"In 1773, three men will leave France to embark on a mission of faith and passion in Annam, an exotic land in the Far East. And although they imagine that they will sail into the harbors peacefully and bring hope and meaning into the lives of the faithless, what they discover when they arrive is civil war, warlords on horseback, floods, and famine. In a hostile new world, these three men - Francois Gervaise, a handsome painter; Henri Monange, a young runaway; and Pierre de Behaine, a charismatic priest - find that although they have come to convert the heathens, it is their own hearts and souls that are changed forever. Their dreams of colonial glory dashed, they must reinvent the meaning of their journey."--BOOK JACKET.