Glimpses: St. Aggies

A town is more than just a collection of buildings; the buildings themselves are secondary. What truly defines a town are the people who live, work, pray, sing, love, struggle, and laugh within its confines.

A town’s identity is shaped by its history, its reasons for existence, and the way these elements interact and evolve together, giving each town its unique ‘feel’ compared to another just down the road.

This book offers glimpses into the life of one such town, capturing its essence and the vibrant community that defines it.

Glimpses: The Olde Bookshoppe

A bookshop, particularly an Olde Bookshoppe, is home to the world. It is a meeting place for all sorts of people, good and bad, old and young, amazing and ignored, and there we get a glimpse into their worlds. We may, or may not, ever see them again.

But still, they have an effect on our lives, our behavior, and our own mental picture of our world. Glimpses: The Olde Bookshoppe is the story of one such bookshop, and the interactions between the staff and the customers who inhabit it, however fleetingly. It is a fun, but also thought provoking, look at the ‘ordinary’ people of this wonderful country, who are often not ordinary at all.

Glow Light

Lighthouses symbolize direction, safety, and hope for those navigating the vast, open waters. They stand as beacons, guiding you safely back home, through dark and uncertain conditions, or offering a steady presence on a bright, carefree day.

These towering lights, found on coastlines and islands, help boats find their way through any challenge. Lighthouses come in many colors, shapes, and sizes, yet their purpose remains the same: to withstand the harshest weather and provide a constant, unwavering light.

As you turn each page, let these lighthouses lead you on a journey of wonder. From danger to delight, discover what lies beyond the horizon as you follow the rhymes and see where they take you.

God's Presence in Creation: A Conversation with Philo, Paul, and Luke

God’s Presence in Creation: A Conversation with Philo, Paul, and Luke is for anyone who has an interest in understanding how the authors of the New Testament perceived the world as God’s creation, our home from “the beginning” (Gen 1:1).

The book lucidly engages in conversation three 1st century CE authors Philo, Paul, and Luke, to offer a new and fresh understanding of the environmental theme, care for creation. The inclusion of Philo, a Hellenistic Jew and philosopher, adds uniqueness to the distinctive approach of this book and enriches the discussions of the two New Testament authors, Paul and Luke. Four “environmental” Greek terms are carefully analyzed— kosmos (world), ktisis (creation), pronoia (providence), and oikonomos (steward)— to show how these authors viewed the created world within their own Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts. The analysis is enhanced with an impressive exploration of a threefold relationship: creation-and-God, creation-and-mediator, creation-and-humanity.

God's Plan Is Better Than Mine

Sam, who is a Mennonite, raised by her aunt and uncle in the heart of Pennsylvania, decides she wants to become a Veterinary Technician. Not only does she want to do something that’s untraditional within her family, but she wants to move miles away from her home. What makes her want to move so far from her family, and will she be successful? Once moving, she will go on many adventures that will take her further than she ever expected. She will find that God has bigger plans for her than she even had for herself.

Golden Ratio: Accounts

With the cat well and truly out of the bag, Lia has agreed to stay in The Republic Mirabeaux to help her one-time captors come to terms with the situation and learn to use their new abilities.

They have a lot to learn, and with great power come great homework, apparently.

None of them can foresee the challenges ahead of them, or guess what they may become, but they have far less time than any of them realize.

Golden Ratio: Lost

In the country of Miribeaux, intelligence agents find themselves confounded by the most unusual prisoner any of them have ever met. Lia is a woman who doesn’t exist, at least officially. She claims to be an explorer, captured where nobody should be by pure chance.

While she does not appear to be a terrorist, her sudden arrival on a government black site raises serious questions. Nothing she says could possibly be true, but every other possible explanation seems even more dangerous. Is she an alien, angel or even a devil? Can they explain the strange occurrences that seem to follow her? More importantly, can she escape before she is forced to reveal secrets that will cause two worlds to collide?

Gone But Not Betrayed

Gone But Not Betrayed caps the epic ‘Gone But Not Forgotten’ trilogy, chronicling three intertwined families across the breathtaking upheavals of the 20th century’s second half.

Picking up in 1945’s ashes, this majestic saga ushers us into the postwar hope, tragedy, and turbulence that reinvented the modern world order. As the Champions, Wagners and Sterns journey from the Holocaust’s horrors to Israel’s birth, through Hollywood’s Golden Age, Vietnam turmoil and beyond, Hans Wagner quietly amasses an empire in America’s corridors of power. But shadowy forces conspire to imperil everything he holds dear.

At the story’s heart are identical twins Veda and Rose, whose paths diverge into legend after the war. While Veda’s dynasty embodies the glittering pinnacle of American success, Rose’s quiet courage leaves an indelible impact from Auschwitz to Israel’s Six Day War. Though oceans apart, each sister’s light has transformed innumerable lives. Despite the riches and fame fortune brings them, this indestructible bond remains unchanged.

Spanning the nostalgic charm of postwar suburbia to the encroaching millennium’s anxious technologies, Gone But Not Betrayed fuses intimate personal dramas with the pivotal events reshaping global civilization. As new generations inherit unresolved darkness and light, every hard-won revelation immerses us deeply into the unbroken chain linking past to future.

Gone but Not Forgotten

Gone but Not Forgotten is the first of a historical fiction trilogy set in America and Europe from 1914 to 1918. It chronicles the tale of the Gilded Age of pageantry through the end of the Great War. It is the story of the Champions, the Wagners and the Sterns, an epical saga of their lives, trials, and tribulations. The story opens at an outdoor wedding in fashionable Newport, Rhode Island. The heroines are beautiful twin sisters, Veda and Rose Champion. Veda is the spoiled American debutante with an iron will. Rose is the gentler beauty and is passively strong.

Hans Wagner, the male protagonist, is a German immigrant who comes to America with the quest to live his dream. His best Jewish friend, Rudolph Stern, also arrives from Germany to study medicine. The toils of the Great War halt the hopes of both while ushering in a series of tragedies for the Champion family, including the sinking of the Lusitania, the death of the twins’ brother, Marius Champion, on the battlefields of France, and the vicious murder of their grandparents in Verdon.

The novel will be followed by two others, spanning 1918–2000. The trilogy is a portrait of the most significant events in the twentieth century.

Gone but Not Forsaken

Gone but Not Forsaken is the second of a historical fiction trilogy set in America and Europe from 1918-1945. It chronicles post World War I through the end of World War II. In America, it portrays initial abundance, including modern industrialism, where Gilded Age mansions were replaced by soaring skyscrapers through the roaring twenties into the stock market crash and Great Depression. It parallels the birth of Hollywood glitz amidst the storm of the country's depravation, carried through the bombing of Pearl Harbor and World War II. In Europe, it chronicles the birth of Nazism, the Holocaust, and the rise and fall of the Third Reich. American victory is heralded in the end once again. The novel continues to chronicle the stories of the Champions, the Wagners and the Sterns, along with the intertwining of their lives. It will be followed by book three of the trilogy, spanning 1945-2000.

Gone by the C

When moving up the corporate ladder depends on the success to the second language proficiency test, an employee’s anxiety could reach a dramatic height.

“The funny part about Perdida’s cry was the tears. Normally, except for Black Africans, people’s tears run through their noses. Don’t ask me why. That really baffles me. On the other hand, African people’s tears come directly out of their eyes and quietly run through their cheeks before vanishing somewhere in the beard, for those who have one. Perdida’s tears were following the latter pattern. Was she some kind of a repressed Black African? Hard to say. But for sure, she didn’t look Black at all. With her blond hair, her blue eyes, and her shining light complexion, she must have been of Swedish descent. I ventured toward her classroom, wondering what was actually going on.”

Good Rain

Growing up in Kansas in the summer, the air would be so thick with humidity sometimes it would be difficult to breathe. Sometimes the air would be so heavy you would hope for a good rain. After it would pour you would walk outside and everything would feel lighter, brighter, greener, and cleaner. A fresh scent, like everything, was new. Sometimes life gets heavy like the humidity and your soul is the one that needs the good rain. This was mine.