Sometimes, it only takes the actions of a few to make a positive impact on many. For Filipino native Tito Alquizola and his friends, it began in 1989 with a desire to pray with each other. What started as a small group of Filipino emigrants and friends meeting in a humble home soon turned into something much bigger than anyone could have imagined.

Journeys tells the story of how a small prayer group became a large, Catholic devotional organization for the Santo Ni o (Child Jesus), a countrywide devotion in the Philippines. Alquizola shares the history of the statue of the Santo Ni o, which started in the late sixteenth century in the Philippines. This image has become a sense of home for Filipinos around the world.

In addition, Alquiziola shares the personal stories of emigrants who, in their search for home, not only founded an organization, but also created a devotional family. Their dedication led to the opening of the Santo Ni o Shrine at St. Paul Church in Tampa, Florida, and created peace and hope for many.

An inspiring tale of faith and commitment, Journeys seeks to speak to your heart.

During the Progessive Era, a period of unprecedented ingenuity, women evangelists built the old time religion with brick and mortar, uniforms and automobiles, fresh converts and devoted proteges. Across America, entrepreneurial women founded churches, denominations, religious training schools, rescue homes, rescue missions, and evangelistic organizations. Until now, these intrepid women have gone largely unnoticed, though their collective yet unchoreographed decision to build institutions in the service of evangelism marked a seismic shift in American Christianity. In this ground-breaking study, Priscilla Pope-Levison dusts off the unpublished letters, diaries, sermons, and yearbooks of these pioneers to share their personal tribulations and public achievements. The effect is staggering. With an uncanny eye for essential details and a knack for historical nuance, Pope-Levison breathes life into not just one or two of these women--but two dozen. The evangelistic empire of Aimee Semple McPherson represents the pinnacle of this shift from itinerancy to institution building. Her name remains legendary. Yet she built her institutions on the foundation of the work of women evangelists who preceded her. Their stories--untold until now--reveal the cunning and strength of women who forged a path for every generation, including our own, to follow. Priscilla Pope-Levison is Professor of Theology and Assistant Director of Women's Studies at Seattle Pacific University. Her previous books include Sex, Gender, and Christianity; Turn the Pulpit Loose: Two Centuries of American Women Evangelists; Return to Babel: Global Perspectives on the Bible; Jesus in Global Contexts; and Evangelization in a Liberation Perspective.

In this collection of essays, anthropologists of religion examine the special challenges they face when studying populations that proselytize. Conducting fieldwork among these groups may involve attending services, meditating, praying, and making pilgrimages. Anthropologists participating in such research may unwittingly give the impression that their interest is more personal than professional, and inadvertently encourage missionaries to impose conversion upon them. Moreover, anthropologists' attitudes about religion, belief, and faith, as well as their response to conversion pressures, may interfere with their objectivity and cause them to impose their own understandings on the missionaries. Although anthropologists have extensively and fruitfully examined the role of identity in research-particularly gender and ethnic identity-religious identity, which is more fluid and changeable, has been relatively neglected. This volume explores the role of religious identity in fieldwork by examining how researchers respond to participation in religious activities and to the ministrations of missionaries, both academically and personally. Including essays by anthropologists studying the proselytizing religions of Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, as well as other religions, this volume provides a range of responses to the question of how anthropologists should approach the gap between belief and disbelief when missionary zeal imposes its interpretations on anthropological curiosity.

When I was just twenty-eight years old, I was diagnosed with cancer and given no hope. What I thought would be my end was just the beginning of a journey laden with miracles that took me far from my home in Tennessee. From Nicaragua: Principles for Life and Mission chronicles that journey. It is a story that begins with a love that God gave me for a place I had never been and for a people I did not know.

With nothing more than that love, I purposed in my heart to go to Nicaragua to stand with its people in their struggle to make a better life for themselves. Following that commitment, God made provision for the planting of a ministry there that has changed tens of thousands of lives, including mine. For me, a special part of that divine provision proceeded from a miraculous reunion with my Central American family whose patriarch, Col. John Alexander Downing, traveled to Nicaragua in 1866 with a fellow Missourian who later became renowned as one of America's most famous literary icons.

Embedded in this extraordinary story of God events are principles for your life and mission.

Amy Wilson Carmichael (1867 - 1951) was a Christian missionary in India, who opened an orphanage and founded a mission in Dohnavur, South India. Published in 1912, Lotus Buds is one of her numerous books which describe her work and ministry with Indian children. The book features evocative portraits of the children from the orphanage. This edition includes fifty black and white photographs of children and places from Dohnavur taken especially for this book.