Audra Jennings

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book! You never know when I might play a wild card on you! Today's Wild Card author is: Mark Steele and the book: Christianish David C. Cook; New edition (August 1, 2009) ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mark Steele is the president and executive creative of Steelehouse Productions, a group that creates art for business and ministry through the mediums of film, stage, and animation. He is also the author of Flashbang: How I Got Over Myself and Half-Life/Die Already . Mark and his wife, Kaysie, reside in Oklahoma with their three greatest...

Down Where My Love Lives As I have said before, one of my favorite authors that I have discovered in the past year and a half is Charles Martin. The first of his books that I read was Chasing Fireflies , and after I finished it, I tried to go back and read all of his other books that were released prior to that. Well, back around Christmas, I bought the hardcover version of Down Where My Loves Lives at a really good price on Amazon. It was just released and is actually two books in one, so it made more sense than buying two paperback editions. Delivered in early January, I just now got around to reading it. All you blog review people are shaking your heads at me, and I know it. I've had books I needed to read, books from work, books I received for blog tours that I committed to reading in a certain time, books I bought, books I got with a Christmas gift card, and books I had been given. While I really wanted to read this one, it just kept getting pushed down the list. Down Where M...

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book! You never know when I might play a wild card on you! Today's Wild Card author is: Brian Doerksen and the book: Make Love, Make War: NOW Is the Time to Worship David C. Cook; New edition (August 1, 2009) ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Brian Doerksen has always had a passion for expressing worship through music. He is an award-winning songwriter of some of today’s most acclaimed songs of worship. He is currently developing a musical of hope based on Luke 15 called “Return.” Brian, his wife, Joyce, and their six children reside in A...

Join Stephen Baldwin to Help Children of Fallen Soldiers Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX—One in every three troops returning from war experiences Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The statistics are alarming: Over 5,000 killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, divorce rates soaring to 80% at some military bases, an average of 5 suicide attempts per day in the Army and a rise in domestic violence. When our troops suffer, their families suffer. Now, more than ever, military families need your support. It’s time for America to stand in the gap for those who have sacrificed so much. On Labor Day morning, September 7th, 2009, OSU (Operation Straight Up) Tour will present a nationwide Walk-a-Thon/Bike-a Thon at Texas Motor Speedway from 7:00- 11:30 a.m. The event, hosted by actor Stephen Baldwin and several NFL superstars, will include a concert and entertainment for the whole family. Proceeds of the Walk-a-Thon will support OSU Tour’s initiative to provide father mentors to military single mother homes. As part ...

The new movie Orphan takes a look at a family adopting a little girl from Russia who is not what she seems. While the movie attempts to entertain the masses with horror, around the world, orphans are facing horrendous conditions unlike anything Hollywood could produce. Tom Davis, CEO and President of Children’s HopeChest, is passionately working to alert the public about the real plight of orphans around the world. Two weeks ago, Orphan, or as the Washington Post referred to it, a "depraved, worthless piece of filth...a high-gloss horror show about a well-meaning couple who bring home a 9-year-old girl to join their family, only to discover, way too late, that she's a homicidal psychopath" was released in theaters. The widespread criticism of Orphan is showing up in both the mainstream media ( New York Times , New York Times 2 ) and also in Christian news sources as well. (See Orphans Deserve Better ) Children’s HopeChest CEO Tom Davis says, “The true horror, as pointed ...

"Dad told me once that you can only be as happy as you've been sad, and I didn't understand it until that moment." I'm not exactly sure what it was about that line as I finished reading Chris Fabry's June Bug that really hit me, but it did. It was spoken by a 9 year old girl, wise beyond her years, in a book I highly recommended. Here's a little bit about the story from the back of the book: For as long as she can remember, June Bug and her father have traveled the back roads of the country in their beat-up RV, spending many nights parked at Walmart. One day, as she walks past the greeter at the front of the store, her eyes are drawn to the pictures of missing children, where she is shocked to see herself. This discovery begins a quest for truth about her father, the mother he rearely speaks of, and ultimately herself. But when her father's past catches up with them, foreces beyond his control draw them back to Dogwood, West Virginia, down a winding pa...