Rietz chronicles the experiences of his aunt, a young missionary working in China during the first two years of Mao Zedong’s rule.

When, during the early stages of Covid-19 isolation, the author discovered the journal written and smuggled out of China by his aunt, Edith Rietz, he felt compelled to share the story of her harrowing ordeal as a nun in early-1950s Hingning, China, ministering to the poor and spreading the Gospel. Writing in the first person as a fictional memoir, the author has used Edith’s words, his own grandmother’s records, and his imagination to compose a compelling tale of faith, gumption, and resilience. In 1942, at the age of 21, Edith, the youngest of her parents’ eight children, announces that she’s joining the Maryknoll sisters in Ossining, New York, to begin her training to become a Catholic missionary (called “missioners” by the Maryknoll sisters). In 1948, Edith, now known as Sister Marion, takes her final vows of “chastity, poverty, and obedience.” Raised to believe her father’s dictum that “right is always right and wrong is always wrong,” she knows the vow of obedience will be the most difficult for her to follow; her commitment to righting wrongs will cause more trouble than she can anticipate. In December of 1949 she embarks on her journey to China, where she will live and work with Sister Paulita in the small village of Hingning. Living conditions in the convent are primitive: Water must be drawn from a well they share with the adjacent church, and the toilet is a hole in the floor of a closet-size room. The people are friendly and gracious, and though Sister Marion struggles with the Hakka language, her students are anxious to learn English. When North Korea attacks South Korea, China’s new communist government begins to impose severe limitations upon the Catholic missionaries, and resentment against anything American gradually builds among the populace to a fever pitch.

Rietz’s narrative, filled with tidbits of Chinese culture and superstitions (for example, four is considered an unlucky number, which means a group of three will not admit a fourth person), is a vividly detailed account of cruelty. In one especially painful passage, a priest’s recently adopted stray dog—a beloved constant companion who had disappeared for two days—is returned as a mocking Christmas present: “The teenager throws the remains of Tooleman’s body at Father Au’s feet [and declares] ‘She tasted delicious!’” The government appropriates the church, the convent is repeatedly infiltrated, and their food is confiscated by local communist officials. Children throw stones at them, and crowds, including former friends, shout curses. In January of 1951, after being convicted by a people’s court of being American spies, Sister Marion and Sister Paulita are restricted to their convent, eventually forced to subsist on rice, lard, and salt. Yet they remain constant in their faith, even as they begin to waste away from malnutrition. Sister Marion is a feisty and defiant force, frightened but unwilling to cower in front of her oppressors. She also has a delightful sense of self-effacing humor, conveyed through Rietz’s articulate yet conversational prose and dialogue.

A stirring tale of courage, conviction, and determination in the face of communist China’s ruthlessness.