After Shockis the perfect example of what Rainer Maria Rilke called 'living the questions.' This is a book I will read over and over, for inspiration and for comfort. I loved it." (Abigail Thomas, author of A Three Dog Life)"Kent Annan struggles with his faith existentially. This is no simple attempt to excuse God for  non-interference in the suffering that pervades Port-au-Prince following a devastating earthquake. Instead, it is the poetic confession of a Christian who faces his doubts and questions about God, and yet goes beyond them to find a newer, stronger faith." (Tony Campolo, Professor Emeritus, Eastern University)