Author: Dennis Covington
paperback: 242 Pages

Glendel Buford Summerford, pastor of the Church of Jesus with Signs Following, was convicted of trying to kill his wife with poisonous snakes. As journalist Dennis Covington covered the murder trial, he discovered the mysterious and ultimately irresistible world of holiness snake handling - a world of unshakable faith, where people handle poisonous snakes, drink strychnine, and, some claim, raise the dead. In the face of such faith, Covington gradually began to explore his own soul. He writes here of his ancestors, who came down from the hills of Appalachia only two generations ago, of the riveting power of the faith he witnessed, and finally of his own spiritual transformation. The book ends, in reference to both his earthly and heavenly fathers, "This is how he got me to come home. He always came to the place where I was before he called my name."