Imagine raising six spirited kids on a grass farm-today. Newspaper columnist Dorcas Smucker and her brood live out their days in full view in this collection of musings-picking blueberries while watching for bears, hoping for angels while driving off the freeway, moving into the "thousand-story house," and enduring lectures from teenage children about the virtue of respect. Three books in one, this collection includes Smucker's Ordinary Days: Family Life in a Farmhouse, Upstairs the Peasants are Revolting: More Family Life in a Farmhouse, and Downstairs the Queen Is Knitting. Often slightly off-stride and with disarming humility, Dorcas finds endless materials for stories and life lessons in everyday happenings. As she says, "I, like my mother, feed my children mashed potatoes and stories. I repeat the ones I heard from Mom and turn our family escapades into tales to be repeated while washing dishes or snapping buckets of green beans on the front porch. A story is much more than just a story, of course. It is entertainment, identity, interpretation, and lessons. This is who we are, this is why we do what we do, this is important, that is not, and don't ever whack your brother's finger with a hatchet like your dad did to Uncle Philip." This delightful trilogy includes some of Smucker's best writing. She covers topics and dilemmas everyone can relate to while also inviting readers to explore her Mennonite family's more personal experiences. Her voice is humorous, encouraging, and at times, doubting, but she never takes herself too seriously. As you read, her stories will entertain you and ultimately soothe your soul.

Do your quiet times with God feel disconnected from the rest of your overflowing days? Shouldn't our devotions affect how we live our lives? In this 90-day devotional for women, plain Mennonite mother and wife Faith Sommers helps connect your moments with the Lord to the rest of your life. Steeped in the faith of Amish and Mennonites, who maintain that how we live is as important as what we say, Sommers' words hold gentle warmth and wise nudging for readers tired of disjointed living. Offering daily devotions, prayers, journal prompts, and ideas for how to simplify your life and strengthen your faith, Prayers for a Simpler Life guides readers toward a deeper commitment to the way of Jesus.

"My story is not about my past, but about your future," says Marie Roberts Monville. In the startling tragedy of the Amish schoolhouse shooting at Nickel Mines, one story has never been told; Marie Roberts Monville, the wife of the man who created such horror, tells her story for the very first time. It is a story of sorrow and destruction, but also one of majestic deliverance, unending compassion, breathtaking forgiveness, and grace-filled redemption. Within a solitary moment, Marie Monville realized that life, as she knew it, was over. What she never anticipated was a tangible encounter with God reaching into her circumstances, through them rewriting all she believed about herself, her faith, and the God she thought she knew. One Light Still Shines reveals three love stories: the innocent love of a devoted wife for a husband in pain, the incomprehensible love of God in the aftermath of massacre and destruction, and the redemptive love of Christ, waiting to unfold in the life of every person who reads this book. Marie's journey since that darkest of days has been invaded with light which shines through these pages into the darkest questions we all face--questions about our past, our value, our identity, and own powerlessness in this fallen world. Come face to face with the Power behind every answer--a love that begs to be received.

This title provides privileged insight into the spiritual heart of iBandla lamaNazaretha, or the Nazareth Church (currently estimated to have over a million members) and its visionary leader, Isaiah Shembe, the founder (in 1910). Shembe was an extraordinary man of immense spiritual power, who gained Messiah/like status among his followers. Prefaced by a message from the present leader of the main branch of the Church, Bishop Vimbeni Shembe, and including an enlightening introduction by Liz Gunner, this three part title makes available in English and in isiZulu source material, transcribed and translated from the original longhand books of the Church archives held at Ekuphakameni. It offers in Isaiah Shembe's own voice some of the founding tenets of the Nazareth Church and records the moving testimony of Meshack Hadebe, a 1920's believer, who relates how his family travelled from 'the land of Mashoeshoe' to Ekuphakameni, the holy place 'in the land of Natal'. Their journey in search of 'the Prophet of Jehovah' is inspired by the appearance of an extraordinary star, similar to that which led the Three Wise Men on their holy pilgrimage. Also included is some of the beautiful sacred poetry which forms part of the Church's enduring hymnal. The man of heaven is a unique treasure trove in many respects, that will appeal not just to Shembe followers but to all who have an interest in the complexities of African Christianity. It is invaluable for the intimate access it offers into a fascinating spiritual tradition, and for the voice it gives to a grassroots community immensely powerful but seldom encountered in African literatures.

A tale of survival and freedom, Stolen Innocence is the story of one heroic woman who stood up for what was right and reclaimed her life. In September 2007, a packed courtroom in St. George, Utah, sat hushed as Elissa Wall, the star witness against polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs, gave captivating testimony of how Jeffs forced her to marry her first cousin at the age of fourteen. This harrowing and vivid account proved to be the most compelling evidence against Jeffs, showing the harsh realities of the lengths to which Jeffs went in order to control the sect's women. Now, in this courageous memoir, Elissa Wall tells the incredible and inspirational story of how she emerged from the confines of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and helped bring one of America's most notorious criminals to justice. Offering a child's perspective on life in the FLDS, Wall discusses her tumultuous youth, and explains how Warren Jeffs's influence over the church twisted its already rigid beliefs in dangerous new directions. Once she was married, Wall's childhood shattered as she was obligated to follow Jeffs's directives and submit to her husband in "mind, body, and soul." With little money and no knowledge of the outside world, she was trapped and forced to endure the pain and abuse of her loveless relationship, which eventually pushed her to spend nights sleeping in her truck rather than face the tormentor in her bed.

A complete, systematic theology that emphasizes an evangelical, charismatic perspective on the Holy Spirit's work today.