In their newly released memoir, It's a Long Way to Florida, authors Brooke and Patricia Sadler share the extraordinary story of how a 1,200-mile honeymoon road trip evolved into a 20-year, 30,000-mile missionary journey across three continents. The book, published by Brooke & Patricia Sadler and available through major online retailers, offers a gritty, honest account of modern missionary life, emphasizing that divine detours often become the destination.
The narrative begins in 1957 with a simple lakeside wedding in Michigan and a brand new red Falcon car intended to carry the newlyweds to St. Petersburg, Florida. However, a series of divine interventions rerouted their journey, leading them to spend decades serving communities in Sri Lanka and Pakistan. The memoir details harrowing experiences, including a 12,000-mile overland family road trip from London to Sri Lanka through military checkpoints and surviving national food famines and economic collapses.
Among the remarkable accounts is how Brooke Sadler illegally smuggled truckloads of flour past five armed military checkpoints during a government-declared famine to feed starving church workers in Colombo. The book also highlights a profound, decades-long friendship with a local Buddhist High Priest that ultimately saved their mission school's land from government seizure. Perhaps most moving is the couple's decision to open their home to vulnerable children, eventually welcoming more than 80 orphaned children into their family, sparked by a poignant question from their adopted daughter, Pami.
"We never could have mapped out the life we lived," says co-author Brooke Sadler. "Every time we faced an impossible logistical problem or a dangerous crisis, the answer arrived in a way we never could have engineered. We wrote this book to remind readers that when God redirects your route, the detour is very often the destination."
Now mostly retired and residing in Greeneville, Tennessee, the Sadlers continue their entrepreneurial spirit by operating Nolichucky Cabins, a mountain retreat and glass wedding chapel. The memoir serves as a practical template for living by faith, offering readers a powerful reminder that following where one is led can yield a life richer and more purposeful than any planned itinerary.
