The Spirits of Pha Phang is Part One of a two-part novel that follows Michael, who has been diagnosed with a terminal brain dysorder, and his father, on a Christian mission trip into the Southeast Asian country of Laos. Michael’s Picks Syndrome, a hereditary disease that also took his mother’s life, is quickly eating away at his memory and he is intent on suicide. His father, a no-nonsense preacher who once killed in this country as a soldier during the post-Vietnam conflict, The Secret War in Laos, tries desperately to show his son the light of Christ while missioning to his Hmong friends, whose ways are rooted in animism, hoping to alter Michael’s heart before he has a chance to take his own life.