The Strange Request Sparks Adventures

About the Book

Mark Twain wrote in 1869 in Innocents Abroad: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”?

“The Strange Request” introduces Alex with a need for nurture and a full life. His parents kept him sequestered for years for unusual reasons. An older sister moved away from home, taking Alex with her, but requests help. As Greg and Gwen listen, strangers they meet and show care for him, Alex begins to lead them to a number of mysterious places in the Pyrenees Mountains of Spain near a retreat full of interesting international guests. Greg and Gwen have insight into the mysteries that unfold as they explore. One mystery opens another with ensuing solutions in France, Spain, Myanmar/Burma and Thailand. Old treasure returns to families generations later. Rare rubies emerge glowing from internal light. Caves appear with intact pictographs and ancient burial sites full of artifacts.

     Characters in the book have different skills, experiences in life, creativity for design and use of light for special decoration. Skills of observation reveal more mysteries. Each character shares philosophies and ideals learned from travel and living life with exuberance.

     Live life with zest, the mental spice.

About the Author

     Dr. Stever retired from Family Medicine in Seattle after years of a close confidential relationship with patients based on the need to listen and care. The patient and the doctor must be a team for medicine to work well.

     While in Penn Medical School, he won a grant to study medicine in India and Nepal for six months, spiking interest in knowing more about the people of the world.

     He volunteered medical care in Cambodia through CARE-Medico before Pol Pot and in November of 1979 flew with medical aid and food donated by the American Friends Service Committee. Last minute permission granted the first American plane to land. The shocking atrocities under Pol Pot overwhelmed him and formed a basis for a nonfiction book, “Magic Moments as Paths Cross.”

     Over the years other world trips followed with educational encounters among diverse people. The positive and negative history of the world struck him with the importance of knowing history can repeat itself.

     Medicine allowed mysteries of life from people in many countries to be explored each leading to another mystery.