A couple weeks ago, we celebrated what God has been doing in our ministry for the past decade. We are grateful to everyone who worked so hard behind the scenes of the fundraising banquet. For those who donated to the silence auction, to our generous sponsors, and for the guests and speakers who came, thank you! It was an amazing evening to give thanks for what God has done and to see how people’s lives that have been changed.
On top of that, we were able to raise most of the money we need to purchase a replacement vehicle. After eight years of driving on backroads and through the bush, it’s finally time to replace our car that has about 175,000 miles on it! We have the opportunity to purchase a ‘new to us’ vehicle, but we still need to raise another $5000 in order to buy it. If you’re looking for place to donate before the end of the year, would you consider donating to African Outreach Ministries? Money can be earmarked for the vehicle. We are also looking for monthly financial partners to join us this coming year.
For a tax-deductible donation, visit www.africanoutreachministries.org.The donation link is on the bottom of the page. Please feel free to contact us directly with any questions.
A huge thank you to those who continue to partner beside us in this work. We are excited to see what God will do in 2019 and ask for your continued prayers.
We still have some 2019 Animal Calendars left over from our fundraising banquet that we need to sell. The calendars were donated, so except for the shipping, all the money donated will go directly to African Outreach Ministries. These calendars are 8.5 x 11 with premium glossy card stock.
One Calendar: $23 including shipping
Two or more: $20 each plus $5 total shipping
You can pay for the calendars via check, Pay Pal, or credit card (via Pay Pal). These make great Christmas presents and are some of our best animal photos from over the years!
**Due to shipping costs, we are only able to ship within the US. For large orders, let us know so we can ensure we have enough. I will update this page when they are gone, so please order soon!
HOW TO BUY THE CALENDARS:
ONLINE:
There is a link at the very bottom of our website home page where you can link to AOM (click on the yellow donate button) and make your donation there, then email me the address where you want them shipped!
CHECKS:
If you would prefer to send a check, you can make it out to African Outreach Ministries and earmark it for AOM Calendars. Be sure and send an email so we can watch for the check.
Mail to:
African Outreach Ministries
5401 E Hwy 287 Midlothian, TX 76065
Once your payment is received, we will get the calendars in the mail.
Welcome to the Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt! If you’re just joining us, the hunt begins at www.LisaBergren.com, with Stop #1. If you complete the loop of 26 stops, writing down the clue on each author’s site, you can enter to win all 25 books
as well as Amazon gift cards, an iPad and more!
Without further ado, it’s my pleasure to introduce you to my guest for the Scavenger Hunt, Susan Sleeman! Not only does Susan write fantastic romantic suspense, she also runs a great website for suspense readers, TheSuspenseZone. If you love romantic suspense, she should definitely be on your go-to list of authors!
Here’s her professional bio:
SUSAN SLEEMAN is the bestselling author of over thirty-five novels with more than one million books sold. She writes romantic suspense novels that are clean with inspiring messages of faith. Readers love her series for the well-drawn characters and edge-of-your-seat action. She graduated from the FBI and local police citizen academies, so her research is spot-on and her characters are real. In addition to writing, Susan also hosts TheSuspenseZone.com.
Here’s the summary of her latest book:
Fleeing from her dangerous ex-boyfriend, on-the-run single mother Nicole Dyer takes refuge in a cabin—and is discovered by the ranch owner, Deputy Matt McKade. It’s easy to fall for the handsome lawman and his kind family, but staying at the ranch endangers them all. When everything Nicole loves comes under direct fire, can Matt keep her—and her heart—safe?
And here’s her EXCLUSIVE content that you’ll only find in this hunt!
Christmas Memories and Traditions
My most recent book release, Christmas Hideout is—surprise, surprise—a Christmas themed book. I have now written six books that occur at Christmas time, and I have to say it’s fun to add the Christmas element to a story. It’s such a wonderful festive time of year that adding those elements to a book give me great joy and readers love the holiday themed books.
However, I also have to say that it can be challenging to make the Christmas part of the story unique and interesting. So as I was thinking about the book, I started thinking about Christmas traditions and memories.
My fondest Christmas memory is the birth of our youngest daughter, Emma. She was born on December 20th, and she was so tiny that she fit in her Christmas stocking that a friend made for her. I love this picture and cherish the memory.
As for traditions, one of my favorites was going to church on Christmas Eve where the Sunday School classes did their Christmas program. Santa arrived at our house while we were at the service. My grandfather was in charge of putting out the presents, and we always thought he was habitually late for church. When we got home, we celebrated Christmas with my dad’s family. Christmas Day was always celebrated with my mother’s family, and I knew that during the year my grandmother was busy knitting sweaters for all of her grandchildren. We all loved opening that package, putting on the sweaters, and posing for the annual sweater picture. I knew these things would happen every year. No question in my mind.
Another favorite was that my mother always made cut out sugar cookies. My sister and I helped decorate them, and I remember playing with the last bits of dough with my child-sized rolling pin.
But as an adult, these are not traditions I could carry on except baking the cookies and going to church on Christmas Eve. I bake the cookies with my children’s help but our Christmas Eve was a bit different. You see my hubby was a church music director so his responsibilities always came first, and we had to find a way to celebrate Christmas around his busy schedule. The only time he had available on Christmas Eve was an hour between services and after the late service which was often a late-night candlelight service—way too late for children to be up.
So a tradition of eating appetizers and Christmas cookies during that one hour of free time was born. All the prep work was done in advance. The appetizers were quick and refrigerated, and the meal could be pulled out at any time he arrived home. He would rush home to have as much time with us as possible, and we would share this meal along with opening one present. Here’s one of our favorite recipes.
My hubby may now be retired, but we still have appetizers and Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas without them. So how about you? Do you have any interesting or unique Christmas traditions at your house or favorite memories?
***
Thanks for stopping by on the hunt! Before you go, make sure you WRITE DOWN THIS CLUE:
My book for this scavenger hunt is A Secret To Die For which is a stand-alone romantic suspense novel set in Texas. Because of the setting, I'm giving away a Texas mug right here on my blog as an extra bonus!
If you're already signed up for my newsletter, just leave a comment below with a way for me to contact you. Let me you're signed up, and that you'd like a chance to win the mug.
If you're not signed up for my newsletter, there's a link on this blog (right hand, side bar toward the top) where you can sign up. Not only will you get updates on my book releases, you'll also get a free ebook copy of Blood Ransom, a Christy-nominated suspense novel! Let me know you've signed up and be sure to leave a way for me to contact you!
Enjoy the hunt!
Lisa Harris
BONUS RULES:
1. Only one entry per person per giveaway is allowed.
2. Giveaway open to residents of the 50 United States and D.C. Void where prohibited.
3. Winner provides shipping address.
4. Giveaway ends on October 28th, 2018 at midnight mountain standard time.
5. One winner will be selected at random by random.org to receive the Texas mug pictured above.
6. The prize winner will be notified by email on October 29th, and posted on this page after they respond to my email notification. If I do not receive an email response from the winner within 48 hours of notification, another winner will be drawn.
7. You must have access to the Internet and a valid email address in order to enter or win.
8. Your chances of winning depend on the number of entries.
No. . .it's not my next book, but it is something very close to my heart.
We're getting super excited about our upcoming Banquet and Silent Auctionwhere we will be sharing about our ministry in Mozambique. If you're in the Houston area and would like tickets to the event, be sure to check this out. There will also be an online auction that anyone can be a part of!
It's going to be a wonderful evening, and I'd love to see you there!
African Outreach ministries is a 501 (c) 3 organization serving Southern Africa since 1990
For more information, please visit our ministry website.
If you have any questions, please email me or Jennifer.
No matter who we are or where we come from, we all have at least one thing in common. At different points in our lives—maybe even right now for you—we experience loss. It might be the loss of a job, of a marriage, or of a dream. It might come as a phone call in the middle of the night, or the exhausting reality of watching a loved one slowly slip away. It has a way of making us vulnerable, and yet it’s also what makes us human, because no one is untouched by loss.
While I love a happy ending in a story—and of course just as much in real life—our journey is not only full of different seasons, it’s also rarely void of pain. The first book I wrote was from a deep place of hurt while dealing with infertility. The characters I wrote about helped me deal with that pain and was a catalyst in helping me heal. As a reader, this can also happen when we pick up a book. Readers have told me how they’ve connected with a character because of similar circumstances they’ve faced, and in turn have been challenged spiritually. And it makes sense. When we connect with a character because of something he or she has gone through, the story impacts us and stays with us long after the last page is read.
In A Secret to Die For, Grace Callahan is a psychologist. On a day to day basis, she deals with the pain and loss of her patients, but she also understands grief on a very personal level after the death of her little girl four years ago. Detective Nathanial Quinn has recently experienced trauma with the loss of his partner in an explosion and is dealing with PTSD. When Grace is thrown into a life and death situation with Nate, she finds herself able to relate to him on a deeper level because their shared understanding of loss.
While loss and trials are never easy, God has reminded me over and over throughout the years that he never promised us a life free from pain. In fact, the opposite is true. John 16: 33 tells us that difficulties will come. But there’s another promise he’s given us as well that we can hold onto when hard times hit. Isaiah 43: 2 says, “When you go through deep waters, I will be with you.”
Did you hear that? We are not alone. He will walk through the pain with us.
He also asks us to put our trust in him—not in our circumstances. Is that always easy? Definitely not. But though him we can find hope no matter what is happening around us. In the story, Grace discovers this same profound truth in her own life.
Somehow, though, in the middle of feeling as if no one understood, she’d begun to discover there was One who did understand this journey of grief. Sometimes she’d hear God’s quiet voice in the wind. Feel his presence in the words of a song. She realized that he could feel her pain and that he understood the depth of her loss. Because he’d watched his own Son die as well.
For Grace and Nate, their losses play a large role in bringing them to a place where they discover unexpected love with each other, and together they are able to help each other find peace through Him. It’s not a peace that makes any earthly sense. Instead, it’s a peace that “exceeds anything we can understand.” Philippians 4:7 (NLT)
May you find peace in Him!
Lisa Harris
(This blog post was first published on the MTL blog.)
It's finally here! Yeah!! Happy release day for A Secret to Die For! You can grab your copy wherever books are sold, including the audio version! Happy reading!!
Psychologist Grace Callahan has no idea she has a secret - one worth killing for. But when she finds out one of her clients has been murdered, she quickly realizes the computer security specialist wasn't simply suffering from paranoia.
Detective Nate Quinn has just been cleared for active duty after a bombing killed 18 people, including his partner, and left him dealing with PTSD. His first case back on the job involves the murder of Stephen Shaw, and his only lead turns out to be an old friend, Grace Callahan - and her life is in grave danger. Someone believes Shaw gave his psychologist information before he died. Information for which they are willing to kill.
With her signature pulse-pounding suspense, Lisa Harris takes listeners deep into the heart of fear in this race against the clock.
Writing has always been like therapy for me. I wrote my first book
over two decades ago after suffering from a miscarriage. I felt shattered and
lost and completely alone. I ended up writing the fictional novel of a couple
and their struggle through infertility as well as a non-fiction study guide stemming
from my own search for God in the midst of the pain.
A lot of good came out of that writing therapy.
Like any family, we’ve had plenty of ups and downs over the years.
We’re now coming up on the two year anniversary of one of our worst when our family
was attacked by armed intruders in our home. Believe it or not, I was actually
in the middle of writing a hostage scene for my heroine when the robbers broke
in.
Here’s what I wrote about that experience in the Dear Reader
letter in the back of the book just a few weeks after the attack. (The letter
was later condensed.)
While
I was in the process of finishing Desert Secrets, everything changed. Three
armed men walked into our house, tied up myself, my husband and my
daughter—gave me two black eyes and a mild concussion in the process—and robbed
us, including the wedding ring off my finger.
The
experience changed how I felt about a lot of things, including writing
suspense. Before I could continue, I had to rethink why I write what I write. I
was eventually able to move forward and pour my
emotions from the attack into this story, which ended up bringing me healing. I knew that I
wanted my readers to never forget that the God who created the universe loves
us and wants to be our strength no matter what is happening in the world around
us. Jesus came to heal the empty and broken hearted, and those searching for
freedom and hope. Psalm 91 says that He is our refuge and fortress. That no
matter what we are going through, He will cover us with his feathers and it is under
His wings we will find refuge.
I truly believed what I wrote. But still, after the attack, I found myself
seeking answers about God, and pain. Sin and the fallen world we live in. In
the next book I wrote, Vanishing Point,
I tackled the question that we’ve probably all asked at one time. Where were you, God? I worked through
this question in my own life as I was writing conversations between my characters
who were responding to their own string of tragedies they were dealing with.
Here’s part of a conversation between. Detective Garrett Addison
and Special Agent Jordan Lambert.
“We ask that question—where were
you, God?—as if we’re surprised when evil surfaces. We ask it because we want
to know why he didn’t show up and stop what happened. We wonder what’s wrong
with our world when we watch the news and hear all the tragedies happening
around us. We forget that we live in a fallen world. We forget that God gives
us the freedom to make choices. We wouldn’t like it if he forced us to follow
him. But that means we have to suffer the consequences of our bad choices as
well as enjoy the consequences of our good ones. God doesn’t give us free will,
then stand over us and fix everything. Does that make sense?”
“It does,” Garret said. “Think of
all the times in the Bible when people cry out to God for something. They beg
him to rescue them from their enemies or give them something they want.
Sometimes God intervenes and steps in dramatically, but it seems like more
often than not, he doesn’t.”
“Exactly. And what I’m realizing
is that when he doesn’t intervene, it doesn’t mean he isn’t there. I think it
means just the opposite. He decided not to just sweep down and fix our problems
every time something goes wrong. Instead he chose to redeem us eternally by
sending his Son.”
“Immanuel,” Garrett said, feeling
a chill go through him. “God with us.”
“Yes. I have to believe that he’s here
with us. That he understands what we’re going through and feels our pain far
more than we do ourselves.”
“It’s hard for us to understand
why a loving God would allow such horror to exist among his creation,” Garrett
said. “It doesn’t make sense to us. But God’s intent was never a fallen world.
That was man’s choice.”
“But even though he never promised
us we wouldn’t feel pain, he did promise that we would never be alone.”
Tragedies like the Oklahoma City
bombing, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and Sandy Hook flipped through Garrett’s
mind. The reality of a fallen world was clear. And yet like Jordan said, wasn’t
God’s plan really a plan of redemption? Yes, he believed that God was capable
of fixing our problems, but he chose instead to rescue and redeem humankind
permanently.
“When we suffer a loss,” he said,
trying to put his thoughts into words, “some people say that everything happens
for a reason. But I don’t think there’s always necessarily a particular
‘reason’ for something to happen. Maybe the truth is that things happen because
we live in a world where pain, death, and loss are all naturally a part of
life. No one is immune.”
Jordan nodded. “But instead of
believing that hardships are the norm, we say that we deserve being showered
with God’s blessings. And yet Jesus told us that in this world we’d have many
troubles. Sometimes we do experience God’s blessings, but he never promised us
that everything would be perfect in this world.”
“Only in the redeemed world to
come,” Garrett agreed.
“What he does promise is to walk
with us through the bad times. As crazy as it seems, somehow, when bad things
happen, we start to see God’s grace. We start to dig deeper. Sometimes it takes
trauma to get someone searching for God.”~From Vanishing Point
Once again, my writing was therapeutic for me and something I hoped
as I wrote it would minister to those who read the book. But there has still
been something that has always bothered me. My family and I walked away from
the attack on our family. We saw miracles that night, so many we made a list.
We saw how things could have turned out so much worse. To this day anxiety that
sometimes still lingers, but my family was okay. We were alive. And I was
grateful.
There was a moment that night, though, when I didn’t know how
things were going to end. When I ran around locking up the house after the
robbers fled and didn’t know where my husband was. I remember as clearly as it
was yesterday, sitting down in the hallway with my daughter, believing I was
facing my new reality. Life without my husband. I was now a widow. They'd made
threats and now they’d killed him. And at that moment, I truly believed he was
gone.
Not long after that, he arrived back with the police. Little did I
know that his leaving to get help was what saved us and scared them off. But what
if God hadn’t saved him that day? Would I still be able to praise him? Would I
still trust?
A scene from Daniel keeps repeating in my mind.
“O
Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you.If we are thrown into the blazing
furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. He will rescue us from your
power, Your Majesty.But
even if he doesn’t, we want to make it clear to you, Your Majesty, that we will
never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up.”Daniel 3:16-18 NLT
Even if He doesn’t we will still serve You.
I suppose I’m a glutton for punishment, but I’m writing a book
right now tentatively called Before You
Leave Me. It’s centered around a man who loses his wife during a home
invasion. I know. What was I thinking? But the spiritual thread of the story is
one that dives into that very question. And it’s one I wanted—needed—to
explore. What if God doesn’t say yes? What if He doesn’t heal my loved one?
What if He doesn’t move mountains or save me from the fiery furnace?
Jesus said very clearly that we would have trouble in this world.
Later Peter said: “Dear
friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if
something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad—for these
trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have
the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world.”I Peter 4:12-13
What if my husband had been killed that night of the attack? What
would my response to that have been? Would I have blamed God? Left the mission field?
Turned bitter? Honestly, I don’t know. I hope I wouldn’t have. I hope that I
would have seen God even in the midst of my pain.
Here is what I do know.
He has promised to be our strength when we are weak, to give us
hope when we are hopeless, and to love us when we feel unlovable. It’s never
relying on our own strength to get us through difficult times, but leaning on
the mighty arm of God and being continuously filled with His Spirit. Isaiah
41:10 says not to fear, because “I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am
your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my
righteous right hand.”
So what is my response today? Right at this moment. It might not
be a crisis, but what about when I have to deal with a rude cashier at the store? A
difficult boss or client? Someone who bullies my child, cheats me, or cuts me
off in traffic? Like the song below, whether I'm facing tragedy or just a bad day, may my life be filled with His strength and mercy.
It's hard to believe that our time in the US is over for now. We've been blessed to connect with so many wonderful people, including churches, friends, and family, literally all across the entire US. And we gained a daughter-in-law in the process who we already love like our own. I'm so grateful for the time spent together, and for the encouragement we received. God is so good! We're packing up now, with the reality that our immediate family will be spread out and in four different time zones. Scott and I will be, for the most part (except for school breaks--already can't wait!) empty nesters! Yes, that's still sinking in. And yet for the most part, I feel at peace, though there are definitely those really tough moments as well! But God has done so many amazing things these past few months and I know He's not done yet. So grateful for everyone who has hosted us, fed us, prayed with us, encouraged us, and simply loved us. Going home with a new excitement for our ministry despite the tears, and especially knowing it's not good-bye, just see you soon!
