A Journey Worth Telling

Bill Steen was born in Kitzingen, Bavaria, Germany, in 1954 and orphaned at nine months old. Adopted by an American military couple, he grew up moving across the United States and Germany, later serving as a Military Policeman in Germany during the 1970s. He went on to earn a criminal justice degree from Michigan State University and started a family. In years of profound spiritual crisis and following a divorce, he engaged in commercial construction followed by artisan woodworking, until a series of health crises brought him to Huntsville, Alabama, where he still lives. Bill has found a new hometown, surrounded by family and a clearer relationship with his faith.

He went looking for the mother he'd never known. What he found is the heart of this book.

I want to tell you about a book, An Orphan’s Journey Home, which we just finished working on in collaboration with a fabulous author, Bill Steen. I haven't been able to stop thinking about his story since we finished it.

Bill was orphaned in West Germany in 1955, when he was nine months old. He spent his first years in a children's home, and then an American Army family adopted him, which led to a move across an ocean.

He grew up in the United States, but he never let go of a decision he'd made as a boy. One day he would go back and find his mother. In 1973 he enlisted in the U.S. Army, trained as a Military Policeman, and set his sights on a transfer to Germany. Finding her was the whole reason he signed up.

Getting there was anything but guaranteed. The timing had to line up perfectly, and he spent months fearing he'd be shipped to Korea instead. Then came his very first traffic stop. The one man he pulled over happened to be the person who processed every transfer on the base. Eleven months later, when Bill's orders came down for Korea, that same man tracked him down and gave him twenty minutes to file for Germany. Bill made it with time to spare.

That was one of the first of what Bill calls impossible odds. What happened once he reached the town where he was born is the heart of his book, An Orphan's Journey Home. I won't give it away here. I'll only tell you that I edited this book, I know how the search ends, and I still can't get through that chapter without stopping at segments to marvel in wonder.

Bill's life after that was not a straight line. A woodshop in Atlanta. Disaster relief across the South. Children he loved and promises he broke. For the better part of twenty years he kept God at arm's length, sure he'd burned that bridge for good. He was wrong about that too.

He tells all of it without pretending he had it figured out. That is what makes you trust him.

“The pages that follow tell the story of my life, but they are not really about me,” he writes. “They are about a faithful God who was at work long before I understood what He was doing.”

You don't have to share Bill's circumstances to feel that. Most of us have lived through seasons that only started to make sense years after we were in them. You'll likely close this book looking differently at the parts of your own life that never seemed to add up.

An Orphan's Journey Home is available now on Amazon, in hardcover, softcover and ebook.

If it moves you the way it moved me (and others on our team), think about grabbing a second copy for someone whose own story feels stuck right now. And because this is a brand-new book, early reviews are what help it reach the readers who need it. If you finish it and it stays with you, a few honest words go a long way. Also if you want to email the author, I know he would certainly appreciate it too. His email is at the back of the book.

Mahalo for being part of a community that believes even the most tangled stories are worth telling, and that Someone was faithful in your story too.

With gratitude and Aloha,

Heather and the Aloha Publishing Team