Nine Lives. One True Love: From a Japanese POW Camp to a Liver Transplant-A Memoir of Survival, Redemption, and Second Chances

I died nine times.

Not metaphorically.
Not poetically.

Nine times life cornered me.

In a jungle.
On an operating table.
In a storm.
In the darkness of depression.
In battles fought by my father long before I was born.

Nine times the story should have ended.

But somehow... it didn't.

How does a missionary kid from the jungles of New Guinea end up helping Eric Clapton build a treatment center in the Caribbean and later doing business with Trump International?

That is only part of the story.

This unforgettable memoir begins long before Lester Keizer was born—in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp during World War II, where his father learned to survive the unimaginable.

From there, the story travels through the jungles of New Guinea and Borneo, where poisoned arrows, tribal warfare, civil unrest, and tropical storms shaped a boy who learned early that life is fragile and every day is a gift.

But the jungle was only the beginning.

Lester would go from missionary kid to minister... from preacher to healthcare executive... from boardrooms and private jets to helping develop Crossroads Centre Antigua, the internationally recognized addiction recovery center founded by Eric Clapton, where he served as the project's development point man.

Later, as CEO of a leading technology company in Las Vegas, he would build a business that served major corporations and landmark properties, including the Trump International Hotel.

From the outside, it looked like success.

Inside, another battle was raging.

Open-heart surgery.

Cancer.

A liver transplant.

Long COVID.

Depression.

And a lifetime spent searching for meaning beyond achievement.

Along the way came four careers, four marriages, extraordinary victories, devastating failures, and countless moments when everything seemed lost.

Yet through every setback, one question remained:

Why had he been allowed to survive?

The answer would not be found in wealth, status, power, or accomplishment.

It would be found in love.

The kind of love that sits beside a hospital bed.

The kind that holds your hand when the odds are against you.

The kind that rebuilds a broken life one piece at a time.

Nine Lives. One True Love is a powerful true story of survival, faith, resilience, redemption, second chances, and the extraordinary power of finding peace after a lifetime of searching.

If you enjoy inspiring memoirs, stories of overcoming adversity, medical miracles, personal transformation, and unforgettable love stories, this book will stay with you long after the final page.

Sometimes the greatest miracle isn't surviving.
It's finally learning how to live.