by Dan Woolley with Jennifer Schuchmann
Zondervan, 2011, 238pp including mid-section color photographs
Unshaken is the personal narrative of Dan Woolley’s 65 hour entrapment in pitch blackness under the rubble of a collapsed hotel after the Haiti earthquake. Although it details his survival methods in gripping detail this is much more than a Reader’s Digest survival drama. With life threatening injuries and little hope of being rescued, Dan learned what it was to really have to trust God, to serve Him even here, and to worship. When he was nearly losing his grip out of physical and mental exhaustion, he felt compelled to sing songs of confidence in God. Having heard Dan speak in person, this part of his testimony still resonates as the apex of his story—finding God worthy of praise in the midst of destruction and before his rescue was executed. But this is no tale of trite and easy faith. Dan’s transparency lets the reader really enter into his struggles and face the hard questions with him. Could God really bring anything good out of this?
The story’s suspense is not spoiled by foreknowing the outcome but is actually drawn out by the interwoven narrative of Dan and his wife’s courtship and early years of marriage. Persevering with his wife through years of clinical depression is a story all its own of faith tested and triumphant. The telling of the stories in tandem is very effectively and realistically done and will be an encouragement to anyone who has faced onslaughts of discouragement or depression. The latter chapters include the earthquake disaster as seen from his wife’s perspective, not knowing whether her husband was dead or alive. The outcome for Dan and his wife is more than a mere physical rescue. Their faith and marriage have been reignited. Likewise, the reader is given a fresh appreciation for life and the God who can be trusted, when all else is shaken, to work for the good of those who love him.
--LS
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