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“The Scent of Water, Grace for Every Kind of Broken” by Naomi Zacharias

This book was a very eye opening journey for me, the reader, while the author tells us her story of traveling around the world trying to help women and children where she can. This book is full of places from around the world, right to what is inside of us. I will say my review of this book does not even touch the surface of what she did, where she went, and what she personally got out of her travels and portrays as she tells us her story. The only way to get the true understanding of what she went completely and what she has to teach us from her experience is to read this book for yourself.
This is a story of truth. It is a story of life and lives. It is of sadness, happiness, of learning, of doing. It is reaching out to others when no one else would even consider it, and people reaching out to us. Naomi goes through life learning her own lessons of life, and helps to teach us what she has learned.
Naomi Zacharias has written a work of Non-Fiction, telling us about her life experiences starting at the young age of 23 when she went to work for Wellspring International, an outreach of RZIM. From the book, their foundation bases their values on Rescue, Rehabilitation, Restoration, and Re-entry; helping individuals in need and existing organizations serving women and children at risk.
Knowing that, you understand why she traveled and did some of the things she did. She has been all over the world to such extreme places, such as in Pakistan riding in a car with outside temperatures of 125 degrees, wrapped up, hidden in the dress of the area so the Taliban would not kidnap and take her hostage if they knew she was American, all in the name of helping people.
She went to Amsterdam, Asia, India, and other countries visiting the Red Light Districts, trying to help the women who had become sex slaves of prostitution to try to help themselves get out. It is not something you can force these women to do, she says, as they must make their own choices to get out. It was not most of their choices to become sex slaves, but by the time Naomi would come across them, most of them could not get out or had children, and this occupation paid well. They had no friends or relatives to rely on for help, and could not return home as they had this title of “Prostitute” hanging over their heads, by no fault of their own. They had become a shame to their families. If only these families knew they had sent their daughters to this life by blessing them.
This was amazingly eye opening to me. I knew of the sex slave industry, but I had no knowledge or the circumstances surrounding it. This part is not in the book, but, when Natalie Holloway disappeared, there was speculation that possibly she had been kidnapped into the sex slave industry. When I heard that, I thought no way. I was wrong. I now can see why people thought that. I did not know this happened so often, and to so many women, nor did I know how easily this can happen to any woman. I did not understand the extent of this problem until reading this book.
One of Naomi’s descriptions of how women are kidnapped or even fooled into the sex slave industry will never leave my mind. It was of an airline attendant who was romanced by a man who traveled often on the airlines she worked for. He brought her gifts every time he flew and was so nice to her. He eventually expressed his wishes to marry her and her family approved of him. They married and she flew back home to his country with him. Immediately, right from the plane, he took her directly to the Red Light District putting her in a room with a window in the doorway right away. There was no going home with him. In this society, this was accepted. He put her to work for him. She tried to return home one time, but her family had known what had happened to her and they rejected her calling her a “prostitute”, yet this was none of her own doing.
Some of these stories were heartbreaking, yet when Naomi’s and the organization she worked for was able to and did help so many of these women, it was as if it was God rescuing them. Had Naomi and her organization not been there, they would still be stuck in a life they did not want and could not get out of.
Naomi has been all over the map helping people where she could. She visited Banda Aceh, Indonesia, where the Tsunami had taken countless lives. Her description of the destruction of the Tsunami was horrifying. She helped people there. There are too many more places to list, but as she was helping these women, they helped her as well, in ways she never would have expected.
Through all Naomi’s travels, she learned a lot about her own life. She had her own personal trials she went through, good and bad like we all do. Life lived is not to be perfect. She talks of the deception we all come to realize that the fairy tales have, even though we know they are not true, the dream we still have is we want life to be like them. Life cannot be so. Life without these triumphs and failures is a life without growth. God meant for it to be this way. This is the way we grow. She said that “Ruin is a gift. It’s the road to transformation.” It was this way for all the women and children she helped and for her own life as well, and for our lives, to. She says it is ‘the scent of water’, the drop of water that allows us to bud, to blossom, to grow.
I want to thank Zondervan Publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a review. It was truly my pleasure to read this book. I got so much out of this book that I almost feel guilty in only writing a review in exchange for it. This is a short book of only 222 pages, but it is so full of life, lives, and learning, I could not just write a ‘short’ review. There is much more to this book as I only touched on a small portion, believe it or not. This is a definite must-read. I give it a 5 star rating on my scale.
Laurie Carlson
www.lauriehere.blogspot.com ( )