I thought I'd share with you what I posted on Amazon. Thank you so much for writing and sharing your memoir.

I read your book "Iron Boy" and I could hardly put it down. I reread it again for good measure on our recent trip. It is very engaging, evocative, and thought-provoking. It is a powerful memoir that explores the resilience of the human spirit amidst good intentions and reality. I resonated well with your sentiment, "I hated the Order for breaking up our family, but sometimes I loved it just the same." We were one of those families separated from our 13-month-old son and I could not reconcile how an Order of Family would separate families even for a young baby at that! Like you, I also love our work in community development, especially our time in the Azpitia Human Development Project. The book is emotionally engaging, particularly in its portrayal of the complex relationship between The Order, its members, and the families.

Elsa Batica St Paul, MN

On Sunday, June 15, 2025 at 03:01:50 AM CDT, David Marshall via OE <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:

Dear Former Order Colleagues & Friends,

Sunday “House Church” Blastoff! (Father’s Day - appropriate launch day since Order fathers loom large in this book)

IRON BOY is officially for sale today on Amazon as both a paperback and e-book.

The Iron Man statue is still alive and well in Fifth City sixty years later. In 2021, I visited Chicago with my wife, daughter, son, and their partners, and we all went to visit Fifth City and the Iron Man—they for the first time. Attached are some photos, of me in front of the Iron Man with the Program Center in the background where I took part of the Academy, the still-running “Iron Man Can” Fifth City Preschool, and my old elementary school, now renamed Leif Ericson Scholastic Academy.

Also a vintage wintertime Iron Man statue photo that I used for the front cover of IRON BOY.

And finally a little artifact from that era I just received. I visited my 93-year old dad Gene and 91-year-old step-mom Joyce in Texas recently, and they gave me this seven-inch-tall metal Iron Man statute that they had picked up along the way from the Wichita Religious House. Did all the Religious Houses have one?

When I raise up my hands like the Iron Man, I think of these words from the Order song, “Free, free, free to decide, what this world is going to be.” We've still got a lot of work to do!

Much appreciation for putting up with my 10-week House Church countdown to IRON BOY’s debut. If you read it, or share it with others, please let me know the impact. You can obtain both the paperback and e-book now on Amazon, and through other bookstores soon.

https://www.amazon.com/IRON-BOY-Searching-Freedom-Religious/dp/B0FCMMVHDC

Grace & Peace,

David Marshall, www.marshallbooks.net

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