Deep in the mountains of central Mexico, an Indian woman has been in labor for a day. Her baby, lodged in her birth canal, has had no detectable heartbeat for many hours, and the mother's life is slipping away from hemorrhaging. A flooded river, normally crossable by a jeep, separates her from the ambulance, called in by radio, which is waiting on the other side. American missionaries Jason and Nicole Fitzpatrick decide to employ a canoe—tied to rope to prevent it from being swept away in the swift current—to transport the mother to the other side in hopes that she can reach the hospital before she dies. They decide to begin with prayer...

Nestled on a remote mountain ridge in Myanmar, just a day's walk by footpath from the borders of India and Bangladesh, is the remote village of Shimading. About five-hundred souls reside there in a cluster of seventy bamboo houses. Most everyone survives by subsistence farming. Some hunt or do a little trading. All the families in Shimading are members of the Khumi tribe, who at one time worshipped rocks, trees and animals. But national missionaries brought the gospel to their region, and today, all but two of the families in Shimading are believers.