Seeds of Peace

by Gladys Klothe Smith


Formats

Softcover
£13.00
Softcover
£13.00

Book Details

Language : English
Publication Date : 08/12/2000

Format : Softcover
Dimensions : 5x8
Page Count : 452
ISBN : 9781588200518

About the Book

This book is a fascinating account of the lives of Wesley Smith, a Foreign Service Reserve Agricultural Officer, and his wife, Glad, the narrator, and their three children. Shortly after retirement from the Department of State, Wes suffered a cardiac arrest while working with a Foreign Students Program at the University of Missouri. He stepped briefly into God’s Time but was resuscitated and brought back into our time.

The writer uses the seven years shared before his physical death as a thread to weave together their actual and spiritual journeys, with love as a common denominator. The reader is taken from the halcyon days of Vietnam in 1956, through the gradual deterioration of a beautiful culture by 1961.

After a 5 ½ year tour in Turkey, Wes is urgently requested to return to the tragic maze of Vietnam for another two years (1966-68). After a Washington, D.C. interlude, Wes was asked to go to East Pakistan, just the year before the bloody birth of Bangladesh. That tour was terminated on the last evacuation plane out.

After an interim in Thailand, Wesley’s Foreign Service career was finalized in the independent southern African countries of Lesotho and Swaziland (1971-75).

In the framework of the present time journey, the writer shares insights on man’s universal ability to face adversities and tragedies with Faith and humor always with the hope of having planted seeds of Peace along the way.


About the Author

Gladys Klöthe Smith married Wesley S. Smith right out of college. After W.W.II, Wes returned to Graduate School, under the G.I. Bill and Glad got her PHT –"Putting Hubby Through" – (a tongue in cheek term used by many wives of that era). In 1956, with family agreement, Wesley accepted an appointment with the U.S. Department of State as a Foreign Service Reserve Agricultural Officer with USOM – United States Operation Mission, actually a continuation of the Marshall Plan – (later USAID).

They and their three children lived in Vietnam 1956-1961 and Turkey 1961-1966. During both of these tours the author taught "English as a Second Language", establishing a warm rapport with the Nationals while emphasizing the similarities, rather than the differences in God’s people.

When her husband was asked to return to Vietnam, in 1966, and dependants were not permitted, she went to the Philippines as a safe haven post. While there, she conducted a training course on teaching English as a second language for the House mothers at Children’s Garden, a part of a worldwide charitable institution, which sheltered and taught orphans and children in need.

After a rotation tour in Washington, D.C. 1968-1970, they lived in East Pakistan (which at the end of the tour became Bangladesh), Thailand, Lesotho and Swaziland in southern Africa, where the author continued her teaching and interaction with the Nationals.

Currently she resides in the Hudson Valley where she grew up. She is now synchronizing narrative and music for videos of her husband’s photographic collection, which he had well organized before his death in 1983. Her future plans include writing a series of children’s’ books.