This book is a translation of the highly successful published memoir of a Polish Franciscan priest, Father Łucjan Królikowski OFM Conv, who entered the Franciscan order in Niepokalanów, Poland and was accepted into the seraphic order by St Maximilian Kolbe himself. Fr Królikowski expected to spend his life as a missionary, but found himself as a seminarian – in 1939 – studying theology in Lwów (at that time located in Eastern Poland), just as World War II broke out. The invasion of Poland by the Soviet army in mid September of that year resulted in his deportation to a Soviet Gulag in northern Siberia, together with two other Franciscan seminarians. This book is the story of his wanderings and survival - as he left Poland for Siberia; travelling to Soviet Central Asia to join the Polish army and undergo military training. It recounts his experiences as a war-time seminarian in the Middle East and how he arrived in Canada with a group of refugee orphans after a four year sojourn in East Africa where he worked as their chaplain. Eventually, he was re-assigned to the North American Polish Franciscan province and devoted the rest of his life to the service of Polish refugees and his "African" orphans. He recounts with verve and candour his adventures as a scout master, his war-time experiences as a Soviet prisoner and Polish soldier and his African interlude working as a refugee settlement chaplain, ensuring appropriate and compassionate care for orphaned Polish refugee children.