Protect My Children

Thirteen-year-old Fredrich Welzel awakens on his family's fishing schooner, the Sea Witch, dancing in the waters off of the coast of Poland in the Baltic Sea. He sees his sister laying in the adjoining bunk. He hears his father calling orders to his uncle, Otto, from the crow's nest in an effort to get them safely into port. He smells the odors of his mother's freshly cooking breakfast coming from the galley. The Sea Witch became their permanent home and their livelihood after an English bomb destroyed their wood frame house. The heavily loaded vessel lists in the summer winds as it makes its way to the Port of Danzig to unload their large nightly catch. Unexpectedly, two Nazi soldiers appear on the docks. Fredrich's father knows they have come to conscript the boy into the Wehrmacht as a German soldier. In one horrific moment, the boy's life is spared but he loses his entire family, his home, his freedom, and his hearing. How will he cope in his silent world? How will the boy survive life in the German Army? Or as a British Prisoner of War in an American prison camp at Fort Robinson, Nebraska? How will he overcome multiple language barriers? What does God have planned for him? How does he fulfill those plans to serve God? Clare Hulseman McCullah was raised in Chadron, Nebraska. She graduated from the University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, Arkansas. She is an author, gospel singer, retired social worker, Sunday School teacher, and member of the West Ridge Free Will Baptist Church in Fayetteville, AR. She enjoys painting, crocheting, sewing, embroidery, reading, and a variety of other hobbies. Clare and her husband, Gary, reside in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The couple have 3 sons and 6 grandchildren.