Nestled in the foothills of the Missouri Ozarks is the tiny town of Cook Station. A rich heritage and good-hearted people are its legacies. One of those people came to call Cook Station her home in 1930. Her name was Ozella Gorman. She and her husband owned and operated the general store as well as several other businesses. She was rich in many ways, and she was honored to be able to share her wealth with others. She was known far and wide for her generosity and benevolence. She was a brilliant businesswoman who had many irons in the fire. Still, she made time for friends, family, and those in need. She was all things to all people, as was her first husband, Jeff. Walk with me back in time to learn the amazing story of this woman and her little corner of the world on the banks of the Meramec River.

Turner Whynot is a psychiatrist looking for reason within his work. He is searching for more than the prescriptions and the textbooks that psychiatrists rely upon to treat the mentally ill. Why does he look after the sick? Is it something divine that's within us all, or some other driving force? Turner begins to find answers to these questions when he and his wife travel to the south shore of Nova Scotia and meet Adam, a patient in a psychiatric facility there who wants peace from a world that has brought him pain. Adam tells the Whynots the story of his own promise, an experience that may bring truth to the reality they all share, or to a reality that is perhaps just his own. Based on the author's own experiences and struggles with schizophrenia, "Promises" tells the story of how love offers the key to recovery and understanding of mental illness.

Can a rich man enter heaven? Asa Candler, who was a very rich man, thought so. He accepted the principle of Christian stewardship, which holds that God gives wealth to individuals in order to promote His kingdom on earth. Candler thus felt obligated to protect and build the fortune that he held as a sacred trust, and to use it to carry out God's purposes in the world. God's Capitalist: Asa Candler of Coca-Cola is an examination of the life of an entrepreneur who saw his personal wealth as a divine trust to be used to the benefit of humanity.

Today, people remember Asa Candler for his part in founding the Coca-Cola company and beginning that product's phenomenal success, but he also was successful in real estate development and in banking. His interests made him one of the richest men in the early twentieth-century South.

His sense of duty led to his support of many undertakings of the Southern Methodist Church. Advised by his brother Warren, a bishop in that denomination, Asa wrote a million-dollar check to finance the establishment of Emory University in Atlanta, where young men would be prepared for the ministry. Throughout his life, Candler made gifts and loans to encourage the well-being of his denomination, his city, and his state. At the end of his life, he had given away his entire fortune.

Despite his wealth and reputation, he was opposed by those who did not share his point of view, which was primarily shaped by his religion and his social position among Atlanta's elite. The last decade of his life was filled with sadness and difficulties, as he mourned the loss of his beloved wife and fought numerous court battles. By following Asa Candler's life, readers have a uniqueopportunity to visit Atlanta during one of the most critical times in its development, and to see it through the eyes of one of Atlanta's "movers and shakers."

Haunted by the Holy Ghost is a geographical, chronological and spiritual autobiography. The author describes the place of his birth: a farm in semi-arid Swisher County in the Texas Panhandle in depression/Dust Bowl days. He describes his schooling at a two-room rural school through elementary years, and his years at a small town high school. The author reflects upon the richness as well as the poverty of those days. He describes his struggles with his call to ministry as a haunting by the Holy Ghost. The reader is taken on a travelogue of the places in which the author and his wife ministered. The spiritual aspect of their lives is always on or just below the surface. At times the author waxes homiletical and theological, with occasional narrations of humorous incidents.

The Saints Way: My Personal Journey to Discovery shares the inspirational story of William St. George and how he overcame personal struggles and relied on his lessons learned to become a whole person who eventually fulfilled his dreams, goals, and desires.

Through his entertaining anecdotes, Bill weaves in the kind of motivational life lessons that will encourage others to look into their own past while effectively questioning the present, ultimately bridging a gap to a happier life. At age eighteen, Bill began to question his life and knew he needed to make changes in order to have a life worth living. Eventually, he was able to unlock the mystery of who he was and what he was meant to do with his life. By providing insight into the how's, what's, and why's of life through his own perspective, Bill is able to inspire others to search for the truth while building self-esteem, perseverance, and an unwavering faith in God.

For those who have a strong desire to make positive changes in their own lives, Bill's passion for sharing his personal experiences, successes, failures, and thoughts about how to live a complete life will hearten anyone to take the first steps toward achieving lifelong peace and joy.

Author Allesley Officer has had just one wish her entire life-to be loved. Even though she has always known the Creator of the universe cared for her, she never truly understood the depth of His love until her life became a suicidal travesty. Officer begins her memoir by candidly detailing her life as a young girl growing up in the inner-city of Kingston, Jamaica. Born to a twenty-one-year-old unwed mother of two other children, Officer's journey was often difficult as she was shuttled back and forth between her mother and father's homes. Repeatedly molested by first a stepsister and then a family friend, Officer relays how she finally told her father-and was shocked when he did nothing. As she shares the details of her lifelong battle with suicidal thoughts and images fueled by years of sexual abuse, low self-esteem, and self-loathing, she also provides hope to others by illustrating how she was eventually able to rise above life's challenges and learn to love herself once again. "Telling My Story: The Journey of a Ghetto Girl" shares one woman's poignant journey of survival that will remind women everywhere to never forget their inner beauty, no matter how difficult life becomes.

School days in Guiana, Glasgow and Fife, two years in the Army and six years studying Medicine turned the boy into a doctor. Dreaming dreams with Avril, their marriage, their family and their affinity for common spiritual and material values set them on a pilgrimage of repeated challenges. Three years in a mission hospital in apartheid South Africa, conflicting interests of specialization and family responsibilities didn't deter the writer from returning to South Africa to develop the Orthopaedic Service for the Transkei before settling in Halifax, West Yorkshire. In time another phase of life beckoned. Ordained to the ministry in the United Reformed Church, churches in Newcastle, Ashington, the Borders, Pietermaritzburg, have all heard the sermon on the Hip Joint. Changing attitudes in Medicine and the Church, as in society worldwide are described from a personal, family, often humorous perspective as the journey "Against the Grain" unfolds.

The period 1928-1942 saw some of the greatest political and social upheavals in modern British history. Lang, as Archbishop of Canterbury, led the Church of England through this tumultuous period and was a pivotal influence in political and religious decision-making. In this book, Robert Beaken provides a new perspective on Lang, including his considerable relationship with the royal family. Beaken also shows how Lang proved to be a sensitive leader during wartime, opposing any demonisation of the enemy and showing compassion to conscientious objectors. Despite his central role at a time of flux, there has been little written on Lang since the original biography published in 1949, and history has not been kind to this intellectually gifted but emotionally complex man. Although Lang has often been seen as a fairly unsuccessful archbishop who was resistant to change, Beaken shows that he was, in fact, an effective leader of the Anglican community at a time when the Church of England was internally divided over issues surrounding the Revised Prayer Book and its position in an ever-changing world. Lang's reputation is therefore ripe for reassessment. Drawing on previously unseen material and first-hand interviews, Beaken tells the story of a fascinating and complex man, who was, he argues, Britain's first 'modern' Archbishop of Canterbury.

"Whoever Saves a Life, It Is Considered as If He Saved an Entire World"

Dr. Rick Hodes arrived in Africa more than two decades ago to help the victims of a famine, but he never expected to call this extremely poor continent his home. Twenty-eight years later, he is still there.

This Is a Soul tells the remarkable story of Rick Hodes's journey from suburban America to Mother Teresa's clinic in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. As a boy, Rick was devoted to helping those in need, and eventually he determined that becoming a doctor would allow him to do the most good. When he heard about famine in Africa, that's where he went, and when genocide convulsed Rwanda, he went into the refugee camps to minister to the victims. When he was told that Ethiopia was allowing its Jews to emigrate to Israel, he went to help. While there, he was drawn to Mother Teresa's mission in Addis Ababa. It was there that Rick found his calling when he began caring for the sickest children in one of the world's poorest countries. But he did more than that--he began taking them into his home and officially adopted five of them.

This Is a Soul is also a book filled with great joy and triumph. When Rick's kids return from surgery or life-saving treatments, he is exultant. "Seeing these people after surgery is like going to heaven," he says.

Marilyn Berger went to Africa to write about Dr. Hodes, but while there, she became involved with the story. When she came upon a small, deformed, and malnourished boy begging on the street, she recognized immediately that he had the exact disease Rick could cure. She took him to Rick, who eventually arranged for the boy to have a complicated and risky surgery, which turned out to be incredibly successful. The boy's story--intertwined with Rick's, and Marilyn's as well--is unforgettable in its pathos and subtle humor.

This Is a Soul is not just a story of the savior and the saved, it is a celebration of love and wisdom, and an exploration of how charity and devotion can actually change lives in an overcrowded, unjust, and often harsh world.

A special thanks to the many people who helped make this book possible: Chet and Danielle for giving me their old computer, Martin for his never ending encouragement, my oldest brother for making me think that I could write, my brother Herbert for giving me a week's vacation at his Beach Condominium which restored my desire to finish this project, Twalla Clemmons, who always thought I should write a book, Anthony Clemmons who taught me some valuable computer skills, which made the writing easier, Mrs. Pam Bell who helped with the typing, Dr. T. Everette for proofreading the manuscript, and all his other support, and the Village People without whom I would not have survived. Finally, a special thanks to Johanna Thatch, who edited the book and who gave me her honest opinion of it, which was like raindrops falling in the garden of my spirit.