Throughout these pages, David does more than tell a story; he invites us into an overarching narrative. He encourages us to feel the weight of the world’s brokenness but also to experience the profound hope that comes from knowing Christ. This book is an invitation to a deeper relationship with God, one marked by faith, hope, and love, despite the circumstances we may face. We were not created merely to passively observe the world around us but to actively engage with it, to be part of God’s redemptive work he is accomplishing every day. We have an innate longing for something more, something eternal. Indeed, our hearts are restless until they find rest in God. This book offers more than platitudes or easy answers to problems of our world. Instead, it provides a perspective grounded in a deep and abiding faith. Even in the depths of despair, we are never beyond the reach of God’s love and grace. This is a message that is desperately needed in an age of hopelessness.

I almost wish David Joannes had never sent me this book. My family and I have walked the cities and deserts of the globe for the past thirty-five years, but we can no longer do so at this stage of life. As I read See the City, it deeply troubled me that we cannot uproot our lives again, load up the car, and travel to the farthest corners of the earth to make Christ known among the poor and downtrodden. I suggest you journey through this book with your head bowed and a box of Kleenex nearby. Those of us who have the means to read it are overwhelmingly part of the world’s most privileged people. We obsess over sports and overindulge our kids. We’re willing to come to blows over politics and lavish billions on our pets. Then we come face to face with White Flower, the young refugee girl who inspired this book. Her eyes reflect the very image of God—the One who tells us to tend to the needs of broken and wounded people all across the world. Will we obey our Lord’s command? I pray you do. I implore you to obtain a copy of See the City. Read it. Mull it over. Pray through it. Share it with a friend. Then, bow before God and say, “Here I am, Lord, send me.”

The story of White Flower, a young refugee of war in Myanmar, will inspire you to focus on Jesus. The little girl’s dream was to “see the city” and find a new start because her war-torn upbringing in the Southeast Asian jungle was filled with brutal injustice, devastating loss, and overwhelming terror. Similarly, we all face injustice, loss, and sorrow whether we live in a war zone or not. See the City by David Joannes offers comfort to everyone living in a realm destined to fall apart. This book will help you lift your spiritual eyes and see God’s ever-present goodness—even in the midst of paralyzing evil. Through these pages, you will find strength for your heavenward journey and encouragement to join God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. May God guide, protect, heal, and bless you as you read See the City.

In a world that desperately needs hope, See the City beckons believers and nonbelievers alike toward the only place we can ultimately find it: the eternal city of God. In the process, it sounds the alarm for Christians to fulfill their God-given calling to populate that city by sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ everywhere they go. What few believers realize—but David Joannes beautifully explains—is that as we share, we get an early taste of Heaven’s glories. This book will first break your heart for the lost and then ignite your soul to do all you can to help others see the unfathomably wonderful city God is preparing for all who trust him.

Like the little girl described in this book, we are surrounded by darkness and confusion. And like her, we want something better. We long to ‘see the city.’ We are, as Hebrews 11:13-16 puts it, ‘foreigners and strangers on earth… longing for a better country—a heavenly one.’ Thankfully, the passage also assures us that God ‘has prepared a city’ for us. But that city is not for us alone. We must bring as many people to it as possible. In this hope-filled book, David Joannes gives us a glimpse of God’s city and challenges us to live in light of its reality—both for today and for eternity.

For the past 70 years or so, the church has kept a self-imposed silence about heaven. Lewis spoke often, and brilliantly, about it. But few have followed in his footsteps. Most pulpits are dead zones on the subject. ‘We don’t,’ the cliché goes, ‘want to be so heavenly minded we’re of no earthly good.’

Which is complete idiocy. The very reason the early followers of Jesus turned the world upside down is that they were thoroughly, joyfully, unabashedly heavenly-minded. They lived large, and dared greatly, because they knew the world was not enough, and was never meant to be. For them, to live was Christ, to die gain.

I’m thrilled that David Joannes—who lives large, and dares greatly, and is of much earthly good—sees the problem, and the solution, so clearly. In See the City, he holds up, holds out, the one hope that sums up all hope, the one reward that surpasses all rewards: the city of God. He doesn’t deny that people need earthly succour: he’s spent his adult life providing that. He just knows that if that’s all we’ve got, to give or to take, we’re to be pitied above all people. But thanks be God, we have all this, and heaven too.

This might be the most important book you read this decade.

See the City is a divinely urgent cue from the heart of Heaven, activating readers toward the unexecuted, often deferred task of the Great Commission. Through the lens of White Flower, a refugee girl and survivor of war, this compelling story puts the body of Christ on notice that at some point in our spiritual lives, we will come face to face with what breaks the heart of God. This defining moment is our invitation into His mission. David reminds us all that El Roi, the God who sees, faithfully watches over, cares for, and loves the margins; and that the orphan, the widow, and the refugee, though unseen to the world, should never hide in plain sight for the believer. 

This book reignites the joy of the redemptive freedom and hope that Christ came to bestow on our broken world. As you read through its pages, be challenged by the call to suffer with the defenseless, be encouraged by the truth that hope through Jesus has come, and be expectant for the new city that awaits us in glory—a city where suffering will be no more.