What begins as a simple honeymoon road trip to Florida transforms into a two-decade missionary odyssey spanning three continents in the new memoir 'It's a Long Way to Florida' by Brooke and Patricia Sadler. The book recounts how a 1957 wedding and a surprise gift of a red Falcon car led the couple from Michigan to Sri Lanka and Pakistan, where they spent 20 years in missionary work, raising over 80 orphaned children and navigating crises that tested their faith.
The memoir details extraordinary events, including Brooke Sadler smuggling flour past armed checkpoints during a famine to feed starving church workers, and forging a friendship with a Buddhist High Priest that saved their mission school's land. The couple also opened their home to abandoned infants, eventually welcoming more than 80 orphans. 'Every time we faced an impossible logistical problem or a dangerous crisis, the answer arrived in a way we never could have engineered,' Brooke Sadler said. 'We wrote this book to remind readers that when God redirects your route, the detour is very often the destination.'
Published by the authors, the book is available for purchase online via major book retailers. The Sadlers, now retired in Greeneville, Tennessee, continue to serve their community through Nolichucky Cabins, a mountain retreat and glass wedding chapel they transformed from a historic log cabin. Their story offers a practical template for living by faith and underscores that life's unexpected detours can lead to richer purpose than any planned path.
