FRIENDS BECOME SWEETHEARTS

A lovely Thank You

Peter and Christine have known each other for 
years. In fact they both used to attend the same 
church in the same city until each went their 
separate ways.  

They dated once but nothing came of that. Peter 
moved to a southern suburb and Christine joined 
a faith ministry, Gospel Literature Outreach, and
lived and worked in their northern headquarters.

Chris found her busy life fulfilling with travel and 
special friendships she made in the course of her 
work. However as time passed she wondered if 
she would always remain as a single. She decided 
after praying about it, that if she hadn't found 
the right person by the time she reached a certain 
age, then she'd accept that as being a part of God's 
plan for her life.

A day or so after that birthday came she received 
a call from ... Peter! He actually remembered her 
birthday and made contact again.

This time around they both felt at ease with each other and their relationship developed until Peter asked Christine to be his wife.

It was a great pleasure for our church folk to attend the beautiful wedding on a fine day in May.  It is wonderful to see the way this mature couple has found true happiness together at last.

Romance with a Kick of Wasabi

Author Camy Tang explains her very original brand of writing:

Wasabi is a very hot (sinus-clearing) Japanese radish condiment used to give a clean-tasting little spice or kick when eating sushi or any raw seafood. Most of my stories have a hint of romance in it, and wasabi, with its Asian origin, refers to my Asian characters.

Where do you come from Tamy?

I am a fourth generation Japanese American married to a third generation Chinese American (hence my Chinese last name). I grew up in Wahiawa, Hawai’i in the center of the island of O’ahu.

Would you share a little more of your history?

I decided not to go to Medical School (I realize now I would have sucked as a doctor), and instead worked as a biologist researcher for nine years (I know, I know, biologist to novelist? Yes, I’m weird). I did compound development studies for a major pharmaceutical company and product development and method-of-action studies for a smaller biotech company.

 

My husband and I are staff workers with our youth group at an Asian Christian church in the San Francisco Bay Area. Teens are fun and surprising and a blessing. We also lead a worship team for our church, mostly comprised of teen musicians

 

And your spiritual journey?

 

When I first started writing, I didn’t know if God was going to allow my novels to be published, but the entire experience has taught me more about entirely, completely, totally depending upon Him, and submitting to Him aspects of my life that I never realized I was trying to keep control over. A lot of that struggle is mirrored in my characters’ struggles in my books. Give me a minute to tell you my experience with Jesus Christ. In school, I was an outcast and I would have done almost anything to fit in, to be acknowledged as someone worth knowing. He sent real Christians into my life to make me realize that their faith gave them a confidence and stability I didn’t have. He showed me that if I surrendered control of my life to Christ, I could cast aside my old life—the old me—and gain a new life, a new me, someone I’d like much better.

 

Thanks for sharing with us Tamy.

COLORADO MORNING SKY

This touching story was written by an author familiar with life in the American West. Her research into the way things were in the "olden days" is impeccable. Her descriptions of the Colorado landscape and some of its rough diamond characters made me feel as if I were there as an onlooker.

Short Description

Sixteen-year-old outlaw Jeremiah Rebourn is on his way to Yuma Prison. After Indians attack the prison wagon and force it over a bluff, he awakes to find himself the captive of a mysterious old man. For two long years, he digs gold out of the tunnel as a prisoner. 

Author A.J. Hawke

Even after he regains his freedom, the experience leaves him traumatized and he wanders until he finds a place at the mountain ranch of Elisha and Susana Evans. It takes him years to recover from his ordeal. Finally, he has his own ranch; and he meets Emily and marries her. But when a terrible secret is revealed that ties his beloved Emily to the trauma of his past, it threatens to destroy all that he has managed to make of his life. Can he forgive enough to move forward? Will he and Emily be able to turn to God  to rebuild their marriage?

This author touches on the psychological effects of trauma and how other caring Christians can help.

                                         

The MEANING of MARRIAGE

 Tim and Kathy Keller have been married for many years and have found the secret many wish for. 

“A man shall leave his father and 
mother and be united to his wife, 
and the two will become one flesh. 
This is a profound mystery.” -
Ephesians 5:31-32

Within this Christian vision for marriage, here’s what it means to fall in love. It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of the person God is creating, and to say, “I see who God is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that. I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne. And when we get there, I will look at you and say, ‘I always knew you could be like this. I got glimpses of it on earth, now look at you!’ ” Each spouse should see the great thing that Jesus is doing in the life of their mate through the Word, the gospel. 

My wife, Kathy, often says that most people, when they are looking for a spouse, are looking for a finished statue when they should be looking for a wonderful block of marble. Not so you can create the kind of person you want, but rather because you see what kind of person Jesus is making. When Michelangelo was asked how he carved his magnificent David, his reply is reputed to have been, “I looked inside the marble and just took away the bits that weren’t David.” When looking for a marriage partner, each must be able to look inside the other and see what God is doing and be excited about being part of the process of liberating the emerging “new you.”

This is by no means a naïve, romanticized approach—rather it is brutally realistic. In this view of marriage, each person says to the other, “I see all your flaws, imperfections, weaknesses, dependencies. But underneath them all I see growing the person God wants you to be.” This is radically different from the search for “compatibility.” As we have seen, researchers have discovered that this term means we are looking for a partner who accepts us just as we are. This is the very opposite of that! The search for an ideal mate is a hopeless quest. This is also a radically different approach from the cynical or cold method of finding a spouse who can just deliver social status, financial security, or great sex.

If you don’t see your mate’s deep flaws and weaknesses and dependencies, you’re not even in the game.  But if you don’t get excited about the person your spouse has already grown into and will become, you aren’t tapping in to the power of marriage as spiritual friendship.  The goal is to see something absolutely ravishing that God is making of the beloved.  You see even now flashes of glory.  You want to help your spouse become the person God wants him or her to be.

When two Christians who fully understand this stand before the minister all decked out in their wedding finery, they realize they’re not just playing dress-up.  What they’re saying is that someday they are going to be standing not before the minister, but before the Lord.  And they will turn to see each other without spot and blemish.  And they hope to hear God say, “Well done, good and faithful servants.  Over the years you have lifted one another up to me.  You sacrificed for one another.  You held one another up with prayer and with thanksgiving.  You confronted each other.  You rebuked each other.  You hugged and you loved each other and continually pushed each other toward me.  And now look at you.  You’re radiant.”

Tim has written many books on this subject and you will find them on AMAZON.COM

HUSBAND and WIFE TEAM

Meet Cheryl and Mel Hoddes. This husband and wife team up to write Christian medical romance and suspense novels. The way they first met really intrigued me.

"You're a doctor?" Cheryl leaned toward Mel and raised her voice to be heard over the din of restaurant diners. "You could help me paralyze someone, then, couldn't you?"
Mel stared at her with some trepidation. This was the "nice young lady" his pastor, wanted him to meet?
"I only want to paralyze him temporarily, of course," Cheryl continued.

Mel glanced toward the nearest exit.

"I'd better explain myself," she said with a smile. "I write novels. I'm doing research for a book."

Ah, interesting. He relaxed slightly and gave her all the information she needed in good, graphic detail. He couldn't understand why she only ate half a slice of pizza the whole evening.

This was Mel's introduction into Cheryl's world of fiction. It was Cheryl's introduction into the life of an emergency room physician. They were both fascinated. A year and a half later, they were married.

 

 The fascination grew as Mel downloaded at the end of his workday — never betraying patient confidentiality. Cheryl's imagination took over, and together they generated ideas for a completely new story, with a completely new novel. With Mel's medical input, encouragement and help with plotting, and Cheryl's writing skills gleaned over 13 years, they developed their first ER-style novel.Cheryl is also a Christy Award -Winning author

The Hoddes (pronounced Hoddees) have loved working together ever since that first meeting. Cheryl has been a professional writer for 19 years now. Mel is a board-certified ER physician with a degree in osteopathy. They work together under the pen name of Hannah Alexander.

KEEPING FAITH is their latest novel

LOVE LANGUAGES

According to author, Gary Chapman,  there are five of them. He says to understand them is the secret to love that lasts.

Sounds extremely helpful doesn't it?

Anything that promotes long-lasting love is a big plus!

How wonderful to reach your golden years and find that love has not only lasted but has grown deeper and more beautiful.

Find on amazon.com

What are these five different languages?

Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch.

WORDS of AFFIRMATION

A character with this love language will show love--and receive love--by saying it out loud. This character won't 'feel' loved unless the other person says it, writes it as a note, or expresses love via some form of words.

 

QUALITY TIME

This is the character (typically female) that is always at the other for 'spending time with me'. They need eye-to-eye contact.

 

RECEIVING GIFTS

This one is easy to pick ... they never show up at a party or dinner without something in hand, usually gift wrapped. A character whose love language is gifts will keep mementos, and delights in surprising the other person with gifts. 

ACTS of SERVICE
She is the first to offer to clean up after a church pot luck. He has changed the oil in her car faithfully for 20 years and held down a steady job...because he loves her.

 PHYSICAL TOUCH
This is apparently the most common love language to men, usually expressed through sex or frequent touch--a hand to a shoulder, or sitting close on the couch. 
PROBLEM: The wife who just wants a hug vs. the husband who always buys flowers. 

 
 

MISSIONARY KIDS MAKE MUSIC TOGETHER

Award-winning novelist and missions journalist Jeanette Windle shares her unusual story.

My husband Marty and I are both missionary kids raised in Latin America. Though my parents were missionaries in Colombia's Amazon guerrilla zones, my husband reached adolescence in the Bolivian Andes.

We first met in Bible college (Canada), and college we attended was extremely conservative regarding interaction between opposite genders, even classroom and dining-hall seating strictly segregated. So male and female of the human species had little opportunity to strike up an acquaintance. The only exception being ministry outreach assignments. Most of the Latin American missionary kids and foreign students signed up for the same Spanish-language outreach in Calgary, Alberta.

For this Colombian MK fresh from the tropics and in the throes of culture—and weather—shock (I'd ever experienced that white stuff called snow, much less at 40 degrees below zero!), that Spanish outreach ministry and its team members became a home—and family—away from home. Including a certain Montana-born, Bolivia-raised missionary kid one year ahead of me in Bible college. My husband insists he remembers vividly my expressed opinions that I would never consider marrying a "gringo" (North American foreigner), much less a blonde-haired, blue-eyed one, since growing up in Latin America had imprinted "tall, dark, and suave" as my idea of handsome. He on the other hand was convinced I was destined to be his wife from the day we'd discovered that God had laid on both our hearts during high school the same life verse (Philippians 1:6). 

Somehow by my second year, he'd changed my mind that a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Montana boy was any less romantic than those guitar-strumming, petal-strewing Antonio Bandera-lookalikes who serenaded outside my bedroom shutters back in Colombia's guerrilla zones (No joke! My father had three teenage daughters at once, and he used to threaten violence to the town youth for any serenading after midnight).  I always add the caveat that I didn't really marry a "gringo", since Marty too is a Spanish-
fluent MK and plays a rather romantic guitar himself!


That was going on thirty-three years ago.  Since then we've 
raised four kids, traveled in ministry through more than thirty countries on five continents. 

CONGO DAWN    
The smallest flame shines brightest against the darkest night

2013 Golden Scroll Novel of the Year

 If absolute power breeds absolute corruption, what happens when a multinational corporation with unlimited funds hires on a private military company with unbridled power? Especially in a Congolese rainforest where governmental accountability is only too cheaply for sale and the ultimate conflict mineral is up for grabs. 

Thanks Jeanette. I cannot wait to begin reading this suspense filled story myself.