Lay Down Your Guns: One Doctor's Battle for Hope and Healing in Honduras

by Greg R. Taylor

How does Dr. Amanda Madrid's faith help her overcome violence and fear after dangerous drug cartels attack the jungle clinics she has established? How will she achieve her desire to bring hope and healing to the wounded and suffering people in the mountains of Central Honduras?

In Honduras' ''Wild West'' mountain jungles, Amanda Madrid found her calling as a medical doctor to poor farmers.

When she was a young girl, Amanda prayed a prayer asking God to help her serve the rest of her life as a doctor. When her father rejected her dream and calling, eighteen-year-old Amanda struck out alone to enter medical school in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Her work as a medical officer, international consultant, and director of a multi-national Christian medical group called Predisan could have resulted in prestigious luxury for her. Instead, she became a medical missionary in her own country; her faithfulness to her prayer as a little girl led Dr. Madrid to the mountains on horseback and prepared her for the biggest challenge of her life.

When a drug cartel captures a Predisan clinic in the jungle, Dr. Madrid goes toe to toe with the cartel's paid mercenaries--she in her signature red high heels and wielding prayer, the soldiers in their combat boots and brandishing AK-47s.

This is the compelling story of a Honduran doctor heartbroken about the many killings and bad medicine of the drug cartels. Can the same kind of love and prayer she gives her patients also cause these violent men to lay down their guns?

240 pages, Paperback

First published September 10, 2013

About the author

Greg Taylor is author of High Places: a novel. He co-authored with John Mark Hicks, Down in the River to Pray. He co-authored with Anne-Geri' Fann, How to Get Ready for Short-Term Missions. He co-authored with Randy Harris, Living Jesus: Doing What Jesus Says in the Sermon on the Mount. His latest book, Lay Down Your Guns: One Doctor's Battle for Hope and Healing in Honduras, releases September 2013.

Reviews

[Irene · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a biography of Dr. Amanda Madrid with an emphasis on her Evangelical Christian faith. Dr. Madrid has spent her career serving the rural poor of western Honduras, treating those with drug and alcohol addictions and confronting the violence of local cartels. Her courage, strength, generosity and compassion for the hurting are inspiring. But I did not think that the writing did justice to the story. Dr. Madrid gets 4 stars but the writing gets 2 stars.

[David Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lay Down Your Guns is the thirty-third book I have read from Goodreads. I really enjoyed this book by author Creg R. Taylor. I found it very interesting how Dr.Amanda Madrid 's grew up in a small town in Honduras, and how as a young girl age seven, she went to Good Friday procession and fiesta without her father and mothers permission. Amanda did other things that was funny by disobeying rules which was unusual for a female from that area. I liked how Dr Madrid showed alot of courage going into areas where drug lords were fighting and killing each other.
I would like to also comment about how Amanda has eleven siblings and how they all got along as long as dad,the patroit of the family was a live,they all got along,but upon his passing away,even when her mother was alive, how greed ruined the love between brothers and sisters. I find this happens in alot of families when it comes to splitting up possessions of deceased parents, how greed can change a family.
I would like to comment about how Dr Madrid raised her three adopted children as her own. God has a special place in his heart for people like you.
The last comment I have is I won this book from goodreads and never received it. I went to the public library and took it out and read it. I am so glad I did. It is a book that I would recommend for every one to read.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

A biography (almost a hagiography) of a courageous evangelical Honduran woman doctor who despite odds became a doctor, fulfilled her dream of working with alcoholics, directs a major medical system (involving health workers) in rural Olancho, the Wild West of Honduras.

The chapters on confrontations with violence are moving.

I recommend it.

[Kristy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it because she is a dear friend. What a brave woman of God!

[Mica · Rating 2 out of 5]

The timeline for this book was all over the place; typically, flashbacks into a protagonist's formative years are used as an effective tool to lay groundwork for a career or decision later in life, but the flashbacks in this book didn't seem to offer any insight. The vignettes of her life seemed very disjointed and the theme of "laying down guns" felt very forced throughout the book.

[Jean Matthews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honduras - round the world reading challenge. Interesting subject, writing a little choppy